The explanation may be simple. The pro-Palestinian advocates who don't condemn Hamas can't do so because they believe any Jewish presence in the Middle East is illegitimate and morally wrong. The conflict is bad, but its root cause (maybe sole cause) is that the Jews are "on Arab/Palestinian land". Therefore, any actions that advance the expulsion, flight, or death of the Jews in the region (or, in the alternative, the elimination of Jewish political power) are morally good, since they help remove the cause of conflict and thereby everyone's suffering, and achieve the morally correct state of affairs (i.e., no Jewish state). It's not really pro-Hamas or anti-Hamas, it's just anti-Israel. What Hamas does or doesn't do isn't relevant.
And, whatever suffering happens to Palestinians en route to the final resolution is also not relevant (since it neither advances nor slows the real work, getting rid of the Jews and/or their state), or simply part of the price that must be paid.
I recall a debate from roughly a year ago (Konstantin Kisin moderating between Brianna Joy Gray vs Mike Moynihan). Ms. Gray was asked, how should Israel have responded to the Oct 7 attacks? And her reply was, allow all Palestinian refugees to return to Israel.
You probably shouldn't have a substack, then, because if that's genuinely true there are literally millions of people more suitable for the task of offering insight on this complex issue.
If you can't steelman your opponents' view- even where it is held by huge swathes of humanity, and many very intelligent, thoughtful, and informed people- you are not intellectually capable of discussing the issue in question in a value-adding way. Or: if the above is "the most charity you could muster", you are actively doing harm by talking about this.
So, to be clear (and before I answer the question), you're sincerely disputing the claim that many intelligent, thoughtful and informed people are pro-Palestine?
It depends on what you mean by pro-Palestine. The genuine exemplar I always herald is Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, and people like him are extremely rare. Too many other activists are either explicitly in favor of Hamas or strategically ambiguous, and I don't consider those people pro-Palestine. Happy to be proven wrong.
> The genuine exemplar I always herald is Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, and people like him are extremely rare.
Well I think you're wrong about that, and by your admission I have much more knowledge here than you do, having successfully conversed with many.
'In favour of Hamas' is very imprecise, but as I mentioned in my other comment, the proportion of US adults who are in favour of Hamas' murderous actions- which presumably you would agree is the objectionable part- is around 5%, or roughly the Lizardman constant, which as a SSC fan you may remember seems to be about the floor for a poll question, and therefore representative of anywhere from 1 in 20 to a truly negligible proportion, given the apparent rate of false positives for even the most obviously insane views.
It is just demonstrably not an important constituency, then, and your focus on those outrage-fomenting minority elements is very misleading, perhaps not least to yourself. In short, your claim that reasonable, nuance-appreciating pro-Palestinians are "extremely rare" is simply wrong, and you'd be better served by engaging with them, rather than fantasising in this echo chamber, encouraging your not inconsiderable readership to cower from the Hamas-loving boogeymen lurking in every nook and cranny of their ideological opposition.
This is what I say. It isn’t pro-anything. Just anti-Israel. That’s why they get mad if you bring up inconvenient facts like that Palestinians are protesting against Hamas and getting killed, Hamas stealing the aid, etc. Anything that detracts from “Israel bad” makes them have a tantrum.
I don't know anyone who would get mad if you brought those facts up. I spend a lot of time in pro-Palestinian circles, and I've never met anyone who wasn't well aware of those super basic background facts.
Are you sure your time wouldn't be better spent engaging with them, rather than straw-manning in little internet echo chambers based on seemingly imaginary interactions?
Honestly, I think it's not even necessarily that the "Jewish" presence in the middle east is illegitimate; it's that they identify Israel with "western," "white," "capitalist," "first world," "technological," "advanced," - ie with the recognizable world they belong to - and their peculiar combination of narcissism and pathological altruism insists that these traits are the only agentic things in the world, and thus responsible for all the world's ills. It's why "pro-palestinian" stances just about always line up with anticapitalism, radical race/queer politics, radical environmentalism, etc.
"The explanation may be simple. The pro-Palestinian advocates who don't condemn Hamas can't do so because they believe any Jewish presence in the Middle East is illegitimate and morally wrong."
It is dizzying the numbers of ways this thesis fails to make sense.
First, and most obviously, nothing about believing (or recognizing) "any Jewish presence in the Middle East" as "illegitimate and morally wrong" prevents one from condemning Hamas. There's no contradiction there.
Secondly, literally no one argues that "any Jewish presence in the Middle East is illegitimate and morally wrong." There are Jews in the UAE, in Iran, in Lebanon. No one is saying their presence is illegitimate. Zionism is illegitimate. That's utterly different.
