@ChrisBP747 #186626
Sure, but… a few things there I should perhaps note.
For one, the problem with the Israeli left, especially it’s more “pro-Palestinian” parts, is that they are already seen within much of (Jewish) Israel as a sort of “foreign imposition,” in that they have a large foreign audience to whom they loudly criticized Israel, but otherwise had few followers at home.
Overtly and loudly increasing foreign support to them and using them to influence internal Israeli politics, which you seem to want to do, would only exacerbate their domestic perception problem. It would not help them; it would bury them, and make them even more irrelevant within Israel than they already are.
That said, supporting “Israelis and jewish people who are critical of Israel’s current government,” as you phrased it, does make sense — after all, there are still a great many people like that there; in fact, more so now than ever, since Netanyahu’s popularity tanked thanks to his coalition’s fumbling that allowed the October 7 attack to happen and catch Israel completely by surprise.
However… therein lies the rub. These Israelis oppose Netanyahu and the current government, but they emphatically don’t oppose the war. In fact, this war has what is probably the absolute highest support among the Jewish Israeli public that any war has ever had: that is, a support that is almost total and nearly unanimous. The people who actually oppose the war among them are very few in number.
That might seem to some like they are collectively monsters; but that’s not the case. What one needs to keep in mind is that the coverage of the war is VERY different inside Israel than outside of it. And so is the range of views about it that are mainstream there.
Furthermore, in regards to this:
Seeing only one side of the issue and trying to equate Hamas with Palestinians and the current Israeli government and parts of the IDF with Israelis in general for easy “good vs bad” narratives should be avoided overall.
I feel you, and I like your sentiment, I really do… but in this war, that separation is hard to make. Because of the massive public support that the combating forces enjoy on both sides.
In Israel, at least among the Jewish population, the “support our heroic troops” sentiment seems to be almost total, with nearly no public dissent of any kind. But it’s not just some climate of fear; for the most part, the sentiment is very much genuine. The IDF is not separate from them in that regard; it acts with their enthusiastic support, even if that support isn’t for war crimes as such.
In Palestine, while I’m not too knowledgeable about the details, I remember reading about polls they’ve conducted among their people, I think about a month and a half ago, that had the question which roughly said “Do you think that Hamas’s October 7 attack was worth the cost?”. In the Gaza Strip, the answer was mixed, as you might expect given the level of destruction already present then, but it was still well over 50% in favor. But in the West Bank? Just under 90%.
Yes, people shouldn’t be blamed individually for the actions of their governments and armies. But in this case, the people seem to very much have rallied around the flags. Let’s not kid ourselves that significant numbers of dissenters exist — because as best I can see, they don’t.
And right now, for one, the number of Jewish Israelis who want the war to stop is vanishingly small.
