Something is very wrong in the israeli left. They have no power.
> The leader of Israel’s center-left Labor Party says something has gone “very wrong” with the political left around the world, with supposed progressives now aligning themselves with Islamist militants who oppose the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people.
> Mass protests have been held in cities across the EU and U.S. calling for an immediate cease-fire, with many using the slogan “from the river to the sea,” regarded by many Jews and Israelis as a call for the annihilation of the state of Israel but by Palestinians and their supporters as a non-violent rallying cry against the occupation.
> At the protests and on university campuses, some protestors describing themselves as left-wing have expressed support for Hamas — proscribed as a terror organization by the U.S., EU and U.K. Tensions in the left-wing camp have already boiled over in France and Britain. The far-left France Unbowed party led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, for example, avoids describing Hamas as terrorists and was the only major political party not to attend a rally against rising antisemitism last weekend. Meanwhile, Keir Starmer, the U.K. Labour Party leader, has been pummelled by the left of his party for refusing to call for a cease-fire.
> “I think something very bad is happening on the left,” Labor leader Merav Michaeli told POLITICO in an interview. “It became very, very clear in this attack that people who consider themselves to be democratic, progressive, are supporting a totalitarian terror regime that oppresses women [and] the LGBTQ+ community,” she said on the fringes of an international meeting of Socialist and social democrat parties in Spain. “I fail to see how shouting jihad and calling for a mass murder of Jews is pro-Palestinian,” she added. “It’s important for me to emphasize to them that when you do not very strongly go against Hamas, and what it does in Gaza including to its own people, you are complicit.” “The more you go to the left, the more there’s a big mix-up. Something went very wrong on the way,” Michaeli told POLITICO, adding that Israel has some “very strong allies” on the center-left.
> Michaeli, a transport minister in the previous Israeli government, is a long-time critic of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is leading a far-right coalition and formed a war cabinet with centrist Benny Gantz after October 7. Michaeli called during the interview for Netanyahu to “go now.” But she also sought to focus attention on the trauma suffered by Israeli society in the wake of the October 7 attacks. “When I’m speaking to people outside of Israel, then they need to understand that even the biggest peace activists and even the biggest believers in the two state solutions are now under a horrible attack,” she said.
> Labor and its antecedent political movements dominated Israeli politics for some 30 years after the birth of the nation in 1948, with members including such prominent politicians as Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak. But as Israel shifted to the right, Labor was sidelined as a political force, with now only four members – including Michaeli herself — in the 120-seat Knesset. “The way to rebuild Israel is to take it back,” she said, before correcting herself: “It’s not even back, it’s to put it on the Zionist democratic, liberal path.” Michaeli explained that this means pushing for a two-state solution as outlined under the Oslo accords that Rabin, her predecessor as Labor Party leader, negotiated in the 1990s.
> At the meeting in Spain, calls by some national parties from countries such as France, Ireland and Belgium for a cease-fire in Gaza divided delegates and did not make it into the final agreed text. The left more broadly has been rocked by divisions over how to respond to the war in Gaza. Michaeli, whose party is a mere observer to the Party of European Socialists, could not directly negotiate the final text that was agreed upon in Málaga. But she said: “[Calling for a] cease-fire now is giving permission to Hamas to continue rearming itself, continue stealing food, water, medicine and fuel from its own people and yes, rebasing itself.” She suggested that calls for a cease-fire were being influenced by “PR” for Hamas.
> She put the blame for thousands of civilian deaths in Gaza on Hamas, rather than on the Israeli army, whose actions she defended. “They are dying because Hamas is using them as human shields, because they have based everything from equipment to missiles to their headquarters in the midst of the most civilian functions there are,” Michaeli said. She criticized what she perceived as a lack of support among EU politicians to push for the release of some 240 hostages kidnapped by Hamas. “I would have loved to hear more about that than just a mention, at least as much as they’re talking about the humanitarian needs in Gaza,” she said.
It’s something referred to ’empathy,’ which many humans feel when they know that individuals not connected to these hyper-nationalist sprees (much like Hamas) are affected by their blatant disregard for innocent, non-combatant lives.