Thirdly, innumerable Pro-Palestinian activists and organizations have condemned Hamas innumerable times. The issue for pro-genocide polemicists, like you and Yassine, is you want the conversation to be nothing other than how bad Hamas is, over and over again. Israel burns disabled children alive? Hamas is bad. Israel starves children to death? Hamas is bad. Zionist rape gangs violate a helpless prisoner with a metal baton until his intestines rupture? Nothing else they can do, because Hamas is bad!
Here is a reply. Hamas is the only one that would intentionally burn disabled children alive. This is an obvious fact that even single-celled organisms are aware of. Nonetheless, both can be bad! I'm willing to admit that Israel is probably committing war crimes in Gaza.
And saying that "innumerable Pro-Palestinian activists and organizations have condemned Hamas innumerable times" is such a wonderful lie because it is so blatantly unbelievable. It is insanely easy for anyone to go to the websites of pro-Palestinian organizations and find blatantly pro-Hamas and pro-October 7th content. You can't hide that from us.
Lastly, Zionism is the belief that Jews have the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. So when you say it's illegitimate, you are just showing your antisemitism. And if you think that Jews would be allowed to stay if Israel were destroyed, then you are just a useful idiot for Hamas.
You are absolutely correct -- you can't be pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas too. But, the average "pro-Palestinian" (sneer quotes very much intended) Western ignoramus could care less about the Palestinian people. The Palestinians are just a stalking horse and cannon fodder for some greater demented fantasy, be it "a glorious Islamist caliphate" or "a grand socialist utopia" or "death to the West" or simply "the JJJOOOOSSS. The JJJOOOOSSS." That is why they cannot forthrightly oppose Hamas, because they see Hamas as helping to achieve that ultimate goal.
Not sure this is quite right. The western pro-Palestinian crowd are genuinely invested in the welfare of the Palestinians, but they are naive about Hamas and other geopolitical factors in the Middle East.
Arabs, on the other hand, are very clear-eyed about the people of Gaza being martyrs for their causes of Arab nationalism and anti-Zionism.
"The western pro-Palestinian crowd are genuinely invested in the welfare of the Palestinians, but they are naive about Hamas and other geopolitical factors in the Middle East."
Try Jack's Razor: never attribute to stupidity or malice that which is adequately explained by normative disagreement.
I'm not stupid, nor malicious; I simply disagree with you about a moral question. Are you really incapable of understanding that? Do you psychologically *need* for your opponents to be stupid and/or wicked, else you have to engage with them and actually *think* about the issue?
I think you're misunderstanding Hamid (or I'm misunderstanding you). I think he's saying that applying a blanket "pro-Hamas" to anyone who says "I'm pro-Palestinian" is anti-Palestinian. To make it really clear, if someone writes "I care about Palestinians" and you copy-edit that to "I support Hamas and all its tactics" then that is a smear job and is anti-Palestinian. That's all he's saying, I believe.
And I agree with you that there is a notable paucity of people taking pains to condemn Hamas while supporting Palestinians. But I will do it: "I support Palestinians who are opposed to terrorism, bombing, tunnel-building, Jew-killing, hostage-taking, opportunistic looting, and raping of helpless girls at a music festival. If you are a moral and decent Palestinian who is opposed to Hamas and its horrific tactics, then I 100% support you."
The truly heart-breaking this is this: it's hard to be a Palestinian like the above if you grow up in Gaza or the West Bank: you are fed Jew-hatred from birth, and the retaliatory strikes from Israel just reinforce that hatred. It's so fucking tragic I choke up thinking about it...
Shadi Hamid makes a double dishonest conflation in his comparison: the equivalent of 'Palestinian' is not 'Jew', it is 'Israeli', and the equivalent of 'pro-Palestinian' is 'pro-Israeli' or 'Zionist'. Hamid has to make this trick because even he can't pretend that so-called pro-Palestinians don't loudly call all Israelis and pro-Israelis "genocide supporters"
What I find interesting here because I can remember the 1990s is that there used to be a divide in US politics, or certainly in Irish American politics, between those who supported Irish Republicans who were willing to execute British soldiers and police who were occupying their country provided they didn't kill civilians, and those Irish Republicans who were straight up terrorists with no discrimination. The distinction is more propaganda than fact. But the IRA did play to American audiences and American support for the IRA did wax and wane along with perceptions that they were fighting a dirty war. I find it curious that virtually no one in the US today looks at Hamas in these terms and Hamas has certainly never made any attempt to stop indiscriminate attacks.
