I feel so vindicated. I'm actually a fan of FdB, notwithstanding the fact that he would probably rather I wasn't. So much so, that even what I perceived, at least, as overt rudeness to me in his comment section didn't make me a non-fan.
And I admit that I'm perennially baffled by the fact that someone who opposes nation states supports a movement whose goal is to establish a... nation state (that would be worse for human rights and democracy and the such in any sense I can conceive of).
Likewise, that he stated he is under no obligation to condemn Hamas because it's obvious he's no ally of theirs from his values in all domains of life, but that this 1) didn't stop him from condemning Israel, when he presents this stance as a mere specific stance of a general principle too; 2) I would call his denial of rapes on 7/10 and overt support of the Palestinian cause more than 'not condemning' Hamas.
I'm an Israeli and I would have agreed on nearly all counts on October 6. I still think the only way forward is toward Palestinian autonomy. At this point in time, a one-state solution is a death sentence to me, in a way that I think was not true when I inherited leftism from my family. This might be Israel's fault, though I'll refer you to your own article about how it is not only the whites who have agency (are Jews white, anyway? I specifically have Polish roots, but...). I think it is an unmitigated tragedy that of all Israeli governments, THIS one is waging this war. I have zero ideological overlap with them and zero faith in their ability to accomplish even their own professed ends. It doesn't matter to Hamas, though, that I protested against the occupation in the West Bank, refused to contribute to the Occupation in my IDF service, both at personal risk and cost. I must note, though, that the towns Hamas targeted featured people far far braver and nobler than I, with better leftist bonafides, and they will be sorely missed in the discourse because they are dead.
Justice for the Palestinians as Hamas perceives it involves using their own people as meatshields and outsourcing the responsibility for their welfare expressly to the UN. Their blood and soil rhetoric is as disgusting as any you'll find.
They are impeding, not aiding, the Palestinian cause, unless this cause can be articulated as "death to Jews". I'm sorry if it appears to me that the embrace of the Palestinian cause is an excuse for antisemitism, given how far back Hamas pushed said cause and how repugnant Hamas should be to anyone who identifies as a liberal, a humanist, a progressive... No, I'm not sorry at all. I'm disappointed and scared in a way I used to mock my mom for being, because I thought antisemitism was largely a thing of the past. I don't think you're an antisemite, not least because it would be immensely painful to conceive of with how much I appreciate you. You would do well to acknowledge the brutality of the attack against Israel (still ongoing - Hamas violated the ceasefire by refusing to release (female) hostages), the deafening silence of women's organizations, the sheer ignorance fueling some of the discourse, etc etc etc. You say you shouldn't have to, and I agree. Condemnation of all these things should be fucking obvious. Instead we got *praise* for these atrocities. Talk about "context". And I'm forced to be more Zionist than I've ever been because I see more clearly than ever before that Jewish lives, women's, babies', are forfeit in the eyes of the """left""". Everything is a holocaust, everyone are Nazis, except for genocidal attacks against Jews by people who say Hitler had it right. And I'm scared. I'm more scared still of losing my values because of how scared I am. I do not want to the people who spat on Shani Louk's naked corpse as it was paraded in the street to vote for my parliament. It doesn't make me anything but a sane human being.
This is the simplest explanation, but I'm not willing to contend with it. Many antisemites are staunchly pro-Israel, after all. Frankly, I find the genuflection to figures like Charlie Kirk in parts of Israeli society gut wrenching.
I'm not an authority on the content of his heart. Even if he is an antisemite, calling him that isn't going to change his, or anybody's, opinion. Everyone has blind spots, and illuminating them is hard. If my grandparents had gone to America and not to Israel, well... I know myself, and I'm pretty sure I would have been one of those "anti-Zionist Jews," because it would have been easier. I barely managed to escape the clutches of this idiocy even as an Israeli, and I don't think it's because I'm an idiot.
I think, rather, that the idea that Palestinians would value their own lives so very little over Jewish death, and that the entire human rights apparatus would play along with this farce... would strike me as much harder to believe than the idea that Israel really is the oppressor here.
I lost the privilege of having this specific blind spot on 7/10/23, and if I'm honest, I mourn it. I miss the world I thought I lived in, every day (I'm lucky enough that I miss that, and not people I know). I've emerged out of this whole ordeal with a pretty maximalist worldview about the pro-Palestinian movement: I think that it's not just a danger to Israelis and Jews, but to morality and truth as I conceive them (as I conceive them being, on the whole, pretty cookie-cutter leftist ideas).
But maybe my new shiny maximalist view is not entirely accurate, I don't know.
I can only wholeheartedly recommend Richard Landes's book, "Can the Whole World be Wrong," as a diagnosis of the predicament I used to be in, and FdB still is.
Whether he's an antisemite or just anti-Israeli doesn't and shouldn't matter to me, even if you think the distinction makes a difference, because I'm an atheist. I will convert to another religion for a cookie. But I'm an Israeli, proud or not, and no other passport is going to make me anything else.
I’m an American Jew but this is exactly how I feel. In Summer 2005 on my Bnei Akiva trip to Israel, the hitnatkut was obviously a hot topic even for high school kids. I asked my neo-hippy madrich whether he supported it and he said he did not. Why? “Because I don’t believe it will lead to peace”. I miss the days in which I could be baffled by his response.
You are, of course, entitled to it! I meant what I said not as a criticism of American Jews but of myself. I know myself, I know my sensibilities, I know how long I clung to false ideas even while living in Israel. I know that I like being liked, and to feel like I'm a good person, which are definitely character flaws when they come at the expense of truthfulness. But, what does it matter? 7/10 happened. We learned.
This is why I don't feel like it's enough to call people antisemites and be done with it. It doesn't do enough if the explanatory work and none of the rhetorical work I'm asking it to do.
It’s not enough to call them antisemitic. They need to be crushed electorally and at the organizational level. I used to vote Democratic Party straight ticket like a good liberal Jew. I used to donate heavily to Democratic candidates in swing districts. I used to donate to progressive causes. I only listened to public radio and read liberal newspapers. I stopped all of that. My politics shifted considerably. The progressive left needs to be crushed. It cannot be ignored.