If you have to ask, “Why aren’t you applauding our killing five figures of civilians?,” maybe you’re lost.
France here, and imo, she’s right.
Like… Freaking right.
A few years ago college leftists were protesting against Trump supporter who were chanting “Jews shall not replace us.” And now they are ripping down posters of Jews captured by Hamas.
Reminds me of the liberal transgender art professor that recently got flak for posting Jewish hate publicly online, you know because Palistine is such a LGBT friendly place.
The horseshoe theory. Extremists on the far left and far right are more alike than anyone in the middle of the political spectrum.
Copy-paste from a comment I made yesterday:
This seems like a common misconception. I think most progressives are aware but just want to see an end to the mass slaughter of innocent civilians. The average Gazan might disagree on social issues to the average Western liberal but that doesn’t mean people won’t protest over 4000 children being murdered.
Human rights also aren’t transactional. Just because people support one cause, such as gay rights, does not mean that they will turn a blind eye to atrocities in a region where that cause is not upheld.
I will also add that isn’t half the population of Gaza children? I’m sure it’s easier for people in the West or Israel to champion LGBT rights than it is for a bunch of kids living under a terrorist dictatorship. There’s something very disturbing about anyone who can look at that and think it makes it okay that they’re being killed en masse.
As political parties spend more and more money on campaigns, which require wealthy donors, it’s no wonder leftwing parties, specifically ML parties struggle more to keep up with keeping up with this and are more likely to look for alternative sources of income. Some solve it by claiming 50% of the income of their higher elected officials (like in the Netherlands), but most have accepted more clandestine sources of money, which can often be tracked back to Russia.
The rightwing populist parties are more directly involved with Russia.
We really need to address campaign finance before it is too late.
Just wait until she sees what going on with the global right
That headline is garbage tier.
Because the far-left, just as the far-right, is Russia‘s and China‘s fifth column in the West.
It’s the same reason why plenty of hard left-wingers downplayed or even supported the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.
Not wrong. Met plenty of tankies and campists in my time. Their mental algorithm basically boils down to:
IF [STATE/POLITICAL ACTOR] != US OR EU
THEN [STATE/POLITICAL ACTOR] == GOOD GUYS
Maybe it’s the fact that the global left has completely abandoned its supposed values, and instead decided that in every conflict, whoever is “less white” and therefore “more oppressed” is automatically good and virtuous?
Israel is a prime example. It’s a flawed but legitimate democracy in a conflict against the theocratic fascist state of Palestine. But Palestinians are “more oppressed”, and therefore they’re the good guys, even though Israel represents progressive values much better than Palestine does.
I remember when you could not say that far left extremism exists on reddit without being downvoted.
I considered myself left leaning, but seeing how the left has basically become a Hamas attachment has put me off.
It’s misguided, not evil. We should all feel pain and sympathy for the dead palestinian civilians, just as we should feel pain and sympathy for israeli victims of hamas’ terrorist attacks.
Two things:
1. The “global left” has been critical of Israel, and Netanyahu specifically, for decades – the settlements, the civil rights abuses, the authoritarianism, the nationalism, the violence against Palestinians with little accountability. Israel, and Netanyahu specifically, have told the “global left” to get bent for decades. This tension isn’t new, and Michaeli would know that far better than I.
2. HAMAS is not a “leftist” organization, it is a nationalist & Islamist terrorist organization – it’s ideology is firmly rooted on the “right.” But like many other similar organizations, it has learned to co-opt the language of the “left”. Resistance against oppression, resistance against nationalism, the fight for freedom, the fight for the poor…
So what you have is two “right-wing” entities – a violent nationalist & Islamist terrorist movement and an increasingly authoritarian, nationalist, militaristic government – each putting forward a claim to the loyalty of the “global left.”
Now, HAMAS is far more “right-wing” and extreme than Israel’s government – this isn’t a “both sides are equally to blame” situation. HAMAS is a violent, terrorist organization that took hostages and murdered a thousand people in cold blood – they absolutely deserve international condemnation, and Israel has every right to defend itself and rescue its citizens.
But Israel has been perfectly comfortable building up those decades of ill-will with the “global left” – and to pretend like it’s surprise that at least some elements of the “left” have questions of Israel and its intentions is just not in good faith.
