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The left don't support Hamas. They support Palestine, which is a theoretical government for the people there. Ironically, Israel supports Hamas. Netanyahu suppo

The left don't support Hamas. They support Palestine, which is a theoretical government for the people there. Ironically, Israel supports Hamas. Netanyahu supported setting them up as the leadership in Gaza because he could use them as a scapegoat and prevent a two-state solution. We should all disparage both Hamas and Israel's nationalist leaders for causing the whole mess and getting civilians killed in the crossfire.

aguaviva 2y ago
The left don't support Hamas. Sadly, a large (though difficult to measure) portion of them do. If you don't believe me, just try hanging out at their events and talking with a decent sample size of them. And for bonus points, try reading their flyers and other propaganda. In some cases you'll find downloads of PDFs directly from pro-Hamas sources, and of course not just "contextualizing" but explicitly celebrating the glory of Operation al-Aqsa Flood, and so on. The portion isn't as high as the hasbara / generic rightwing propaganda makes it out to be of course, but it's definitely not a negligible contingent or even small contingent. Even among those who aren't explicitly pro-Hamas, many just can't give a straight answer as to whether Hamas is good or bad or even as to what actually happened on Oct 7. The just start spewing jargon and polemics. And as what they know of the actual history of the region - forget about it. What the hasbarists/rightwingers get wrong, though, is that the situation I'm describing actually doesn't come from a place of antisemitism. Rather from the simple fact that many of these people are very young and naive, and to all intents and purposes, basically were born pretty much yesterday. In most cases they were never taught how to recognize propaganda for what it obviously is, and they have almost no grounding in history beyond what they had to cram through to get past their multiple choice tests. So when you put sufficient quantities of shiny propaganda in front of them (that seems to resonate with their social justice narratives), they eat it up like candy. Source: me, myself, and I. Basically left-wing (by most characterizations) and if you spend 2 seconds reading my comment history you'll see exactly where I stand in regard to the broader suite of issues. That doesn't change the fact of what, again, you can easily see for yourself on the ground by just stopping to observe the protest scene in real life for even a tiny bit.

aguaviva 2y ago

The left don't support Hamas. Sadly, a large (though difficult to measure) portion of them do. If you don't believe me, just try hanging out at their events and talking with a decent sample size of them. And for bonus points, try reading their flyers and other propaganda. In some cases you'll find downloads of PDFs directly from pro-Hamas sources, and of course not just "contextualizing" but explicitly celebrating the glory of Operation al-Aqsa Flood, and so on. The portion isn't as high as the hasbara / generic rightwing propaganda makes it out to be of course, but it's definitely not a negligible contingent or even small contingent. Even among those who aren't explicitly pro-Hamas, many just can't give a straight answer as to whether Hamas is good or bad or even as to what actually happened on Oct 7. The just start spewing jargon and polemics. And as what they know of the actual history of the region - forget about it. What the hasbarists/rightwingers get wrong, though, is that the situation I'm describing actually doesn't come from a place of antisemitism. Rather from the simple fact that many of these people are very young and naive, and to all intents and purposes, basically were born pretty much yesterday. In most cases they were never taught how to recognize propaganda for what it obviously is, and they have almost no grounding in history beyond what they had to cram through to get past their multiple choice tests. So when you put sufficient quantities of shiny propaganda in front of them (that seems to resonate with their social justice narratives), they eat it up like candy. Source: me, myself, and I. Basically left-wing (by most characterizations) and if you spend 2 seconds reading my comment history you'll see exactly where I stand in regard to the broader suite of issues. That doesn't change the fact of what, again, you can easily see for yourself on the ground by just stopping to observe the protest scene in real life for even a tiny bit.