I do not jump to the immediate conclusion that someone who is Pro-Palestinian is Pro-Hamas. I know a Palestinian who believes (fervently) that Hamas "only wants peace and independence for Palestinians" and while I know she's wrong: she's had family bombed by Israel. Emotions are high, I'm not slamming her.
However, I will say that the attitude I see from Palestinian activists are best described by a fascinating scene from the movie Munich. In the scene the main character, Avner, meets a member of the PLO, Ali. In it Ali makes it painstakingly clear that he, and the PLO: do not care about the 'Left' and its movement. They do not care about the global economic revolution. They "want to be nations" as he tells Avner. He dismisses the socialists because "they have a home to go back to" while he does not. He tells Avner that he absolutely, and unequivocally, wants Palestine, even the devastated ruin that it is, for that reason.
When Avner points out that they've lost, and can't win: he tells Avner that they will have a lot of children and eventually they'll win. They don't care what the cost is, they want their homeland and they're prepared to pay any price, bear any burden, in the name of Palestine.
That's the attitude the Palestinian activists have: we are right, we will pay any price, and that's it. There is no compromise.
In other words, they are anti-Israel more than they are “pro-Palestinian.” Because they only care about dead Palestinians if Israel kills them, not Hamas. They actually actively try to distract from that.
That pro-Hamas often lies at the heart of "pro-Palestinian." (Not always the case, of course. But often.) Your examples of what has been actually written about Yahya and about "by any means necessary" were specifically clarifying. I also feel like I've been ignoring this in my own social circle, perhaps willfully at times to avoid messy confrontations,. But unconsciously as well, because my mind resists the idea that my friends and colleagues actually support a terrorist organization.
I suppose I will continue to find some common ground on this topic with my social circle due to my own free speech maximalism - e.g. I am also against Khalil's deportation. Although I have a sinking feeling my reasons for being against his deportation are not theirs - I don't hear a lot of talk about free speech.
I think it's utterly preposterous for Shadi to make the claim that "Nearly all mainstream pro-Palestinian voices take care to distinguish between Israel and Jews."
Has he been paying attention at all the past 18 months?
Are all the pro-Pal demonstrations against Jewish schools, businesses, and synagogues distinguishing between Israel and Jews?
Are the Pro-Pal demonstrations with Nazi/Hitler imagery distinguishing between Israel and Jews?
Are the attackers in Amsterdam who discussed going on "a Jew hunt" distinguishing between Israel and Jews?
I think that campus protesters idolizing Hamas is a sad if expected consequence of the culture wars.
The reasonable demands (i.e. "let food trucks into Gaza instead of starving them", "consider civilian deaths when bombing the shit out of Hamas") are not controversial. This means that they are not very competitive memes in a marketplace which thrives on controversy.
Holding up a sign "Don't starve Gaza" will gain you nothing personally (even if you don't explicitly amend "also, fuck Hamas"). It will not signal that you are a true believer. It is not edgy. It will not get you laid, because young people on campuses will not find opinions their parents might voice over the breakfast table sexy.
Demanding a Palestine from the river to the sea and idolizing Hamas (which is best done from the safety of a Western country, far out of their reach) is controversial. It has signaling value, it is brave. It will possibly get you laid.
Hold a minute, is the purpose of a protest to signal group membership and get laid, you ask me? Following [1], I would argue that it is -- behaviors which on the surface appear altruistic often have quite selfish roots if you dig deeper.
Relevant Scott Alexander [2]:
> Everybody hates rape just like everybody hates factory farming. “Rape culture” doesn’t mean most people like rape, it means most people ignore it. That means feminists face the same double-bind that PETA does.
> First, they can respond to rape in a restrained and responsible way, in which case everyone will be against it and nobody will talk about it.
> Second, they can respond to rape in an outrageous and highly controversial way, in which case everybody will talk about it but it will autocatalyze an opposition of people who hate feminists and obsessively try to prove that as many rape allegations as possible are false.
Of course, the Israel-Palestine conflict is also a great example of what Scott labels a toxoplasma meme in [2] in that exists in two forms -- one being Palestine violence, the other being Israeli violence. The key observation here is that while on the surface level, Hamas and the Israeli right are opponents, on a deeper level, they need each other. Without Israeli settlers in the West bank and atrocities from Israel, Palestinians might think that peaceful coexistence is an option. And without rocket attacks and atrocities from Hamas, the Israelis might vote for a government who has other priorities than being tough on the Palestinians. The toxoplasma has its own goals, and does not care about the welfare of either of its host species.