The bankruptcy of the global left is due to it not having any clear ideology that can please everyone all the time. It cannot please, it can only pander.
If you would have told me on September 12th, 2001 that there would be thousands of Americans protesting in support of Palestine and Hamas, if we’re being honest, right in the heart of Manhattan just a little more than two decades after Palestinians were dancing in the streets of Gaza in celebration of the 9/11 attacks on our City i would have told you were crazy. So much for Never Forget. What the hell are they teaching these kids in school?
I think people are intentionally mislabeling a lot of leftist positions as “pro-Hamas” when they are simply expressing support for Palestine or some sort of peaceful solution to the conflict. It’s very disingenuous and I’m tired of having to respond to these bad faith arguments.
Some on the left DO support Hamas. Look at that Columbia professor who openly said the October 7th attacks were “exhilarating” to a crowd in public.
I don’t bemoan the left for sympathizing with the innocents killed in Gaza, however the far left was celebrating 10/7 and marching the day after the attack, long before Israel’s counteroffensive. The gleefully support for the savage murder of innocent civilians in Israel is incredibly worrying. Moreover, the far left has justified 10/7 as an act of “decolonization”. This is abhorrent and demonstrates a degraded moral perspective.
To some extent, I also think the far left in the US has tried to apply an American-centric framework of domestic race issues to an incongruous situation.
Called “paradox of tolerance”.
Here’s the problem:
There is a deliberate attempt to paint anyone who sticks up for the Palestinians as supporting Hamas and is somehow antisemitic.
It is, in fact, possible to be appalled by *both* Hamas, AND the bombing of infants in hospitals by the Israelis state.
Violence begets violence. It leads to a never ending cycle of atrocities.
*Everyone has the right to exist and live in peace.* Something has gone horribly wrong when people forget that.
Israeli politicians are incapable of ever speaking in good faith, this is not an honest critique of the “global left” whatever the fuck that is.
This is a critique of a caricature she painted.
Yep. Part of it is just straight up tankie authoritarianism siding with the authoritarians.
Part of it is viewing everything through the lens of “class struggle”, combined with some unspoken beliefs about Jews and the flow of global wealth…
The interesting thing is seeing people on Western college campuses chant pro-Hamas slogans, while Palestinians in Gaza are literally attacking Hamas militia in the streets.
They are working so hard to paint anyone who doesn’t want Palestinians bombed into dust into a Hamas supporter. It’s ridiculous.
Here’s a tip… If you don’t want opposition to your bombing of civilians, maybe try not bombing civilians and see if that works to help your image problem. Israel is using collective punishment against Palestinian people to get them to reject Hamas, an organization they haven’t voted for since 2006…
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… I hate what Hamas has done and I hate what Israel is doing.
Israel the strongest victim in the world.
Who are the “global left”? I’d like to see a list of names. Or is it merely adducing that anyone not of the “global right” is ipso facto of the “global left”?
Binaries. They’re so complicated.
She’s conflating tankies with leftists. They have infected progressive spaces and are the dominant voice on tiktok and such, but calling them “left” is wrong.
Because Israel government isn’t left, it’s right wing.
Really?
> “It’s important for me to emphasize to them that when you do not very strongly go against Hamas, and what it does in Gaza including to its own people, you are complicit.”
Fuck that. The view on the left is best summed up: stop killing innocent people. That’s not complicity in Hamas. You fucking Israelis need to clean house. Netanyahu is complicit. He has been funding Hamas, he has promoting Hamas to weaken and divide Palestinians; they call Hamas an “asset,” and they are using Hamas to shore up domestic political support.
The true “pro-Hamas” shit going on is really fringe, and I wouldn’t call it far left.
You can’t be a country full of victims and a country dropping shitloads of bombs simultaneously. You’ve got to pick one.
i dont get whats so hard for israelis and others to understand. what hamas did is terrible. what israel is doing to palestinians is terrible. what more is there to say?
There’s something happening here,
But what it is ain’t exactly clear.
Just leave me the fuck out of your children’s games
37 comments
Something is very wrong in the israeli left. They have no power.
