I recently downloaded an episode of Firing Line where, contrary to the usual format, Buckley was questioned by liberals. They took exceptional issue with him on not being supportive enough of Israel. I’ve also been looking up old Weavers songs, which include Tzena, Tzena, Tzena and a song which includes tunes from around the world, including Israel. Meanwhile, in 2011, Pete Seeger kinda-sorta-maybe endorsed the BDS movement.
Seems to me that there’s been a shift in how the left views Israel. Not to say it’s anti-Zionist, but that the views seem to be more diverse now…and the so-called “far left” (e.g. The Nation, Glenn Greenwald) as a rule treat Israel with a lot of skepticism these days.
Am I right and if so, what changed? The issues people slam Israel for go back to the founding of the state, no?
This is definitely more of a GD than a GQ, because like all political movements and shifts over time, its nature and causes are very debatable.
But I think you’re right that the general political impression of Israel (which is no more true at any point than any other vague general political impression) has shifted somewhat between, say, the sixties and now. Whereas Israel was frequently perceived and portrayed at that time as the “little guy” standing up for itself successfully against united aggression from neighboring Arab states, it is often seen now as the “big guy” pushing around Palestinians in the occupied territories.
The average midpoint of American liberal sympathies has thus shifted somewhat along the spectrum of pro-Israel/anti-Israel sentiment.
Jews were pretty much the heart and soul of the Old Left. After the civil rights era, a bigger voice for Blacks and other minorities probably made the Jewish agenda in general less proportionally significant.
I think it also coincided with identity politics: Native American, Black, Basque, Irish, etc. The Palestinians became another group that wanted recognition of it’s national identity.
I would also posit that for the left, 9/11 changed everything. It’s a difficult thing for them to accept, plainly stated: That the poor, oppressed, brown-people minority (to them anyway) were fanatical mass-murdering terrorists. And since 9/11 inevitably brought the United States & Israel closer due to us now having a much more common enemy, and since leftists have always hated the US, that hatred is spilling onto Israel now too.
Again, heading for GD, but IMO it’s pretty much unrealistic, jingoistic, politically correct nonsense.
Liberals in the US idealize Europe and European society. And the simple fact is Europe is still fairly anti-Semetic, especially regarding Israeli-Palestinian relations.
I would guess that the first Intifada had an impact as well - it put the occupied territories onto the front page on a constant basis. While the land might have been captured in the '67, it was the images of the occupation in the 80s that really started to hit hard.
Lefty weighing in here, I think the simple answer is that while Israel was the socially progressive underdog, it got leftist sympathy. Now that it appears much more like a reactionary racist bully, it doesn’t get so much. I know plenty of leftist American jews who have very ambivalent feelings about Israel now.
Disagree; back then, most of us on the left still saw Israel as imperiled, and the occupied territories as necessary defensive buffer zones.
The 1973 surprise attacks only reinforced that viewpoint.
A kind of neutrality (in the moral view of most liberals) came with the Camp David accords and the return of the Sinai to Egypt. That was the point many of us started to say, “Okay, we have peace now, so let’s get on with withdrawal.”
Agreed.
Also agreed. This cost Israel a lot of friends.
I’m also afraid that the American political right’s adoption of Israel as a special cause has had a nasty reactionary effect on the American political left. If George W. Bush is strongly pro-Israel, then, as a knee-jerk response, an awful lot of people backed away from a strong pro-Israel stance.
I’m one of the very few leftists and liberals in my local social circles who is strongly pro-Israel. The subject is totally off-limits within my own family. All the rest of my kin want Israel to withdraw from all occupied land, including all of Jerusalem. Depressing!
Yeah, I feel like a relic from the 60s: I’m a liberal who is still very much pro-Israel. Not to say I agree with all of the decisions of their government. But when push comes to shove, I’m on their side.
Of course, I have family there: An uncle and aunt, some cousins, and their families. And I want them to be safe.
Plenty of Europeans have fairly anti-Semitic views. The UK is one of the least anti-Semitic countries in Europe and yet 45% of all people in the UK think that British Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the British government.
That has to be a tribute to the narrow European circles in which you must travel. I have heard more blatant and gross anti-semitic statements from Europeans than in the US. Germans and French in particular.
We’re more fixated on the Darky problem here (what my genteel Virginian MIL calls it).