I just find the comparison between Jews:Israel and pro-Hamas:pro-Palestine to be so weird! The second is two political ideologies, which obviously have some level of overlap and some level of disagreement. The first is conflating a local ethnic group and a foreign country that most members have this ethnicity have no direct ties to; generally considered bad form in a democracy. Given that Shadi Hamid is not (presumably) eternally grateful for not being made to face the consequences of ISIS’s actions as a Muslim, it’s weird he seems to be expecting pats on the back for doing the same thing to Jews.
I'm continually shocked by the reticence of those that consider themselves left wing to acknowledge the basic moral primitive that murdering people is generally bad.
Although many people in it are acting in good faith, I've recently had a split with the left in my country over this fact. Too many people who would happily claim that they're leftists because they value human dignity are perfectly happy to see someone murdered because some abstract group they're a member of is on the "wrong" side of a world conflict ("wrong" scarequoted, not because I believe that some militaries aren't aggressors in particular conflicts, but because which side you believe is in the wrong is often arbitrary. Not that it matters either way, even if correct guilt by ethnic association is disgusting.)
I've come away from this and the Ukraine conflict jaded about many on the left's humanity, but happy to see that despite my political disagreements, plenty of people on the right value human life just as much. In the end, I no longer believe there's any real association between political beliefs and moral backbone.
From reading some of your posts, I'm confident that in many ways we have very different political beliefs (although I do appreciate your stanning of Ayn Rand, even if I think their books are rubbish), but I'm glad to see someone who will point out anti-humanistic garbage.
Re: "Hamas' action led to the Gaza war in which a lot of Gazans died, therefore Hamas is bad for the Palestinian people", I mostly agree with this, but I think a lot of people are primed to reject this framing, because they don't think an insurgency should be held responsible for the crimes a state military commits to root them out.
There's some tribalism at play here, but it's also a sensible position from a game theory perspective: if you commit to accepting moral responsibility for anyone the colonial overlords kill trying to stop you, then all the colonial overlords need to do is threaten to murder a lot of people in your name and you have no choice but to stop.
The general mindset then is that any amount of fatalities is acceptable to get out from under the boot of a tyrant, because if you're not willing to bite that bullet, the tyrant can slowly tighten the noose and still kill everyone later.
Now in practice I think Hamas royally fucked the Palestinian people over by doing October 7, but I think the above reasoning explains why pro-Palestinian people who have trouble admitting that fact. And I think that explanation makes more sense than the idea of most western pro-Palestinians being so fanatically anti-Zionist that they consider thousands of Palestinians deaths a worthy trade-off for getting to kill a few hundred jews.
I agree to some extent, and allow me to get technical about it. There's basically an unavoidable baseline level of death and destruction in any armed conflict, and I think it's reasonable to pin the blame for all the baseline casualties on the initiator of the conflict. For any casualties above the baseline which are indeed avoidable, blame should be pinned on whoever failed to avoid those casualties.
Hamas's largest construction project has been the network of tunnels they use exclusively for military purposes. They have explicitly refused to allow Palestinian civilians to seek shelter within these tunnels, and their grand unusual strategy has been to maximize civilian casualties on their side. All of that sets a really high casualties baseline.
As far as I can tell, except for some very rare exceptions and small contingents of oppositional voices, there is very little evidence to support the claim that the vast majority of Palestinians are not indeed supportive of Hamas. Numerous polls over the past years show they are.
(Yes, I know that it is extremely difficult for Pals to speak out against Hamas; that's a fair point. But the fact remains that there is no evidence to support Shadi's implication that they *aren't* supportive of Hamas.)
The thing about the Khalil stuff was that there was a perfectly lucid defence of him: even total scumbags have human rights and deserve due process. But it wasn't a defence I heard all too much - certainly not from the left, only from centrist commentators like Andrew Sullivan.
Very few people across the political spectrum would be comfortable with that defense. The left would never deign to label Khalil a scumbag, and the right isn't principled on issues of free speech or due process.
The explanation may be simple. The pro-Palestinian advocates who don't condemn Hamas can't do so because they believe any Jewish presence in the Middle East is illegitimate and morally wrong. The conflict is bad, but its root cause (maybe sole cause) is that the Jews are "on Arab/Palestinian land". Therefore, any actions that advance the expulsion, flight, or death of the Jews in the region (or, in the alternative, the elimination of Jewish political power) are morally good, since they help remove the cause of conflict and thereby everyone's suffering, and achieve the morally correct state of affairs (i.e., no Jewish state). It's not really pro-Hamas or anti-Hamas, it's just anti-Israel. What Hamas does or doesn't do isn't relevant.
