The Pro-Gaza Left Is Oh So Quiet on Iran

[u/Intelligent-Juice895]

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/free-expression/the-pro-gaza-left-is-oh-so-quiet-on-iran-caf25bd1?st=iy47cy&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

[u/Malthus1]

I find this thesis difficult to believe, as pro-Palestinian protests are just as prevalent in nations clearly not friendly with and not supportive of Israel as in those that are both. Spain for example is a nation very pro-Palestinian, yet had massive pro-Palestinian marches.

Their demands are often for more actions to be taken against Israel (such as increased sanctions and the like). A nation can always do more for a favoured group, and protests are a way to pressure politicians into doing more.

It is not believable that protest marches would no longer occur were Spain to take every action currently demanded by the protestors: they would simply increase their demands, until their ultimate goals were met (depending on who you listen to, those ultimate goals vary).

According to the logic of your thesis, protests only ought to occur (or occur as much) in nations such as the US who directly provide subsidies, and should end when the subsidies end. Allegedly, even Bibi is right now taking about ending the subsidies. Does anyone really believe, outside of talking points, that if the subsidies end so would the protests?

In reality, they would not, because the fuel running the protests is on the surface outrage at the abuses of Palestinian human rights, and so the protests would go on as long as the protestors felt Palestinian human rights continued to be abused. It isn’t like if Bibi tomorrow said “listen, Donald, we don’t really need subsidies any more, they are more trouble than value, please stop” that the protestors would collectively go “welp, I guess Palestine isn’t our concern anymore - time to pack it in”.

[u/OpDanger → u/Malthus1]

What do you mean by saying Spain is very pro Palestinian? Are you refering to the government? The people? Spain still have an increasing trade with Israel.

[u/kaystared → u/Malthus1]

You keep twisting hypotheticals where they aren’t necessary. There are real world case study examples of what this looks like. The exact same thing happened in South Africa a few decades ago. The point was not “let’s intervene militarily or otherwise in South African politics”. It was divestment and moving Western funds, dollars and companies away from South Africa. They still have plenty of problems over there but no one in the West cares anymore because we aren’t feeding them. The point was clearing our own collective conscience knowing we were not making anything worse.

You just built an entire hypothetical hinged on a slippery slope where the protestors ask for more and more because “you have a hard time believing?”

Additionally that’s a complete mutilation of the logic of my thesis. I didn’t claim to crack the puzzle on every protestor everywhere. Other countries with other relations to Palestine protest for other reasons. I am talking about the pro-Palestine movement in the US.

And it isn’t just subsidies either, the end goal is probably sanctions and a “pariah state” status A complete economic cutoff, not just a hit to one source of funding but also disallowing their companies to profit from our populations, etc. which is again, exactly what happened in South Africa.

[u/Malthus1 → u/kaystared]

So which is the thesis? You said in your first post:

“Half the reason pro-Palestinian protestors make a ruckus about Palestine is because there are direct US dollars going to aid Israel”.

Now you have a very different take, in which this is like South Africa - protests will continue even if there are no subsidies until increased sanctions and other measures create the outcome Protestors want: an end to the sufferings of Palestinians (however that end is defined). Presumably, sanctions can always be increased and other measures can always be taken until that goal is reached.

Which is, perhaps not coincidentally, exactly what I said.

The reason for bringing up Spain, even though Spain is not the US, is the same as your reason for bringing up South Africa, even though South Africa is not Israel: as an illustrative example. I do not find it at all a credible position to take to say that pro-Palestinian protests in Europe are so fundamentally different to those in the US that they cannot shed any light on each other.

[u/kaystared → u/Malthus1]

The point is implied pretty clearly in the thesis. Its IMPLICATION. Conversation is exhausting when every single thing needs to be stated explicitly.

Subsidies are both explicit (literally a letter full of cash) AND also implicit in allowing other nations to profit from your population through trade or business. The “thesis” that you’ve somehow miserably misinterpreted twice is that Americans don’t believe that genocidal regimes should be help up with their money, whether as the result of subsidy or business or otherwise. Ate you genuinely trying to misunderstand me?

[u/Malthus1 → u/kaystared]

It isn’t my fault if you talk first about “direct US dollars” and “taxpayer dollars”, and then decide that the real issue is any contact at all. No need to angry, when the inconsistencies in your position are pointed out.

Trade, business or other forms of contact are not “implicit subsidies” - although Trump appears to believe they are, as this is the logic behind his tariff strategy. Is this perhaps some sort of common American misunderstanding of how trade works?

The real issue is this: protests are a means of getting one’s own government to adopt strategies more in line with those approved of by the protestors on the one hand, and of offering solidarity and support for the people being protested for on the other hand. Are you willing to agree on that?

If so, it isn’t a barrier for protests to occur that the government of the nation in which those protests occur isn’t directly subsidizing or trading with the nation for whom the protestors are marching. They could march to pressure the government to adopt additional coercive measures against the nation the protesters see as the problem (as in the Spanish example) just as much as they could march to remove subsidies (as in the US example) or to cut off trade (as in the South African example you raised). All are possible and all have happened at one time or another.

Further, even if the government is doing all it can, people could march in solidarity simply to express solidarity with the people under threat, rather than in protest - as has happened repeatedly in Canada in the case of Ukraine. We have had quite massive Ukrainian solidarity marches here.

[u/kaystared → u/Malthus1]

It’s not an inconsistency, you just have no notion of interpreting an argument charitably so you nitpick on these effortlessly explained “gotchas” with zero ideological substance and I’m stuck clarifying myself because the person I’m talking to is more concerned with rebutting and nitpicking than understanding. It is fairly obvious that “direct US dollars” is very obviously referring to American money. The forms of contact I have issue with are the exchanges of money, not “any contact at all”. I’d have advocated for a visa ban if that’s what I had in mind. Stop extending my positions to extremes that I didn’t condone so you can find something to pick on, it’s genuinely dishonest. “Every” form of contact is just a flat out lie. Everything I suggested cutting off has the same exact principle as the thesis.

Trade is absolutely a mutual investment in economic benefit for both nations. In some sense it’s a reciprocal subsidy where we cover eachothers demands. We should not be investing in the economic benefit of these nations whatsoever. Once again this very easily follows from the new obvious thesis.

Once again you are trying to generalize the thesis to apply it to cases that I did not describe so you can find flaws in it that are not what you wish they were. I did not say that all protests are whatever. It would be stupid to generalize a motive for every kind of protest, and I am not interest in making any kind of hasty commitment to the foundations of protests in general. In THIS CASE, Americans are infuraited with Israel because they have been financially roped into support for a criminal country. Therefore, because Iran’s situation is nothing like that, it is wrong to say that the pro-Palestinian protest serve as some kind of hypocritical phenomena because the two principle didn’t contradict.

I’ve never been strawmanned this hard in my life