Terror Attack on Israel Sparks Divisions among Leftists
Updated at 8:15 ET on October 13, 2023
The recent terror attack on Israel by Hamas has presented a challenging moment for the left, revealing where their priorities truly lie. The question is simple: Can leftists unequivocally condemn the calculated and sadistic mass murder of civilians, without resorting to whataboutism or deflecting blame? Can they momentarily set aside their criticisms of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, West Bank settlements, and Gaza conditions, and express genuine horror at the senseless violence?
Unfortunately, many people on the left have failed this test. In certain corners of academia and social justice activism, where the oppressor and the oppressed are seen as fixed identities, individuals have struggled to condemn the targeting of civilians. For instance, Yale professor Zareena Grewal responded to a progressive colleague who argued that targeting civilians is always wrong by stating, “Settlers are not civilians. This is not hard.” (Her account has since been locked.) Chicago’s Black Lives Matter chapter even posted a picture of a paraglider, making a disturbing reference to the gunmen who attacked civilians at a music festival near the Gaza border. (The chapter later stated that they were not proud of the post and deleted it.) In addition, several Harvard student groups issued a letter holding the entire Israeli regime responsible for the violence against Palestinians. However, some of these groups have since withdrawn their support for the letter.
The New York branch of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) also faced backlash for promoting a rally where protesters chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied,” while one participant displayed a swastika. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a prominent figure within the DSA, criticized these actions, and comedian Sarah Silverman resigned from the organization in response. The New York City Democratic Socialists expressed regret for the confusion caused by their rhetoric but emphasized the need to address the root causes of violence in the region.
In the United Kingdom, a journalist for Novara, a hard-left outlet, tweeted that “the struggle for freedom is rarely bloodless and we shouldn’t apologize for it.” However, she later deleted the post, acknowledging that she responded too hastily and emotionally. The president of the National Union of Students in Scotland, Ellie Gomersall, also apologized for reposting content justifying Hamas’s actions. Interestingly, she had previously accused the leader of the British Labour Party, Keir Starmer, of being complicit in the deaths of transgender individuals for stating that “a woman is a female adult.” Apparently, criticizing an essentialist view of womanhood makes someone complicit in death, but excusing terrorist acts must be contextualized.
Within the realm of social media, progressive activists often describe hateful statements and unjust policies as “violence” or even “genocide” in an attempt to discredit them. However, it is grotesque when these same activists are unwilling to criticize Hamas, a group with an explicitly genocidal founding charter. Hamas openly declares that “Moslems [sic] fight the Jews (killing the Jews)” is necessary. Unfortunately, many inflamed statements and actions come from the so-called “intersectional left,” which draws influence from queer theory, critical race theory, and the idea of the marginalized “subaltern.” While the term “woke” has become a derogatory label on the right, intersectionality is still embraced, particularly by academics and young feminists.
It is crucial to defend the original concept of intersectionality put forth by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a critical race theorist. Crenshaw observed that civil rights legislation often treats protected characteristics like sex and race as separate, when they are often interconnected. She used the example of a car plant in St. Louis that historically hired white women and Black men but not Black women, leading to discrimination even after the discriminatory practices ceased. However, Crenshaw herself has expressed surprise at how the meaning of intersectionality has changed as it moved beyond academia into mainstream culture. In its popularized form, intersectionality has become a simplified calculation of oppression points and an assumption that all social justice struggles neatly fit together, with marginalized individuals on one side and the powerful on the other.
This oversimplification makes it difficult to fit Israel into the intersectional framework. Israeli Jews are historically oppressed as survivors of attempted genocide, yet they currently hold a dominant position over Palestinians, exemplified by the Netanyahu government’s decision to restrict power and water supplies to Gaza. Pop intersectionality cannot reconcile this complexity, which has caused divisions within the left long before the recent attacks. Linda Sarsour, one of the Women’s March organizers, previously declared that Zionism and feminism were incompatible. Meanwhile, Jewish groups condemned Sarsour and other Women’s March organizers for associating with openly anti-Semitic figures like Louis Farrakhan.
The belief in “punching up,” derived from standpoint theory, is also significant on the left. While it is valid to recognize that different groups possess different knowledge based on their experiences, this idea has evolved into a belief that different rules should apply to individuals based on their social positions. When an oppressed group responds to the oppressor with violence, it is often justified as “resistance.” Some may agree with a milder version of this proposition, such as the British suffragettes who resorted to window smashing and bombing when peaceful methods failed. However, it is perplexing and morally inconsistent to extend the idea of “punching up” to the murder of innocent children in the context of the Gaza-Israel conflict. One cannot comprehend how self-proclaimed feminists can watch footage of armed militants mistreating a woman, potentially covered in blood, and conclude that she holds the power in that situation or deserves her fate.
The flurry of apologies and retractions following the initial wave of inflammatory posts suggests that many individuals endorsed statements of solidarity without fully understanding the implications of what they were supporting….
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