And, whatever suffering happens to Palestinians en route to the final resolution is also not relevant (since it neither advances nor slows the real work, getting rid of the Jews and/or their state), or simply part of the price that must be paid.
I recall a debate from roughly a year ago (Konstantin Kisin moderating between Brianna Joy Gray vs Mike Moynihan). Ms. Gray was asked, how should Israel have responded to the Oct 7 attacks? And her reply was, allow all Palestinian refugees to return to Israel.
I think this is an excellent explanation, and likely the most charity I could muster.
You probably shouldn't have a substack, then, because if that's genuinely true there are literally millions of people more suitable for the task of offering insight on this complex issue.
If you can't steelman your opponents' view- even where it is held by huge swathes of humanity, and many very intelligent, thoughtful, and informed people- you are not intellectually capable of discussing the issue in question in a value-adding way. Or: if the above is "the most charity you could muster", you are actively doing harm by talking about this.
> "many very intelligent, thoughtful, and informed people"
Like who? I'm always down to learn.
So, to be clear (and before I answer the question), you're sincerely disputing the claim that many intelligent, thoughtful and informed people are pro-Palestine?
It depends on what you mean by pro-Palestine. The genuine exemplar I always herald is Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, and people like him are extremely rare. Too many other activists are either explicitly in favor of Hamas or strategically ambiguous, and I don't consider those people pro-Palestine. Happy to be proven wrong.
> The genuine exemplar I always herald is Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, and people like him are extremely rare.
Well I think you're wrong about that, and by your admission I have much more knowledge here than you do, having successfully conversed with many.
'In favour of Hamas' is very imprecise, but as I mentioned in my other comment, the proportion of US adults who are in favour of Hamas' murderous actions- which presumably you would agree is the objectionable part- is around 5%, or roughly the Lizardman constant, which as a SSC fan you may remember seems to be about the floor for a poll question, and therefore representative of anywhere from 1 in 20 to a truly negligible proportion, given the apparent rate of false positives for even the most obviously insane views.
It is just demonstrably not an important constituency, then, and your focus on those outrage-fomenting minority elements is very misleading, perhaps not least to yourself. In short, your claim that reasonable, nuance-appreciating pro-Palestinians are "extremely rare" is simply wrong, and you'd be better served by engaging with them, rather than fantasising in this echo chamber, encouraging your not inconsiderable readership to cower from the Hamas-loving boogeymen lurking in every nook and cranny of their ideological opposition.
This is what I say. It isn’t pro-anything. Just anti-Israel. That’s why they get mad if you bring up inconvenient facts like that Palestinians are protesting against Hamas and getting killed, Hamas stealing the aid, etc. Anything that detracts from “Israel bad” makes them have a tantrum.
I don't know anyone who would get mad if you brought those facts up. I spend a lot of time in pro-Palestinian circles, and I've never met anyone who wasn't well aware of those super basic background facts.
Are you sure your time wouldn't be better spent engaging with them, rather than straw-manning in little internet echo chambers based on seemingly imaginary interactions?
Honestly, I think it's not even necessarily that the "Jewish" presence in the middle east is illegitimate; it's that they identify Israel with "western," "white," "capitalist," "first world," "technological," "advanced," - ie with the recognizable world they belong to - and their peculiar combination of narcissism and pathological altruism insists that these traits are the only agentic things in the world, and thus responsible for all the world's ills. It's why "pro-palestinian" stances just about always line up with anticapitalism, radical race/queer politics, radical environmentalism, etc.
Western leftists sure but this doesn’t describe the Palestinians themselves, most of whom subscribe to antisemitic nationalist religious fanaticism.
"The explanation may be simple. The pro-Palestinian advocates who don't condemn Hamas can't do so because they believe any Jewish presence in the Middle East is illegitimate and morally wrong."
It is dizzying the numbers of ways this thesis fails to make sense.
First, and most obviously, nothing about believing (or recognizing) "any Jewish presence in the Middle East" as "illegitimate and morally wrong" prevents one from condemning Hamas. There's no contradiction there.
Secondly, literally no one argues that "any Jewish presence in the Middle East is illegitimate and morally wrong." There are Jews in the UAE, in Iran, in Lebanon. No one is saying their presence is illegitimate. Zionism is illegitimate. That's utterly different.