You’re starting even farther to the left of me. I was merely in Hashomer Ha’tzair, with a Labor party activist father and Histadrut organizer grandfather. But I’ve also lived in the US for a long time, been in more contact with the ‘progressive’ left including antizionist Jews than you. Antizionist Jews are “Jews for the genocide of Israeli Jews”. FdB is a frothing at the mouth Jew hater like every other DSA member. The NYC DSA chapter openly describes terrorist Elias Rodriguez as a “political prisoner”. Your “classic leftist pro Palestinian” wants you and your family raped, tortured and murdered.
It’s weird to realize that the Israeli right was correct about the intent of the PLO in the 1990s. You got to see “Palestinian liberation” in action on October 7th. It’s weird for me to get it wrong twice, by then being a Democrat on the edge of progressive. These aren’t allies, they are classic antisemitic sociopaths.
You’ll come around, and wake the fuck up, and understand how dangerous they are. I promise.
Maybe it's because I'm Israeli and not American, but as far as other Jews worry me, it's the Haredim, not - I am sorry - inconsequential anti Zionist secular hipster Jews.
The fact that I've come to view people like Uri Kurlianchik (if you know his blog) not as an enemy but as someone to listen to very carefully is very very strange to me indeed. Well, here we are
Yeah, I follow him too. Existential wars require some reconsidering of personal politics in the face of reality. Agreed on the Haredim, though a lot has shifted recently. Doesn’t seem like they have many allies left, now that the national orthodox have paid in blood and service length like the most socialist Kibbutz and Moshavim members. As my Likudnik brother in law put it, he has full respect for the socialists that serve and sacrifice, and zero respect left for the Haredim. I wouldn’t have believed that two years ago.
As an Israeli American I can simple say that you shouldn’t underestimate how dangerous the progressive left is, and what damage their narcissistic far-left token Jews cause. They haven’t achieved much yet, but the danger remains.
That "Pro-Palestinianism" (it's anything but) is purely performative is a feature not a bug. That Gaza is foreign and remote and non-actionable on the local level is precisely the attraction.
Your basic ignorant (and determined to remain ignorant at all costs) Western poseur moron gets to check the box that says to all: "Look at how moral and good a person i am (more than you)", without actually having to bear any consequences or do anything real. All the costs are imposed on the Israelis, the Palestinians, and, increasingly, the "bad jews" who dare to take issue with Islamist religio-fascist psychopaths or reject that rape is justified under certain political circumstances.
To be fair, the Palestinian activists are getting what they want: they are moving more people to their “punish Israel” position. Five years ago, if you had told me that a candidate harshly critical of Israel would win a mayoral election in NYC I would have asked what drugs you are taking. What will happen in 2029, if there’s a Democratic president, a Democratic house and a just barely Democratic senate (or maybe even a barely Republican senate) on aid to Israel? Clearly there will be a huge fight when 5 years ago it would have been a non issue with only the squad yelling from the sidelines. The problem is that it isn’t at all clear that “punish Israel” = “help Palestinians” in any material way, but I don’t think it is quite correct to say that this is a case of performative outrage-These activists genuinely believe that their strategy of Israeli punishment will work- I think they are just mistaken.
The lack of nexus between “punish Israel” & “help Palestinians” is exactly why I call this performative. If activists want to come out and say they only care about the first, then I'll (mostly) stop calling it performative.
There’s an old quip, “It is not enough that we succeed, others must fail.” This goes way beyond that. “As long as others fail, we don’t care if we succeed.”
And the whole movement is shaped like that. The one single thing that would’ve done the most for the Palestinians would’ve been to release the hostages. But it was far more important to degrade Israelis than to help Palestinians.
So the way I regard it is, it is fundamentally not a pro-Palestinian movement, but rather an anti-Israel movement. Which is a beard for an anti-jew movement.
Yes your pretend concern for the efficacy of pro-Palestinian activism is very touching, but aren’t you rationalists all about steel-manning arguments? Use that logical mind of yours, I’m sure you can come up with a good-faith explanation if you tried. Or maybe it’s just those kooky kids doing antisemitism, who knows
He’s just a fan of “destroy Israel by other means, but also Hamas is brave and just wink wink” Sam Kriss. He didn’t misunderstand, he simply wants a genocide of Israeli Jews.
Yeah, here in Canada a similar new trend and amplification of old trends. There has always been a strand of leftist activism enamored with whatever was found to be radical chic. I first came across that in the 80s as a teen with
... It gave me a "Oh, I see" moment with some of my budding activist friends back then. So I can see why many of the whitey posers out there love put on their scarfs and look cool and act righteous by intimidating wannabe politicians into their struggle sessions. So this is the current dominant "omni cause" of the day. But the level of collective "meh" that is coming from the non political normies I think is new. And I am talking *actual* violence against Jews in Toronto and Montreal. That wasnt there to the same degree I dont think. And whats worse, are the politicians putting their fingers to the wind and seeing a whole new class that they need to at least appease, and *that* will have material consequences. Not that Canada's foreign policy will have much of a material impact on Israel/Gaza, but domestically, its really bad news for the Jews of Canada.
There’s always an option to immigrate to Israel and leave Canada dumber, poorer, more cohesively enjoying the benefits of an uneducated, violent, antidemocratic Islamist immigration. Historically Israel has always benefitted from that sort of trade. It does have a GDP per capita equal to Canada now, starting at a poor developing nation 77 years ago.
Although I really liked my time in Israel (89-90) working on a Moshav and could totally see myself (back then at least) living in Tel Aviv, I am not Jewish. I was lucky in that I grew up in Toronto in the 70s/80s, worked for a Jewish family small business as a teen for 3yrs, had a couple of close friends who are Jewish and still keep in contact with to this day. As my ethnicity is rather obscure (even for Toronto), I felt at home with other "misc" groups like Estonians, Philipinos, Jewish peoples etc. TBH, Toronto felt like an Italian city back then as the school I went to was majority Italian (like 70%). Canada has many serious problems, some new, some old. Hopefully, we can turn things around. I am not an activist, but I think a lot about politics and history. Enough to see when things are bad for the Jews, its a strong sign of an overall culture in trouble.
Unrelated. Cala Walsh is what has always happened with children of the elite, no different than 60s North Vietnam support by nepobabies. She specifically is an example of Qatar’s ROI on billions of chair buying in US universities.
I don’t now how to break it to you, the difference between Canada and the US is virtually zero. Qatar invested in both, the progressive wing in Canada is far bigger, but as dumb. She sat in jail in the US for domestic terrorism. She got arrested on the way back from Iran at JFK. She’s from Bawwwstun.