> The leader of Israel’s center-left Labor Party says something has gone “very wrong” with the political left around the world, with supposed progressives now aligning themselves with Islamist militants who oppose the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people.
> Mass protests have been held in cities across the EU and U.S. calling for an immediate cease-fire, with many using the slogan “from the river to the sea,” regarded by many Jews and Israelis as a call for the annihilation of the state of Israel but by Palestinians and their supporters as a non-violent rallying cry against the occupation.
> At the protests and on university campuses, some protestors describing themselves as left-wing have expressed support for Hamas — proscribed as a terror organization by the U.S., EU and U.K. Tensions in the left-wing camp have already boiled over in France and Britain. The far-left France Unbowed party led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, for example, avoids describing Hamas as terrorists and was the only major political party not to attend a rally against rising antisemitism last weekend. Meanwhile, Keir Starmer, the U.K. Labour Party leader, has been pummelled by the left of his party for refusing to call for a cease-fire.
> “I think something very bad is happening on the left,” Labor leader Merav Michaeli told POLITICO in an interview. “It became very, very clear in this attack that people who consider themselves to be democratic, progressive, are supporting a totalitarian terror regime that oppresses women [and] the LGBTQ+ community,” she said on the fringes of an international meeting of Socialist and social democrat parties in Spain. “I fail to see how shouting jihad and calling for a mass murder of Jews is pro-Palestinian,” she added. “It’s important for me to emphasize to them that when you do not very strongly go against Hamas, and what it does in Gaza including to its own people, you are complicit.” “The more you go to the left, the more there’s a big mix-up. Something went very wrong on the way,” Michaeli told POLITICO, adding that Israel has some “very strong allies” on the center-left.
> Michaeli, a transport minister in the previous Israeli government, is a long-time critic of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is leading a far-right coalition and formed a war cabinet with centrist Benny Gantz after October 7. Michaeli called during the interview for Netanyahu to “go now.” But she also sought to focus attention on the trauma suffered by Israeli society in the wake of the October 7 attacks. “When I’m speaking to people outside of Israel, then they need to understand that even the biggest peace activists and even the biggest believers in the two state solutions are now under a horrible attack,” she said.
> Labor and its antecedent political movements dominated Israeli politics for some 30 years after the birth of the nation in 1948, with members including such prominent politicians as Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak. But as Israel shifted to the right, Labor was sidelined as a political force, with now only four members – including Michaeli herself — in the 120-seat Knesset. “The way to rebuild Israel is to take it back,” she said, before correcting herself: “It’s not even back, it’s to put it on the Zionist democratic, liberal path.” Michaeli explained that this means pushing for a two-state solution as outlined under the Oslo accords that Rabin, her predecessor as Labor Party leader, negotiated in the 1990s.
> At the meeting in Spain, calls by some national parties from countries such as France, Ireland and Belgium for a cease-fire in Gaza divided delegates and did not make it into the final agreed text. The left more broadly has been rocked by divisions over how to respond to the war in Gaza. Michaeli, whose party is a mere observer to the Party of European Socialists, could not directly negotiate the final text that was agreed upon in Málaga. But she said: “[Calling for a] cease-fire now is giving permission to Hamas to continue rearming itself, continue stealing food, water, medicine and fuel from its own people and yes, rebasing itself.” She suggested that calls for a cease-fire were being influenced by “PR” for Hamas.
> She put the blame for thousands of civilian deaths in Gaza on Hamas, rather than on the Israeli army, whose actions she defended. “They are dying because Hamas is using them as human shields, because they have based everything from equipment to missiles to their headquarters in the midst of the most civilian functions there are,” Michaeli said. She criticized what she perceived as a lack of support among EU politicians to push for the release of some 240 hostages kidnapped by Hamas. “I would have loved to hear more about that than just a mention, at least as much as they’re talking about the humanitarian needs in Gaza,” she said.
It’s something referred to ’empathy,’ which many humans feel when they know that individuals not connected to these hyper-nationalist sprees (much like Hamas) are affected by their blatant disregard for innocent, non-combatant lives.
If you have to ask, “Why aren’t you applauding our killing five figures of civilians?,” maybe you’re lost.
France here, and imo, she’s right.