Thirdly, innumerable Pro-Palestinian activists and organizations have condemned Hamas innumerable times. The issue for pro-genocide polemicists, like you and Yassine, is you want the conversation to be nothing other than how bad Hamas is, over and over again. Israel burns disabled children alive? Hamas is bad. Israel starves children to death? Hamas is bad. Zionist rape gangs violate a helpless prisoner with a metal baton until his intestines rupture? Nothing else they can do, because Hamas is bad!
Very telling that you received no reply to this! Your final paragraph has them completely rumbled.
Here is a reply. Hamas is the only one that would intentionally burn disabled children alive. This is an obvious fact that even single-celled organisms are aware of. Nonetheless, both can be bad! I'm willing to admit that Israel is probably committing war crimes in Gaza.
And saying that "innumerable Pro-Palestinian activists and organizations have condemned Hamas innumerable times" is such a wonderful lie because it is so blatantly unbelievable. It is insanely easy for anyone to go to the websites of pro-Palestinian organizations and find blatantly pro-Hamas and pro-October 7th content. You can't hide that from us.
Lastly, Zionism is the belief that Jews have the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. So when you say it's illegitimate, you are just showing your antisemitism. And if you think that Jews would be allowed to stay if Israel were destroyed, then you are just a useful idiot for Hamas.
You are absolutely correct -- you can't be pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas too. But, the average "pro-Palestinian" (sneer quotes very much intended) Western ignoramus could care less about the Palestinian people. The Palestinians are just a stalking horse and cannon fodder for some greater demented fantasy, be it "a glorious Islamist caliphate" or "a grand socialist utopia" or "death to the West" or simply "the JJJOOOOSSS. The JJJOOOOSSS." That is why they cannot forthrightly oppose Hamas, because they see Hamas as helping to achieve that ultimate goal.
Not sure this is quite right. The western pro-Palestinian crowd are genuinely invested in the welfare of the Palestinians, but they are naive about Hamas and other geopolitical factors in the Middle East.
Arabs, on the other hand, are very clear-eyed about the people of Gaza being martyrs for their causes of Arab nationalism and anti-Zionism.
"The western pro-Palestinian crowd are genuinely invested in the welfare of the Palestinians, but they are naive about Hamas and other geopolitical factors in the Middle East."
Hanlon's Razor, etc. etc.
Try Jack's Razor: never attribute to stupidity or malice that which is adequately explained by normative disagreement.
I'm not stupid, nor malicious; I simply disagree with you about a moral question. Are you really incapable of understanding that? Do you psychologically *need* for your opponents to be stupid and/or wicked, else you have to engage with them and actually *think* about the issue?
I think you're misunderstanding Hamid (or I'm misunderstanding you). I think he's saying that applying a blanket "pro-Hamas" to anyone who says "I'm pro-Palestinian" is anti-Palestinian. To make it really clear, if someone writes "I care about Palestinians" and you copy-edit that to "I support Hamas and all its tactics" then that is a smear job and is anti-Palestinian. That's all he's saying, I believe.
And I agree with you that there is a notable paucity of people taking pains to condemn Hamas while supporting Palestinians. But I will do it: "I support Palestinians who are opposed to terrorism, bombing, tunnel-building, Jew-killing, hostage-taking, opportunistic looting, and raping of helpless girls at a music festival. If you are a moral and decent Palestinian who is opposed to Hamas and its horrific tactics, then I 100% support you."
The truly heart-breaking this is this: it's hard to be a Palestinian like the above if you grow up in Gaza or the West Bank: you are fed Jew-hatred from birth, and the retaliatory strikes from Israel just reinforce that hatred. It's so fucking tragic I choke up thinking about it...
Shadi Hamid makes a double dishonest conflation in his comparison: the equivalent of 'Palestinian' is not 'Jew', it is 'Israeli', and the equivalent of 'pro-Palestinian' is 'pro-Israeli' or 'Zionist'. Hamid has to make this trick because even he can't pretend that so-called pro-Palestinians don't loudly call all Israelis and pro-Israelis "genocide supporters"
What I find interesting here because I can remember the 1990s is that there used to be a divide in US politics, or certainly in Irish American politics, between those who supported Irish Republicans who were willing to execute British soldiers and police who were occupying their country provided they didn't kill civilians, and those Irish Republicans who were straight up terrorists with no discrimination. The distinction is more propaganda than fact. But the IRA did play to American audiences and American support for the IRA did wax and wane along with perceptions that they were fighting a dirty war. I find it curious that virtually no one in the US today looks at Hamas in these terms and Hamas has certainly never made any attempt to stop indiscriminate attacks.