But I think this is exactly the privileging of the symbolic over the material that Yassine (and Freddie, in other contexts) was criticising in the article. So NYC elected an anti-Zionist mayor –so what? That in and of itself doesn't bring any of the stated goals of the pro-Palestine faction (an independent Palestinian state, right of return for the descendants of those dispossessed in 1948 etc.) a millimetre closer. Maybe an anti-Zionist mayor of NYC is instrumentally necessary to accomplishing these goals, but it in and of itself is not a victory.
To put it in the terms of Freddie's BLM-critical essays: if NYC elected a mayor who had shared a black square on his Instagram and donated $1,000 towards Patrisse Cullors's retirement fund (but the number of black American men shot dead by police officers hadn't budged) – I would be hesitant to cite this as a victory for the BLM cause. Having people in positions of power who agree with your cause is only useful if they're going to do something about it. If they aren't, they might as well not be there.
I'm not sure to what degree they consciously believe that punishing Israel and Israelis for existing will work, and to what degree they've so conflated Israel with generic "white people" that they can no longer process that Israelis have their/our own historiographical narrative and can't be meaningfully compelled into adopting American WASP-style "white guilt".
While support for Israel in America has gone down a lot, especially among young people, I don’t know how much credit the pro Palestine activists deserve for it. Here are some other factors:
1. Population aging out living memory of the holocaust.
2. Population aging out of living memory of the six day war and Yom Kippur war when Israel was perceived as a huge underdog. I think this is important because a huge amount of support for Israel was admiration for their martial valor.
Antisemitism (or rather Islamist support) is a fool’s cause, and history is repeating itself. The Labour Party in the UK was shut out of government from 2010-2024 with an FdB type leader running it. The current government, by allowing endless, violent, destructive, and disrespectful protests is projected to get demolished by Reform Party. And let me point out, Muslims and far-leftists are a much higher percentage of the UK than they are in the USA, if we’re considering alleged “natural constituencies” for “pro Palestine”.
Sure progressives have amplified the politics of the DSA. The Democratic Party is going to pay for their association in future elections. Nobody actually likes pro Palestine activists in the general public, and if FdB thinks Hamas is getting popular, that’s hilarious. And there is now zero distinction between “pro Hamas” and “pro Palestine”, and those activists only have themselves to blame. “From the River to the Sea Palestine will be Arab”, and “by any means necessary” will only be more and more of an own goal as more of Palestinian cause atrocities are exposed, as is FdB and company’s revolting hate for Jews.
He’s a Marxist. By his own self-description. He thinks The Labor Theory of Value is true. A reasonable, humane, informed person could be a Marxist in 1925. To be a Marxist in 2025, you have to be willfully ignorant, stupid, or consumed with murderous ideation. Or some combination thereof.
Being a Marxist after the destructive collapse of every Marxist project is like being an alchemist or a heliocentrist—it means you're impervious to reality and clinging to a stale pose instead of actually thinking.
Actually, still being a Marxist is worse, it's like being a doctor who keeps prescribing the same meds even though they've killed every prior patient.
It makes it impossible to take FdeB seriously but it does reveal why he can't relinquish the "Free Palestine!" Israel is Evil crusade—Marxism has always hated Jews, starting with its founder, history's most self-hating Jew and continuing through the Soviets and now the entire Western Left.
Marxist universalism cannot tolerate the existence of Jewish particularism and needs Israel demonized and destroyed, as Zionism is about a particular home for a particular people and not a universal scheme for the planet to be ruled by a vanguard class of theorists.
Marxists pour out endless scorn for one people and one nation only—and still insist they're not Jew haters, just deeply concerned for Palestinians and Justice. This is a phony pose that is easily seen through (what has the Western Left done for the Palestinians but nurse their worst grievances and encourage more endless pointless violence?) but they use theory and jargon to bully people into not considering them simple Jew haters. But they don't fool everyone.
Yassine, I've made this comment before but here we go again: setting aside the performative activism/ material benefit distinction for a moment, what Freddie and many others miss is that there is almost never a realistic political program proposed by Palestinian activists other than "From the River To the Sea" or "Free Palestine." OK, tell me exactly how you want to achieve that. Jews go home! Um, to Iran and Yemen? Israel out of the West Bank! OK, great, do you want a UN peacekeeping army in the West Bank to push the Israelis out? Or do you want Israel to withdraw, like they did from Gaza (and, um, how'd that work out?) and if so, how do you proposed to convince Israelis to elect a Knesset that will uproot the settlements, many of which are cities by now?
If the solution doesn't run through the Knesset (which would mean convincing Israelis you don't want to kill them all), then who enacts your preferred political solution? Arab states? Turkey? OK, great, let's resurrect the Ottoman Empire but how exactly is that freeing Palestine?
You see where this goes. Successful political movements tell you what they want the next step to be towards their goal. They have some idea of how to achieve it, which usually includes getting their opponents to agree to at least part of the program. (See: Gandhi, MLK, Mandela, etc.)
Unless, of course, you just want to kill them all, in which case, have fun getting surrounding Arab states to agree to invade a country with nuclear weapons.
They want to kill them all, or at least drive them out.
And the surrounding Arab states had their fill of ass-whippings, even before Israel had nuclear weapons. Allegedly. That’s why they signed peace treaties.
It's because the Palestinian thing is the "new fad" for the Left, whereas Blacks are no longer so important to the Left. As the Palestinian fad fades out over the next few years and the Left becomes obsessed with some new shiny toy, they'll actually be able to think more clearly on the subject, and realize Palestinians abandoning their desire to destroy Israel is the only thing that will materially improve Palestinian lives. It will happen.
But for now, Palestinians have only symbolic and performative value for the Left, and actually improving Palestinian lives is utterly, utterly irrelevant to them. The opposite rather, they want Palestinians to suffer terribly so they can enact their morality play.
Ordinary Palestinians should pray the Left moves on from them soon.
Tangentially, it's interesting how the Left seems on am accelerated path towards finding new toxic causes. I mean, BLM was not so long ago, now the Left could care less about Blacks. By contrast, it took the Left decades to abandon class war for racial war, but only a few years to move from racial war to religious war.
What is next for he Left? What new toxic cause to make the world suffer more? I can't imagine, but I bet the Left abandons the Palestine/Muslim advocacy thing within three years at most.