Like… Freaking right.
A few years ago college leftists were protesting against Trump supporter who were chanting “Jews shall not replace us.” And now they are ripping down posters of Jews captured by Hamas.
Reminds me of the liberal transgender art professor that recently got flak for posting Jewish hate publicly online, you know because Palistine is such a LGBT friendly place.
The horseshoe theory. Extremists on the far left and far right are more alike than anyone in the middle of the political spectrum.
Copy-paste from a comment I made yesterday:
This seems like a common misconception. I think most progressives are aware but just want to see an end to the mass slaughter of innocent civilians. The average Gazan might disagree on social issues to the average Western liberal but that doesn’t mean people won’t protest over 4000 children being murdered.
Human rights also aren’t transactional. Just because people support one cause, such as gay rights, does not mean that they will turn a blind eye to atrocities in a region where that cause is not upheld.
I will also add that isn’t half the population of Gaza children? I’m sure it’s easier for people in the West or Israel to champion LGBT rights than it is for a bunch of kids living under a terrorist dictatorship. There’s something very disturbing about anyone who can look at that and think it makes it okay that they’re being killed en masse.
As political parties spend more and more money on campaigns, which require wealthy donors, it’s no wonder leftwing parties, specifically ML parties struggle more to keep up with keeping up with this and are more likely to look for alternative sources of income. Some solve it by claiming 50% of the income of their higher elected officials (like in the Netherlands), but most have accepted more clandestine sources of money, which can often be tracked back to Russia.
The rightwing populist parties are more directly involved with Russia.
We really need to address campaign finance before it is too late.
Just wait until she sees what going on with the global right
That headline is garbage tier.
Because the far-left, just as the far-right, is Russia‘s and China‘s fifth column in the West.
It’s the same reason why plenty of hard left-wingers downplayed or even supported the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.
Since so many people don’t believe me:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/don-t-ignore-left-connections-between-europe-s-radical-left-and-ru/
Not wrong. Met plenty of tankies and campists in my time. Their mental algorithm basically boils down to:
IF [STATE/POLITICAL ACTOR] != US OR EU
THEN [STATE/POLITICAL ACTOR] == GOOD GUYS
Maybe it’s the fact that the global left has completely abandoned its supposed values, and instead decided that in every conflict, whoever is “less white” and therefore “more oppressed” is automatically good and virtuous?
Israel is a prime example. It’s a flawed but legitimate democracy in a conflict against the theocratic fascist state of Palestine. But Palestinians are “more oppressed”, and therefore they’re the good guys, even though Israel represents progressive values much better than Palestine does.
I remember when you could not say that far left extremism exists on reddit without being downvoted.
I considered myself left leaning, but seeing how the left has basically become a Hamas attachment has put me off.
It’s misguided, not evil. We should all feel pain and sympathy for the dead palestinian civilians, just as we should feel pain and sympathy for israeli victims of hamas’ terrorist attacks.
Two things:
1. The “global left” has been critical of Israel, and Netanyahu specifically, for decades – the settlements, the civil rights abuses, the authoritarianism, the nationalism, the violence against Palestinians with little accountability. Israel, and Netanyahu specifically, have told the “global left” to get bent for decades. This tension isn’t new, and Michaeli would know that far better than I.
2. HAMAS is not a “leftist” organization, it is a nationalist & Islamist terrorist organization – it’s ideology is firmly rooted on the “right.” But like many other similar organizations, it has learned to co-opt the language of the “left”. Resistance against oppression, resistance against nationalism, the fight for freedom, the fight for the poor…
So what you have is two “right-wing” entities – a violent nationalist & Islamist terrorist movement and an increasingly authoritarian, nationalist, militaristic government – each putting forward a claim to the loyalty of the “global left.”
Now, HAMAS is far more “right-wing” and extreme than Israel’s government – this isn’t a “both sides are equally to blame” situation. HAMAS is a violent, terrorist organization that took hostages and murdered a thousand people in cold blood – they absolutely deserve international condemnation, and Israel has every right to defend itself and rescue its citizens.
But Israel has been perfectly comfortable building up those decades of ill-will with the “global left” – and to pretend like it’s surprise that at least some elements of the “left” have questions of Israel and its intentions is just not in good faith.