I do not jump to the immediate conclusion that someone who is Pro-Palestinian is Pro-Hamas. I know a Palestinian who believes (fervently) that Hamas "only wants peace and independence for Palestinians" and while I know she's wrong: she's had family bombed by Israel. Emotions are high, I'm not slamming her.
However, I will say that the attitude I see from Palestinian activists are best described by a fascinating scene from the movie Munich. In the scene the main character, Avner, meets a member of the PLO, Ali. In it Ali makes it painstakingly clear that he, and the PLO: do not care about the 'Left' and its movement. They do not care about the global economic revolution. They "want to be nations" as he tells Avner. He dismisses the socialists because "they have a home to go back to" while he does not. He tells Avner that he absolutely, and unequivocally, wants Palestine, even the devastated ruin that it is, for that reason.
When Avner points out that they've lost, and can't win: he tells Avner that they will have a lot of children and eventually they'll win. They don't care what the cost is, they want their homeland and they're prepared to pay any price, bear any burden, in the name of Palestine.
That's the attitude the Palestinian activists have: we are right, we will pay any price, and that's it. There is no compromise.
In other words, they are anti-Israel more than they are “pro-Palestinian.” Because they only care about dead Palestinians if Israel kills them, not Hamas. They actually actively try to distract from that.
Is the movie any good? I've been meaning to check it out.
Yes it's really good, although bear in mind that a lot of historical details are fudged.
Yes
This was clarifying. Thank you!
Thanks, what did it clarify to you?
That pro-Hamas often lies at the heart of "pro-Palestinian." (Not always the case, of course. But often.) Your examples of what has been actually written about Yahya and about "by any means necessary" were specifically clarifying. I also feel like I've been ignoring this in my own social circle, perhaps willfully at times to avoid messy confrontations,. But unconsciously as well, because my mind resists the idea that my friends and colleagues actually support a terrorist organization.
I suppose I will continue to find some common ground on this topic with my social circle due to my own free speech maximalism - e.g. I am also against Khalil's deportation. Although I have a sinking feeling my reasons for being against his deportation are not theirs - I don't hear a lot of talk about free speech.
I think it's utterly preposterous for Shadi to make the claim that "Nearly all mainstream pro-Palestinian voices take care to distinguish between Israel and Jews."
Has he been paying attention at all the past 18 months?
Are all the pro-Pal demonstrations against Jewish schools, businesses, and synagogues distinguishing between Israel and Jews?
Are the Pro-Pal demonstrations with Nazi/Hitler imagery distinguishing between Israel and Jews?
Are the attackers in Amsterdam who discussed going on "a Jew hunt" distinguishing between Israel and Jews?
Are these protestors calling for people to "kill a Jew" (https://x.com/i/status/1842950803079786830) distinguishing between Israel and Jews?
Are the various attacks on random Jews in cities around the world distinguishing between Israel and Jews?
No mainstream Scotsman
it's not easy for someone to say they like dead jews, so they come up with other ways.
I think that campus protesters idolizing Hamas is a sad if expected consequence of the culture wars.
The reasonable demands (i.e. "let food trucks into Gaza instead of starving them", "consider civilian deaths when bombing the shit out of Hamas") are not controversial. This means that they are not very competitive memes in a marketplace which thrives on controversy.
Holding up a sign "Don't starve Gaza" will gain you nothing personally (even if you don't explicitly amend "also, fuck Hamas"). It will not signal that you are a true believer. It is not edgy. It will not get you laid, because young people on campuses will not find opinions their parents might voice over the breakfast table sexy.
Demanding a Palestine from the river to the sea and idolizing Hamas (which is best done from the safety of a Western country, far out of their reach) is controversial. It has signaling value, it is brave. It will possibly get you laid.
Hold a minute, is the purpose of a protest to signal group membership and get laid, you ask me? Following [1], I would argue that it is -- behaviors which on the surface appear altruistic often have quite selfish roots if you dig deeper.
Relevant Scott Alexander [2]:
> Everybody hates rape just like everybody hates factory farming. “Rape culture” doesn’t mean most people like rape, it means most people ignore it. That means feminists face the same double-bind that PETA does.
> First, they can respond to rape in a restrained and responsible way, in which case everyone will be against it and nobody will talk about it.
> Second, they can respond to rape in an outrageous and highly controversial way, in which case everybody will talk about it but it will autocatalyze an opposition of people who hate feminists and obsessively try to prove that as many rape allegations as possible are false.