Free Palestine! from the emotional imperialism of the Western Left, which uses them as props and symbols for their Instagrammable protests. The Cause needs to die so the people can try to live. The Palestinians have been elevated to the top spot in the sacred victim hierarchy of the Social Justice movement, which means they become infantilized mascots beyond agency and responsibility.
I'm thinking "migrants" will be the Next Top Sacred Victim, but the academic Left has spent decades building their Anti-Zionist Industrial Complex, so it will be hard to budge the Palestinians from the top spot. (Nothing gets the blood flowing quite like Jew hate!) But they will get bored and move on eventually.
Got a charitable and an uncharitable, condescending take here.
The charitable take is that any movement about foreign policy necessarily has to win a certain amount of hearts and minds before it can take material action. That's what "foreign" means, after all: it's not happening near home and you can't act on it directly, without mass cooperation.
The condescending take is that you can't expect Americans in a solidarity movement to sort out the material and symbolic dimensions of the Palestine issue when the Palestinians themselves have built their entire movement on entangling those dimensions. What have ever been the material stakes of the perennial rumors that the Jews (I write "Jews" here because this dates back to before the State of Israel was declared) were going to demolish the al-Aqsa Mosque? It's never actually happened, and even if it did (Ben-Gvir actually wants to, AFAICT), it would be a purely symbolic change. Nonetheless, mass mobilizations in Palestine treat it as profoundly material and put lives on the line, regularly.
I agree getting traction on a foreign policy issue is significantly more difficult than domestic issues. The problem is it adds another bullet FdB has to bite: he has to explain why _this_ particular issue is _so_ important that it warrants diverting political capital from low-hanging fruit causes.
"What I am certain of is that I don’t want the government getting involved in these medical decisions. Ron Desantis does not get a say, sorry." - Wait a minute, he's a socialist. His entire political philosophy rests on this being a governmental decision right? If the government owns the means of production, they are the ultimate arbiter of who gets which treatments.
He's an orthodox Marxist and therefore believes one day there will be no state, and that prior to the revolution, bourgeois freedoms should be upheld, and that in the transition period [THIS BIT IS UNCLEAR WE'LL GET BACK TO YOU ON THAT]
It's clear from context that they're talking about direct intervention from the legislative branch, which many would consider massive overreach.
In most countries with functioning single-payer systems, decisions on which medical procedures are publicly subsidized are instead made by independent public sector medical bodies after a cost-benefit analysis (and to pre-empt something I hear a lot from Americans, public sector actors can absolutely be roughly apolitical; it's the American model of electing high ranked public officials that causes your issues with a highly political public service.)
I'm not familiar with their content, but this supposed contradiction especially goes away in a market-socialist framework; where something similar to privatized healthcare can exist.
I'm in the DSA and I'm quite sick of the Palestine fixation. And among the left in general. It's kind of like our equivalent of being anti- abortion on the Right, complete with lots of bloody signs & manipulative guilt tripping. People have been kicked out for their disagreement & positions. And yes we need to focus on issues closer to home.
Well things have been shifting since the election, since there's so many issues that have intensified. Immigration raids, LGBTQ, cuts on everything. Labor. It's also possible that since there's such a crackdown on Palestine activists some people may shy away from those activities, then again there's now a growing shift on the Right against Israel. A very nasty faction that we don't want anything to do with...in any case while there are some disagreements here & there I overall agree with enough of it and have developed relationships with people in my local chapter. Working with and building coalitions with people with different views and ideologies is crucial & necessary, though it's important to remain grounded in one's values. I think many people in the Indivisible/No Kings crowd are likely getting very fed up with the ineptitude of the Dems. Many people are getting alienated from MAGA. And empty bellies and wallets especially in winter...there's a lot of things that could happen. My political science B.A. didn't prepare me for this, I can tell you that much!
I really appreciate your perspective. How pervasive is the Palestine fixation within the DSA? Is it exaggerated by outsiders? My (likely) naive impression is that this one issue has overwhelmed almost 80% of the DSA's efforts, such that even token issues like affordability and LGBTQ have to somehow get reconnected to Palestine.
To me, a government crackdown on Palestine activism is bound to entrench zealotry rather than discourage it. And transparently I should say that as a libertarian there's very little about a socialist platform I would ever endorse. But I'm earnest in saying that even if I strongly disagree with the goals, I would consider DSA focusing more on a functional platform to be a HUGE improvement.
What was sad was when I pointed out that demanding a resolution wouldbt move the needle one tick, they agreed. This is why your essay resonated so deeply.
Funny enough, I have never read any FdB articles, because I was first introduced to him through the insipid comments he leaves. I just assumed that his articles were equally as stupid. I wonder how many readers he has lost due to his unhinged comments.
He really does have some great writing. Carefully reasoned, beautifully written. It's a huge disappointment to see the same guy putting out comments that are basically toddler tantrums.
I feel so vindicated. I'm actually a fan of FdB, notwithstanding the fact that he would probably rather I wasn't. So much so, that even what I perceived, at least, as overt rudeness to me in his comment section didn't make me a non-fan.
And I admit that I'm perennially baffled by the fact that someone who opposes nation states supports a movement whose goal is to establish a... nation state (that would be worse for human rights and democracy and the such in any sense I can conceive of).
Likewise, that he stated he is under no obligation to condemn Hamas because it's obvious he's no ally of theirs from his values in all domains of life, but that this 1) didn't stop him from condemning Israel, when he presents this stance as a mere specific stance of a general principle too; 2) I would call his denial of rapes on 7/10 and overt support of the Palestinian cause more than 'not condemning' Hamas.
I take comfort in the fact that my comment on one of his essays about this made it to the top of the thread even in a hostile environment (https://open.substack.com/pub/freddiedeboer/p/i-assure-you-i-am-permitted-to-oppose?utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=44905611). I worry that it might be deleted now, so, for posterity:
I'm an Israeli and I would have agreed on nearly all counts on October 6. I still think the only way forward is toward Palestinian autonomy. At this point in time, a one-state solution is a death sentence to me, in a way that I think was not true when I inherited leftism from my family. This might be Israel's fault, though I'll refer you to your own article about how it is not only the whites who have agency (are Jews white, anyway? I specifically have Polish roots, but...). I think it is an unmitigated tragedy that of all Israeli governments, THIS one is waging this war. I have zero ideological overlap with them and zero faith in their ability to accomplish even their own professed ends. It doesn't matter to Hamas, though, that I protested against the occupation in the West Bank, refused to contribute to the Occupation in my IDF service, both at personal risk and cost. I must note, though, that the towns Hamas targeted featured people far far braver and nobler than I, with better leftist bonafides, and they will be sorely missed in the discourse because they are dead.
