A Reckoning on the Left

If you thought that the terrorist attacks were bad, what about seeing by progressive American leftists suddenly discover that their allies in the global struggle against patriarchy and capitalism are monstrous baby killers. 

Keep in mind that Judith Butler, eminence grise of left wing intellectuals, champion of gender studies, once said that Hamas and Hezbollah were part of the revolutionary vanguard.

America leftists had consoled themselves with the notion that they had discovered the new Hitler, in Donald Trump, and were fighting to destroy him. In that way they burnished their anti-fascist credentials. Anyone who hated Trump was welcome into their faction. 

Now progressives just woke up to discover that they have been in bed with some appalling characters. By their dim lights the problem is right wing extremism, mixed with patriarchy and capitalism. Not one of them, what with their pea brains, reflected for an instant on the fact that the religion of the patriarchs is Judaism.

People who have been declaring that the far right is Hitlerian have been struck dumb by the depravity of Hamas. It is difficult to accuse anyone of being anti-Semitic when you are allied with the world’s worst anti-Semites.

In a New York Times column Michelle Goldberg remarked that progressive Jews were feeling especially disillusioned. No kidding. It would certainly be better if they could muster up some rage about what happened, but that would be far too manly for their psyches.

And, of course, no one on the political left cares to mention that the horror that befell Israel happened on Joe Biden’s watch. True enough, Trump has lately been making some appalling statements of late, but, when he was in the White House, these things did not happen. Idem, the war in Ukraine.

Goldberg wrote:

Many progressive Jews have been profoundly shaken by the way some on the left are treating the terrorist mass murder of civilians as noble acts of anticolonial resistance. These are Jews who share the left’s abhorrence of the occupation of Gaza and of the enormities inflicted on it, which are only going to get worse if and when Israel invades. But the way keyboard radicals have condoned war crimes against Israelis has left many progressive Jews alienated from political communities they thought were their own.

Progressives have been watching in horror as their sometime allies rushed to defend Hamas. As I noted here a few days ago, the attack on Israel counts as a great success for people who could not accomplish much of anything. It bolstered their flagging self-esteem.

There was the giddy message put out by the national committee of Students for Justice in Palestine, which proclaimed, “Today, we witness a historic win for the Palestinian resistance: across land, air and sea.” New York’s chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America promoted a rally where speakers applauded the attacks, and the Connecticut D.S.A. enthused, “Yesterday, the Palestinian resistance launched an unprecedented anticolonial struggle.” The president of N.Y.U.’s student bar association wrote in its newsletter, “I will not condemn Palestinian resistance,” leading to the withdrawal of a job offer. Over the otherwise benign slogan “I stand with Palestine,” Black Lives Matter Chicago posted a photo of a figure in a paraglider like those Hamas used to descend on a desert rave and turn it into a killing field.

After Goldberg’s article was published, a dozen members of the North Carolina state legislature walked out rather than vote to support Israel. As for which legislators were involved, I need not tell you. Do you remember when Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed the American Congress? How many Democrats boycotted the event?

Just when you were beginning to think that Michelle Goldberg  possessed more than an ounce of sense, she makes manifest her and the left’s moral failings. She tells us that Israel is committing war crimes and that it should desist from hurting the poor inhabitants of Gaza.

Moral equivalence, they call it. It pretends that there are two sides to the argument, and that both are equally evil. And yet, as Karine Jean-Pierre, of all people, announced from the podium in the White House press room, there are not two sides to the argument. 

Goldberg accuses Israel of war crimes. Which means, she does not want Israel to retaliate or even to destroy Hamas. And yet, the people of Gaza voted for Hamas. They voted for an organization that was dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel and to the killing of Jews around the world. Which part of that feels ambiguous? Which part tells you that they should not pay a price?

As I write this, Israel has imposed what the Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant, called a “complete siege” of Gaza’s two million people, about half of whom are under 18. “No electricity, no food, no water, no gas — it’s all closed,” said Gallant. “We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.” Such collective punishment is, like the mass killing of civilians in Israel, a war crime.

If Israel commits war crimes, justice would demand righteous punishment. The problem with leftist thinking is its knee-jerk reflex-- to blame white supremacists-- in this case, Jews. In Canada, teachers teach that Jews count among the white supremacist factions.

In any case, as Goldberg calls for decency, a poor choice of words, she calls for Israel to restrain itself. That means, not to defend itself. That also means, to bow to the superior power of Hamas, and the superior moral authority of the worldwide revolutionary movement.

But if humanist principles spur total revulsion toward the terrorist crimes in Israel, they also demand restraint in Gaza. Among those principles are these: Victimization and dispossession are not alibis for barbarism. The distinction between civilians and combatants must be respected. No cause, righteous or otherwise, excuses the killing of children.

Bernie Sanders is taking the coward’s way out. 

There are, of course, leaders making exactly that argument. “Right now, the international community must focus on reducing humanitarian suffering and protecting innocent people on both sides of this conflict,” read a statement by Bernie Sanders. “The targeting of civilians is a war crime, no matter who does it.” That message is undermined when a loud part of the left insists that when it comes to Israelis, there is no such thing as civilians.

And then, Goldberg makes an astute observation, one that echoes a point I have been making myself. Fetishizing revolutionary violence compensates for basic incompetence and ineffectuality.

Hamas cannot run a nation. Hamas cannot provide for the people living under its rule. Hamas must overcome its failures, by pretending to be tough-- by murdering women and children. As I have also noted, such actions signal abject cowardice. 

Plenty of leftists have long fetishized revolutionary violence in poor countries, perhaps as a way of coping with their own ineffectuality. Che Guevara didn’t become a dorm room icon only for his motorcycle and rakish beret.

Again, the key to this problem lies in the recognition that certain cultures have been ineffectual at providing for their people. Protests will not do the trick here. As people noted after 9/11 the Muslim religion needs a Reformation, a decisive movement into the modern world. 

True enough, some Muslims, led by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, are doing so. And yet, it is not going to happen over night and will not be a peaceful process.

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