Of course, the Israel-Palestine conflict is also a great example of what Scott labels a toxoplasma meme in [2] in that exists in two forms -- one being Palestine violence, the other being Israeli violence. The key observation here is that while on the surface level, Hamas and the Israeli right are opponents, on a deeper level, they need each other. Without Israeli settlers in the West bank and atrocities from Israel, Palestinians might think that peaceful coexistence is an option. And without rocket attacks and atrocities from Hamas, the Israelis might vote for a government who has other priorities than being tough on the Palestinians. The toxoplasma has its own goals, and does not care about the welfare of either of its host species.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elephant_in_the_Brain
[2] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/
I just find the comparison between Jews:Israel and pro-Hamas:pro-Palestine to be so weird! The second is two political ideologies, which obviously have some level of overlap and some level of disagreement. The first is conflating a local ethnic group and a foreign country that most members have this ethnicity have no direct ties to; generally considered bad form in a democracy. Given that Shadi Hamid is not (presumably) eternally grateful for not being made to face the consequences of ISIS’s actions as a Muslim, it’s weird he seems to be expecting pats on the back for doing the same thing to Jews.
I'm continually shocked by the reticence of those that consider themselves left wing to acknowledge the basic moral primitive that murdering people is generally bad.
Although many people in it are acting in good faith, I've recently had a split with the left in my country over this fact. Too many people who would happily claim that they're leftists because they value human dignity are perfectly happy to see someone murdered because some abstract group they're a member of is on the "wrong" side of a world conflict ("wrong" scarequoted, not because I believe that some militaries aren't aggressors in particular conflicts, but because which side you believe is in the wrong is often arbitrary. Not that it matters either way, even if correct guilt by ethnic association is disgusting.)
I've come away from this and the Ukraine conflict jaded about many on the left's humanity, but happy to see that despite my political disagreements, plenty of people on the right value human life just as much. In the end, I no longer believe there's any real association between political beliefs and moral backbone.
From reading some of your posts, I'm confident that in many ways we have very different political beliefs (although I do appreciate your stanning of Ayn Rand, even if I think their books are rubbish), but I'm glad to see someone who will point out anti-humanistic garbage.
Re: "Hamas' action led to the Gaza war in which a lot of Gazans died, therefore Hamas is bad for the Palestinian people", I mostly agree with this, but I think a lot of people are primed to reject this framing, because they don't think an insurgency should be held responsible for the crimes a state military commits to root them out.
There's some tribalism at play here, but it's also a sensible position from a game theory perspective: if you commit to accepting moral responsibility for anyone the colonial overlords kill trying to stop you, then all the colonial overlords need to do is threaten to murder a lot of people in your name and you have no choice but to stop.
The general mindset then is that any amount of fatalities is acceptable to get out from under the boot of a tyrant, because if you're not willing to bite that bullet, the tyrant can slowly tighten the noose and still kill everyone later.
Now in practice I think Hamas royally fucked the Palestinian people over by doing October 7, but I think the above reasoning explains why pro-Palestinian people who have trouble admitting that fact. And I think that explanation makes more sense than the idea of most western pro-Palestinians being so fanatically anti-Zionist that they consider thousands of Palestinians deaths a worthy trade-off for getting to kill a few hundred jews.
I agree to some extent, and allow me to get technical about it. There's basically an unavoidable baseline level of death and destruction in any armed conflict, and I think it's reasonable to pin the blame for all the baseline casualties on the initiator of the conflict. For any casualties above the baseline which are indeed avoidable, blame should be pinned on whoever failed to avoid those casualties.
Hamas's largest construction project has been the network of tunnels they use exclusively for military purposes. They have explicitly refused to allow Palestinian civilians to seek shelter within these tunnels, and their grand unusual strategy has been to maximize civilian casualties on their side. All of that sets a really high casualties baseline.
Thank you for this post!
As far as I can tell, except for some very rare exceptions and small contingents of oppositional voices, there is very little evidence to support the claim that the vast majority of Palestinians are not indeed supportive of Hamas. Numerous polls over the past years show they are.
(Yes, I know that it is extremely difficult for Pals to speak out against Hamas; that's a fair point. But the fact remains that there is no evidence to support Shadi's implication that they *aren't* supportive of Hamas.)
The thing about the Khalil stuff was that there was a perfectly lucid defence of him: even total scumbags have human rights and deserve due process. But it wasn't a defence I heard all too much - certainly not from the left, only from centrist commentators like Andrew Sullivan.
Very few people across the political spectrum would be comfortable with that defense. The left would never deign to label Khalil a scumbag, and the right isn't principled on issues of free speech or due process.