Justice for the Palestinians as Hamas perceives it involves using their own people as meatshields and outsourcing the responsibility for their welfare expressly to the UN. Their blood and soil rhetoric is as disgusting as any you'll find.
They are impeding, not aiding, the Palestinian cause, unless this cause can be articulated as "death to Jews". I'm sorry if it appears to me that the embrace of the Palestinian cause is an excuse for antisemitism, given how far back Hamas pushed said cause and how repugnant Hamas should be to anyone who identifies as a liberal, a humanist, a progressive... No, I'm not sorry at all. I'm disappointed and scared in a way I used to mock my mom for being, because I thought antisemitism was largely a thing of the past. I don't think you're an antisemite, not least because it would be immensely painful to conceive of with how much I appreciate you. You would do well to acknowledge the brutality of the attack against Israel (still ongoing - Hamas violated the ceasefire by refusing to release (female) hostages), the deafening silence of women's organizations, the sheer ignorance fueling some of the discourse, etc etc etc. You say you shouldn't have to, and I agree. Condemnation of all these things should be fucking obvious. Instead we got *praise* for these atrocities. Talk about "context". And I'm forced to be more Zionist than I've ever been because I see more clearly than ever before that Jewish lives, women's, babies', are forfeit in the eyes of the """left""". Everything is a holocaust, everyone are Nazis, except for genocidal attacks against Jews by people who say Hitler had it right. And I'm scared. I'm more scared still of losing my values because of how scared I am. I do not want to the people who spat on Shani Louk's naked corpse as it was paraded in the street to vote for my parliament. It doesn't make me anything but a sane human being.
Anyway, thank you for your tax dollars.
> "they will be sorely missed in the discourse because they are dead."
This hits hard. Beautifully said.
Thank you. It goes without saying but I binged your Substack as well and learned a lot!
The Palestinian movement isn't about establishing a nation-state for the Palestinians. It's about abolishing the nation-state of the Jews.
Yes, and whatever will replace Israel isn't going to be a multiethnic socialist egalitarian utopia, but yet another middle eastern horror show.
It comforts me that Israel isn't a nation state, according to the PLO charter, since it doesn't acknowledge Jews as a nation.
Freddie is an antisemite. There’s no other way.
This is the simplest explanation, but I'm not willing to contend with it. Many antisemites are staunchly pro-Israel, after all. Frankly, I find the genuflection to figures like Charlie Kirk in parts of Israeli society gut wrenching.
I'm not an authority on the content of his heart. Even if he is an antisemite, calling him that isn't going to change his, or anybody's, opinion. Everyone has blind spots, and illuminating them is hard. If my grandparents had gone to America and not to Israel, well... I know myself, and I'm pretty sure I would have been one of those "anti-Zionist Jews," because it would have been easier. I barely managed to escape the clutches of this idiocy even as an Israeli, and I don't think it's because I'm an idiot.
I think, rather, that the idea that Palestinians would value their own lives so very little over Jewish death, and that the entire human rights apparatus would play along with this farce... would strike me as much harder to believe than the idea that Israel really is the oppressor here.
I lost the privilege of having this specific blind spot on 7/10/23, and if I'm honest, I mourn it. I miss the world I thought I lived in, every day (I'm lucky enough that I miss that, and not people I know). I've emerged out of this whole ordeal with a pretty maximalist worldview about the pro-Palestinian movement: I think that it's not just a danger to Israelis and Jews, but to morality and truth as I conceive them (as I conceive them being, on the whole, pretty cookie-cutter leftist ideas).
But maybe my new shiny maximalist view is not entirely accurate, I don't know.
I can only wholeheartedly recommend Richard Landes's book, "Can the Whole World be Wrong," as a diagnosis of the predicament I used to be in, and FdB still is.
Whether he's an antisemite or just anti-Israeli doesn't and shouldn't matter to me, even if you think the distinction makes a difference, because I'm an atheist. I will convert to another religion for a cookie. But I'm an Israeli, proud or not, and no other passport is going to make me anything else.
Thank you for your comment.
I’m an American Jew but this is exactly how I feel. In Summer 2005 on my Bnei Akiva trip to Israel, the hitnatkut was obviously a hot topic even for high school kids. I asked my neo-hippy madrich whether he supported it and he said he did not. Why? “Because I don’t believe it will lead to peace”. I miss the days in which I could be baffled by his response.
You are, of course, entitled to it! I meant what I said not as a criticism of American Jews but of myself. I know myself, I know my sensibilities, I know how long I clung to false ideas even while living in Israel. I know that I like being liked, and to feel like I'm a good person, which are definitely character flaws when they come at the expense of truthfulness. But, what does it matter? 7/10 happened. We learned.
This is why I don't feel like it's enough to call people antisemites and be done with it. It doesn't do enough if the explanatory work and none of the rhetorical work I'm asking it to do.
It’s not enough to call them antisemitic. They need to be crushed electorally and at the organizational level. I used to vote Democratic Party straight ticket like a good liberal Jew. I used to donate heavily to Democratic candidates in swing districts. I used to donate to progressive causes. I only listened to public radio and read liberal newspapers. I stopped all of that. My politics shifted considerably. The progressive left needs to be crushed. It cannot be ignored.
Certainly didn’t think it was criticism of American Jews!
You’re starting even farther to the left of me. I was merely in Hashomer Ha’tzair, with a Labor party activist father and Histadrut organizer grandfather. But I’ve also lived in the US for a long time, been in more contact with the ‘progressive’ left including antizionist Jews than you. Antizionist Jews are “Jews for the genocide of Israeli Jews”. FdB is a frothing at the mouth Jew hater like every other DSA member. The NYC DSA chapter openly describes terrorist Elias Rodriguez as a “political prisoner”. Your “classic leftist pro Palestinian” wants you and your family raped, tortured and murdered.
It’s weird to realize that the Israeli right was correct about the intent of the PLO in the 1990s. You got to see “Palestinian liberation” in action on October 7th. It’s weird for me to get it wrong twice, by then being a Democrat on the edge of progressive. These aren’t allies, they are classic antisemitic sociopaths.
