People who support Palestine have their reasons and beliefs. A user asked the forum, “Why are the leftists predominantly pro-Palestine?” Here are the top responses.
UNINFORMED
“Uninformed people and loyalty to a party instead of thought.”
LOVE MUSLIMS
“The left loves Muslims for some reason. You’d think they would love Buddhists the most because, you know, hippies and all, but even when the Buddhists started fighting back against Islamic extremism, they sided with the Muslims and called the Buddhists the extremists.
It’s pretty bizarre.”
WHITE GUILT
“Because their white guilt will push them to support all kinds of horrific crimes.”
SUPPORTING VICTIMIZED PEOPLE
“The leftist narrative is to usually support the ‘oppressed’ or ‘victimized’ people, and despite the West’s best attempts to paint Israel as the victim, nobody is buying it.
I almost always disagree with the left, but in this instance, they’re right. Hamas’ attack is the same as a kid who’s been bullied for years, finally standing up for themselves.”
PALESTINE IS OPPRESSED
“Socialism is about everyone being equal. Palestinians seem to have been oppressed and taken off by Israel. It is perception.
As you say, the reality is more complex since Muslims often appear to oppress minorities and women. Depends on the point of view.”
POLITICS
“Politics is about ‘I’ll give you stuff if you vote for me.’
The left panders to some select demographics to get their votes, so they’ll say whatever they need to speak to get Islamists to vote for them. The politicians also have to shape the public opinion of their power base through propaganda to cohere it.
So you get utter ridiculousness like ‘gays for Palestine,’ where being gay is punishable by bone-crunching death after being tossed off a rooftop. The right-wing does the same, except it’s the left that uniquely panders to Islamists.
I care for neither, but I’d say that to me, the left seems a lot more willing to empower the most violent, destructive elements of society in return for power, by far more than the right.”
THEY ARE AGAINST FASCISM
“Despite the Soviet Union, actual leftists (non-banks) are against police states, apartheid, and fascism. That should cover it.”
SELF-DETERMINATION AND HATE COLONIALISM
“We believe in national self-determination and hate colonialism and segregation; it’s pretty simple.”
TENDENCY TO CHEER FOR THE UNDERDOG
“Probably a tendency to cheer for the underdog. The Palestinians are largely seen as the underdogs who are victims of the bully. Israel is the bully as it is powerful, military well equipped, supported by the United States, and mostly victorious in all its battles in history that, by the way, were forced upon it: 1948, 1967, 1973.
Israel is threatened in the north and south by enemies who are less powerful but can do a lot of damage. Hezbollah gets its support from Iran and is said to have 150,000 rockets in store. Is this still a pitiful underdog?
But one can say that Israel lost the Public Relations (PR) war. In those continuous skirmishes with Hezbollah and especially Hamas, those terror organizations have always succeeded in presenting themselves as victims.
Victims of disproportionate retaliation, civilian casualties, although many times the retaliation was knowingly provoked, figures exaggerated, and both terror organizations use their population as a human shield.
Israel has never been able to correct this image of the cruel bully.”
IT IS WRONG TO SLAUGHTER PEOPLE
“I guess it’s a leftist thing to think it’s wrong to slaughter people and then deny them medical supplies, food, and water.”
LEFTISTS TEND TO LOOK FIRST AT BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS
“Because before looking at social issues, leftists tend to look first at basic human rights, like food, water, self-determination, etc. Most leftists are aware of the West’s history of colonial imperialism and understand the part Israel has played in that.”
IT IS SIMPLE
“Anyone with a brain and heart is Palestine pro-Jewish people and anti-Hamas, anti-Israeli government. It’s that simple.”
PALESTINIANS ARE BROWN AND POWERLESS
“‘Palestinians are brown, powerless, indigenous, and oppressed. Israelis are white, powerful invaders and oppressors.’
That’s the basic breakdown in their head. Applying native American/Aboriginal versus European Settler dynamics to the Middle East, where Arabs and Jews both originate from.
Also, Anti-Semitism has always been present in most Western countries, which makes it easy to see Jews as sneaky or always in control/holding more power than they do.
Many Western countries have developed huge diaspora populations arriving from predominantly Muslim countries, and they play a massive part in galvanizing friends and colleagues and keeping the fire fueled. The protests and anti-Jew hate crimes we see now wouldn’t have been seen 20-30 years ago.”
LEFT-WING PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT
“I believe it’s because Hamas has been able to convince the world this is a left-wing progressive movement.”
ISRAEL IS THE JEWISH STATE AND RICH
“Because Israel is the Jewish state and when a lot of people think of a Jew, they think of a rich, white, powerful, and privileged person, so they ascribe those (negative) qualities to Israel.
It doesn’t matter that the majority of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi and trace their ancestry through the Middle East like any Palestinian or other Arab. Jew = rich white powerful; therefore, Israel = rich white powerful. These come from antisemitic stereotypes.
Palestinians, on the other hand, are seen as being poor brown people being oppressed by rich white people. It instinctively checks the boxes of your typical liberal/left-wing cause.
I also believe there is a bit of paternalistic racism involved because these people generally are entirely unaware of how the conflict started, what Israel is facing, what they have faced, and typically don’t care to empathize with Jews, who again, because of antisemitic stereotypes, they believe are rich white influential people that aren’t worthy of a leftist’s care and protection.”
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This article was originally published on Mrs. Daaku Studio.