The bankruptcy of the global left is due to it not having any clear ideology that can please everyone all the time. It cannot please, it can only pander.
If you would have told me on September 12th, 2001 that there would be thousands of Americans protesting in support of Palestine and Hamas, if we’re being honest, right in the heart of Manhattan just a little more than two decades after Palestinians were dancing in the streets of Gaza in celebration of the 9/11 attacks on our City i would have told you were crazy. So much for Never Forget. What the hell are they teaching these kids in school?
I think people are intentionally mislabeling a lot of leftist positions as “pro-Hamas” when they are simply expressing support for Palestine or some sort of peaceful solution to the conflict. It’s very disingenuous and I’m tired of having to respond to these bad faith arguments.
Some on the left DO support Hamas. Look at that Columbia professor who openly said the October 7th attacks were “exhilarating” to a crowd in public.
I don’t bemoan the left for sympathizing with the innocents killed in Gaza, however the far left was celebrating 10/7 and marching the day after the attack, long before Israel’s counteroffensive. The gleefully support for the savage murder of innocent civilians in Israel is incredibly worrying. Moreover, the far left has justified 10/7 as an act of “decolonization”. This is abhorrent and demonstrates a degraded moral perspective.
To some extent, I also think the far left in the US has tried to apply an American-centric framework of domestic race issues to an incongruous situation.
Called “paradox of tolerance”.
Here’s the problem:
There is a deliberate attempt to paint anyone who sticks up for the Palestinians as supporting Hamas and is somehow antisemitic.
It is, in fact, possible to be appalled by *both* Hamas, AND the bombing of infants in hospitals by the Israelis state.
Violence begets violence. It leads to a never ending cycle of atrocities.
*Everyone has the right to exist and live in peace.* Something has gone horribly wrong when people forget that.
Israeli politicians are incapable of ever speaking in good faith, this is not an honest critique of the “global left” whatever the fuck that is.
This is a critique of a caricature she painted.
Yep. Part of it is just straight up tankie authoritarianism siding with the authoritarians.
Part of it is viewing everything through the lens of “class struggle”, combined with some unspoken beliefs about Jews and the flow of global wealth…
The interesting thing is seeing people on Western college campuses chant pro-Hamas slogans, while Palestinians in Gaza are literally attacking Hamas militia in the streets.
https://imgur.com/a/Bd5iA79
They are working so hard to paint anyone who doesn’t want Palestinians bombed into dust into a Hamas supporter. It’s ridiculous.
Here’s a tip… If you don’t want opposition to your bombing of civilians, maybe try not bombing civilians and see if that works to help your image problem. Israel is using collective punishment against Palestinian people to get them to reject Hamas, an organization they haven’t voted for since 2006…
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… I hate what Hamas has done and I hate what Israel is doing.
Israel the strongest victim in the world.
Who are the “global left”? I’d like to see a list of names. Or is it merely adducing that anyone not of the “global right” is ipso facto of the “global left”?
Binaries. They’re so complicated.
She’s conflating tankies with leftists. They have infected progressive spaces and are the dominant voice on tiktok and such, but calling them “left” is wrong.
Because Israel government isn’t left, it’s right wing.
Really?
> “It’s important for me to emphasize to them that when you do not very strongly go against Hamas, and what it does in Gaza including to its own people, you are complicit.”
Fuck that. The view on the left is best summed up: stop killing innocent people. That’s not complicity in Hamas. You fucking Israelis need to clean house. Netanyahu is complicit. He has been funding Hamas, he has promoting Hamas to weaken and divide Palestinians; they call Hamas an “asset,” and they are using Hamas to shore up domestic political support.
The true “pro-Hamas” shit going on is really fringe, and I wouldn’t call it far left.
You can’t be a country full of victims and a country dropping shitloads of bombs simultaneously. You’ve got to pick one.
i dont get whats so hard for israelis and others to understand. what hamas did is terrible. what israel is doing to palestinians is terrible. what more is there to say?
There’s something happening here,
But what it is ain’t exactly clear.
Just leave me the fuck out of your children’s games
And let us adults live our lives.
* enter chorus here