You’ll come around, and wake the fuck up, and understand how dangerous they are. I promise.
Maybe it's because I'm Israeli and not American, but as far as other Jews worry me, it's the Haredim, not - I am sorry - inconsequential anti Zionist secular hipster Jews.
The fact that I've come to view people like Uri Kurlianchik (if you know his blog) not as an enemy but as someone to listen to very carefully is very very strange to me indeed. Well, here we are
Yeah, I follow him too. Existential wars require some reconsidering of personal politics in the face of reality. Agreed on the Haredim, though a lot has shifted recently. Doesn’t seem like they have many allies left, now that the national orthodox have paid in blood and service length like the most socialist Kibbutz and Moshavim members. As my Likudnik brother in law put it, he has full respect for the socialists that serve and sacrifice, and zero respect left for the Haredim. I wouldn’t have believed that two years ago.
As an Israeli American I can simple say that you shouldn’t underestimate how dangerous the progressive left is, and what damage their narcissistic far-left token Jews cause. They haven’t achieved much yet, but the danger remains.
i feel the same way. I love his writing even when i don’t agree with it but i hate when he does this crap
btw i am overall an israel supporter and support the existence of israel and having strong ties with it
That "Pro-Palestinianism" (it's anything but) is purely performative is a feature not a bug. That Gaza is foreign and remote and non-actionable on the local level is precisely the attraction.
Your basic ignorant (and determined to remain ignorant at all costs) Western poseur moron gets to check the box that says to all: "Look at how moral and good a person i am (more than you)", without actually having to bear any consequences or do anything real. All the costs are imposed on the Israelis, the Palestinians, and, increasingly, the "bad jews" who dare to take issue with Islamist religio-fascist psychopaths or reject that rape is justified under certain political circumstances.
To be fair, the Palestinian activists are getting what they want: they are moving more people to their “punish Israel” position. Five years ago, if you had told me that a candidate harshly critical of Israel would win a mayoral election in NYC I would have asked what drugs you are taking. What will happen in 2029, if there’s a Democratic president, a Democratic house and a just barely Democratic senate (or maybe even a barely Republican senate) on aid to Israel? Clearly there will be a huge fight when 5 years ago it would have been a non issue with only the squad yelling from the sidelines. The problem is that it isn’t at all clear that “punish Israel” = “help Palestinians” in any material way, but I don’t think it is quite correct to say that this is a case of performative outrage-These activists genuinely believe that their strategy of Israeli punishment will work- I think they are just mistaken.
The lack of nexus between “punish Israel” & “help Palestinians” is exactly why I call this performative. If activists want to come out and say they only care about the first, then I'll (mostly) stop calling it performative.
But the performance is necessary specifically because the actual cause is ugly and unpalatable.
Shhhh, don't say that out loud!
But punishing Israel is what the Palestinians are asking for!
And nothing but, regardless of cost.
There’s an old quip, “It is not enough that we succeed, others must fail.” This goes way beyond that. “As long as others fail, we don’t care if we succeed.”
And the whole movement is shaped like that. The one single thing that would’ve done the most for the Palestinians would’ve been to release the hostages. But it was far more important to degrade Israelis than to help Palestinians.
So the way I regard it is, it is fundamentally not a pro-Palestinian movement, but rather an anti-Israel movement. Which is a beard for an anti-jew movement.
That doesn’t make it performative, you just disagree with the strategy. This isn’t a difficult concept to grasp.
The lack of nexus between means and ends is the very definition of performative.
Yes your pretend concern for the efficacy of pro-Palestinian activism is very touching, but aren’t you rationalists all about steel-manning arguments? Use that logical mind of yours, I’m sure you can come up with a good-faith explanation if you tried. Or maybe it’s just those kooky kids doing antisemitism, who knows
I already did, "the signaling ritual takes priority over material consequences". Im beginning to think you haven't read the essay.
How on earth is that a good-faith explanation?
He’s just a fan of “destroy Israel by other means, but also Hamas is brave and just wink wink” Sam Kriss. He didn’t misunderstand, he simply wants a genocide of Israeli Jews.
Yeah, here in Canada a similar new trend and amplification of old trends. There has always been a strand of leftist activism enamored with whatever was found to be radical chic. I first came across that in the 80s as a teen with
https://www.snlarchives.net/Commercials/?The_Khaddaffi_Look
... It gave me a "Oh, I see" moment with some of my budding activist friends back then. So I can see why many of the whitey posers out there love put on their scarfs and look cool and act righteous by intimidating wannabe politicians into their struggle sessions. So this is the current dominant "omni cause" of the day. But the level of collective "meh" that is coming from the non political normies I think is new. And I am talking *actual* violence against Jews in Toronto and Montreal. That wasnt there to the same degree I dont think. And whats worse, are the politicians putting their fingers to the wind and seeing a whole new class that they need to at least appease, and *that* will have material consequences. Not that Canada's foreign policy will have much of a material impact on Israel/Gaza, but domestically, its really bad news for the Jews of Canada.
There’s always an option to immigrate to Israel and leave Canada dumber, poorer, more cohesively enjoying the benefits of an uneducated, violent, antidemocratic Islamist immigration. Historically Israel has always benefitted from that sort of trade. It does have a GDP per capita equal to Canada now, starting at a poor developing nation 77 years ago.
Although I really liked my time in Israel (89-90) working on a Moshav and could totally see myself (back then at least) living in Tel Aviv, I am not Jewish. I was lucky in that I grew up in Toronto in the 70s/80s, worked for a Jewish family small business as a teen for 3yrs, had a couple of close friends who are Jewish and still keep in contact with to this day. As my ethnicity is rather obscure (even for Toronto), I felt at home with other "misc" groups like Estonians, Philipinos, Jewish peoples etc. TBH, Toronto felt like an Italian city back then as the school I went to was majority Italian (like 70%). Canada has many serious problems, some new, some old. Hopefully, we can turn things around. I am not an activist, but I think a lot about politics and history. Enough to see when things are bad for the Jews, its a strong sign of an overall culture in trouble.
Can we really count Calla Walsh as "Islamist immigration"? Come on.
Unrelated. Cala Walsh is what has always happened with children of the elite, no different than 60s North Vietnam support by nepobabies. She specifically is an example of Qatar’s ROI on billions of chair buying in US universities.
US universities? She went to McGill!
I don’t now how to break it to you, the difference between Canada and the US is virtually zero. Qatar invested in both, the progressive wing in Canada is far bigger, but as dumb. She sat in jail in the US for domestic terrorism. She got arrested on the way back from Iran at JFK. She’s from Bawwwstun.
But I think this is exactly the privileging of the symbolic over the material that Yassine (and Freddie, in other contexts) was criticising in the article. So NYC elected an anti-Zionist mayor –so what? That in and of itself doesn't bring any of the stated goals of the pro-Palestine faction (an independent Palestinian state, right of return for the descendants of those dispossessed in 1948 etc.) a millimetre closer. Maybe an anti-Zionist mayor of NYC is instrumentally necessary to accomplishing these goals, but it in and of itself is not a victory.
To put it in the terms of Freddie's BLM-critical essays: if NYC elected a mayor who had shared a black square on his Instagram and donated $1,000 towards Patrisse Cullors's retirement fund (but the number of black American men shot dead by police officers hadn't budged) – I would be hesitant to cite this as a victory for the BLM cause. Having people in positions of power who agree with your cause is only useful if they're going to do something about it. If they aren't, they might as well not be there.
I'm not sure to what degree they consciously believe that punishing Israel and Israelis for existing will work, and to what degree they've so conflated Israel with generic "white people" that they can no longer process that Israelis have their/our own historiographical narrative and can't be meaningfully compelled into adopting American WASP-style "white guilt".
While support for Israel in America has gone down a lot, especially among young people, I don’t know how much credit the pro Palestine activists deserve for it. Here are some other factors:
1. Population aging out living memory of the holocaust.
2. Population aging out of living memory of the six day war and Yom Kippur war when Israel was perceived as a huge underdog. I think this is important because a huge amount of support for Israel was admiration for their martial valor.
3. Israel’s own actions
Israel just stomped multiple Islamist armies that rose against it together.
Antisemitism (or rather Islamist support) is a fool’s cause, and history is repeating itself. The Labour Party in the UK was shut out of government from 2010-2024 with an FdB type leader running it. The current government, by allowing endless, violent, destructive, and disrespectful protests is projected to get demolished by Reform Party. And let me point out, Muslims and far-leftists are a much higher percentage of the UK than they are in the USA, if we’re considering alleged “natural constituencies” for “pro Palestine”.
Sure progressives have amplified the politics of the DSA. The Democratic Party is going to pay for their association in future elections. Nobody actually likes pro Palestine activists in the general public, and if FdB thinks Hamas is getting popular, that’s hilarious. And there is now zero distinction between “pro Hamas” and “pro Palestine”, and those activists only have themselves to blame. “From the River to the Sea Palestine will be Arab”, and “by any means necessary” will only be more and more of an own goal as more of Palestinian cause atrocities are exposed, as is FdB and company’s revolting hate for Jews.
FdB is a fake intellectual with an extremely fragile ego.
He goes through hundreds of comments blocking anyone who disagrees with him.
He’s also idiotic on trans issues. He can’t follow the science.
He’s a Marxist. By his own self-description. He thinks The Labor Theory of Value is true. A reasonable, humane, informed person could be a Marxist in 1925. To be a Marxist in 2025, you have to be willfully ignorant, stupid, or consumed with murderous ideation. Or some combination thereof.
Being a Marxist after the destructive collapse of every Marxist project is like being an alchemist or a heliocentrist—it means you're impervious to reality and clinging to a stale pose instead of actually thinking.
Actually, still being a Marxist is worse, it's like being a doctor who keeps prescribing the same meds even though they've killed every prior patient.
It makes it impossible to take FdeB seriously but it does reveal why he can't relinquish the "Free Palestine!" Israel is Evil crusade—Marxism has always hated Jews, starting with its founder, history's most self-hating Jew and continuing through the Soviets and now the entire Western Left.
Marxist universalism cannot tolerate the existence of Jewish particularism and needs Israel demonized and destroyed, as Zionism is about a particular home for a particular people and not a universal scheme for the planet to be ruled by a vanguard class of theorists.
Marxists pour out endless scorn for one people and one nation only—and still insist they're not Jew haters, just deeply concerned for Palestinians and Justice. This is a phony pose that is easily seen through (what has the Western Left done for the Palestinians but nurse their worst grievances and encourage more endless pointless violence?) but they use theory and jargon to bully people into not considering them simple Jew haters. But they don't fool everyone.
Yassine, I've made this comment before but here we go again: setting aside the performative activism/ material benefit distinction for a moment, what Freddie and many others miss is that there is almost never a realistic political program proposed by Palestinian activists other than "From the River To the Sea" or "Free Palestine." OK, tell me exactly how you want to achieve that. Jews go home! Um, to Iran and Yemen? Israel out of the West Bank! OK, great, do you want a UN peacekeeping army in the West Bank to push the Israelis out? Or do you want Israel to withdraw, like they did from Gaza (and, um, how'd that work out?) and if so, how do you proposed to convince Israelis to elect a Knesset that will uproot the settlements, many of which are cities by now?
If the solution doesn't run through the Knesset (which would mean convincing Israelis you don't want to kill them all), then who enacts your preferred political solution? Arab states? Turkey? OK, great, let's resurrect the Ottoman Empire but how exactly is that freeing Palestine?
You see where this goes. Successful political movements tell you what they want the next step to be towards their goal. They have some idea of how to achieve it, which usually includes getting their opponents to agree to at least part of the program. (See: Gandhi, MLK, Mandela, etc.)
Unless, of course, you just want to kill them all, in which case, have fun getting surrounding Arab states to agree to invade a country with nuclear weapons.
They want to kill them all, or at least drive them out.
And the surrounding Arab states had their fill of ass-whippings, even before Israel had nuclear weapons. Allegedly. That’s why they signed peace treaties.
FTTTG’s essay is one of the most polished mirrors.
It's because the Palestinian thing is the "new fad" for the Left, whereas Blacks are no longer so important to the Left. As the Palestinian fad fades out over the next few years and the Left becomes obsessed with some new shiny toy, they'll actually be able to think more clearly on the subject, and realize Palestinians abandoning their desire to destroy Israel is the only thing that will materially improve Palestinian lives. It will happen.
But for now, Palestinians have only symbolic and performative value for the Left, and actually improving Palestinian lives is utterly, utterly irrelevant to them. The opposite rather, they want Palestinians to suffer terribly so they can enact their morality play.
Ordinary Palestinians should pray the Left moves on from them soon.
Tangentially, it's interesting how the Left seems on am accelerated path towards finding new toxic causes. I mean, BLM was not so long ago, now the Left could care less about Blacks. By contrast, it took the Left decades to abandon class war for racial war, but only a few years to move from racial war to religious war.
What is next for he Left? What new toxic cause to make the world suffer more? I can't imagine, but I bet the Left abandons the Palestine/Muslim advocacy thing within three years at most.
I'm curious what's next.
Preach!!
Free Palestine! from the emotional imperialism of the Western Left, which uses them as props and symbols for their Instagrammable protests. The Cause needs to die so the people can try to live. The Palestinians have been elevated to the top spot in the sacred victim hierarchy of the Social Justice movement, which means they become infantilized mascots beyond agency and responsibility.
I'm thinking "migrants" will be the Next Top Sacred Victim, but the academic Left has spent decades building their Anti-Zionist Industrial Complex, so it will be hard to budge the Palestinians from the top spot. (Nothing gets the blood flowing quite like Jew hate!) But they will get bored and move on eventually.
Is he still rape denying?
Fantastic piece. You could do this on ten other issues he talks about, as I'm sure you know. But this is great.
Got a charitable and an uncharitable, condescending take here.
The charitable take is that any movement about foreign policy necessarily has to win a certain amount of hearts and minds before it can take material action. That's what "foreign" means, after all: it's not happening near home and you can't act on it directly, without mass cooperation.
The condescending take is that you can't expect Americans in a solidarity movement to sort out the material and symbolic dimensions of the Palestine issue when the Palestinians themselves have built their entire movement on entangling those dimensions. What have ever been the material stakes of the perennial rumors that the Jews (I write "Jews" here because this dates back to before the State of Israel was declared) were going to demolish the al-Aqsa Mosque? It's never actually happened, and even if it did (Ben-Gvir actually wants to, AFAICT), it would be a purely symbolic change. Nonetheless, mass mobilizations in Palestine treat it as profoundly material and put lives on the line, regularly.
I agree getting traction on a foreign policy issue is significantly more difficult than domestic issues. The problem is it adds another bullet FdB has to bite: he has to explain why _this_ particular issue is _so_ important that it warrants diverting political capital from low-hanging fruit causes.
I don't think FdB considers it reasonable to choose actions according to which priority provides easier wins.
I'm fairly sure he's made this exact argument but my brain is still frazzled from my FdB essay binge.
"What I am certain of is that I don’t want the government getting involved in these medical decisions. Ron Desantis does not get a say, sorry." - Wait a minute, he's a socialist. His entire political philosophy rests on this being a governmental decision right? If the government owns the means of production, they are the ultimate arbiter of who gets which treatments.
He's an orthodox Marxist and therefore believes one day there will be no state, and that prior to the revolution, bourgeois freedoms should be upheld, and that in the transition period [THIS BIT IS UNCLEAR WE'LL GET BACK TO YOU ON THAT]
There isn't necessarily a contradiction here.
It's clear from context that they're talking about direct intervention from the legislative branch, which many would consider massive overreach.
In most countries with functioning single-payer systems, decisions on which medical procedures are publicly subsidized are instead made by independent public sector medical bodies after a cost-benefit analysis (and to pre-empt something I hear a lot from Americans, public sector actors can absolutely be roughly apolitical; it's the American model of electing high ranked public officials that causes your issues with a highly political public service.)
I'm not familiar with their content, but this supposed contradiction especially goes away in a market-socialist framework; where something similar to privatized healthcare can exist.
I'm in the DSA and I'm quite sick of the Palestine fixation. And among the left in general. It's kind of like our equivalent of being anti- abortion on the Right, complete with lots of bloody signs & manipulative guilt tripping. People have been kicked out for their disagreement & positions. And yes we need to focus on issues closer to home.
I'm surprised you're still in the DSA, do you see any way out for the group?
Well things have been shifting since the election, since there's so many issues that have intensified. Immigration raids, LGBTQ, cuts on everything. Labor. It's also possible that since there's such a crackdown on Palestine activists some people may shy away from those activities, then again there's now a growing shift on the Right against Israel. A very nasty faction that we don't want anything to do with...in any case while there are some disagreements here & there I overall agree with enough of it and have developed relationships with people in my local chapter. Working with and building coalitions with people with different views and ideologies is crucial & necessary, though it's important to remain grounded in one's values. I think many people in the Indivisible/No Kings crowd are likely getting very fed up with the ineptitude of the Dems. Many people are getting alienated from MAGA. And empty bellies and wallets especially in winter...there's a lot of things that could happen. My political science B.A. didn't prepare me for this, I can tell you that much!
I really appreciate your perspective. How pervasive is the Palestine fixation within the DSA? Is it exaggerated by outsiders? My (likely) naive impression is that this one issue has overwhelmed almost 80% of the DSA's efforts, such that even token issues like affordability and LGBTQ have to somehow get reconnected to Palestine.
To me, a government crackdown on Palestine activism is bound to entrench zealotry rather than discourage it. And transparently I should say that as a libertarian there's very little about a socialist platform I would ever endorse. But I'm earnest in saying that even if I strongly disagree with the goals, I would consider DSA focusing more on a functional platform to be a HUGE improvement.
I stopped reading him when he started getting really angry at disagreement.
He used the pedophile language, “underage women”, instead of the common term, “girls”, and I pointed that out, and from then on it was a vendetta.
Realized it was pointless because he sees himself as an expert in everything.
Wait, what was the context of that reference?
I think it's https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/i-think-men-are-just-like-this which... doesn't seem super objectionable to me upon skim read of the non-paywalled part.
This seemed to be the same point Hanania made not that long ago.
I wish I'd had this essay two years ago when trying to convince people where I live that our city council had/has nothing to do with this conflict.
It's sad you'd need anything to point out something so patently obvious
What was sad was when I pointed out that demanding a resolution wouldbt move the needle one tick, they agreed. This is why your essay resonated so deeply.
I love Freddie, and I got a big kick out of this.
Funny enough, I have never read any FdB articles, because I was first introduced to him through the insipid comments he leaves. I just assumed that his articles were equally as stupid. I wonder how many readers he has lost due to his unhinged comments.
He really does have some great writing. Carefully reasoned, beautifully written. It's a huge disappointment to see the same guy putting out comments that are basically toddler tantrums.