Since Oct. 7, ‘the anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian left has only grown more emboldened’

It’s an unusual and positive development that this article would be published in the generally reliably hard-Left New York magazine. But what is described in the article is not really surprising. The Leftist/Islamic alliance is longstanding and a shared hatred for Jews and Israel has made it stronger than ever.

The Pro-Palestinian Left Is Booming,” by Ross Barkan, New York, November 30, 2023:

In the crackling first days after Hamas slaughtered 1,200 people in Israel and took more than 200 hostages, a fast consensus emerged on the American political scene: The pro-Palestinian left was going to suffer. Ritchie Torres, the Democratic congressman from the Bronx, declared that the Democratic Socialists of America had made themselves “radioactive” and that those associating with them would do so at “their own political peril.” AIPAC and various pro-Israel groups promised to pump enormous sums of money into Democratic primaries next year to unseat critics of the Jewish state, particularly Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian American who called Israel’s war in Gaza a “genocide,” and Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar. Meanwhile, various think pieces in prestige publications ruminated on the potentially damaging fissures within the progressive left. Left-wing intellectual spaces have been riven, too.

DSA, in particular, initially drew furious condemnation from a wide range of powerful politicians, including Mayor Eric Adams, for promoting on social media an anti-Israel rally the day after the Hamas attack. At the rally, which was not organized by DSA, protesters were criticized for chanting, “Resistance is justified when people are occupied,” among other things. It was condemned by Democrats across the spectrum, from Kathy Hochul to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (Denying or explaining away the atrocities of Hamas, an authoritarian religious movement bent on Israel’s destruction, is still a fast way to marginalization in the American political context.) Weeks later, Tlaib was censured in Congress for, in part, endorsing the “from the river to the sea” slogan, which is a call for either Palestinian liberation or the destruction of Israel, depending on who speaks it and who hears it.

Rather than slink away, the anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian left has only grown more emboldened. Israel’s retaliatory bombing campaign against Hamas has killed at least 15,000 Palestinians and transformed calls for a cease-fire, briefly fringe, into a cause that mainstream Democrats like Dick Durbin and Peter Welch now support. If DSA, Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, Palestinian Youth Movement, Within Our Lifetime, and affiliated activists are toxic in certain political circles, they’re also the only factions able to organize and command enormous street protests in the current moment. No issue polarizes along generational lines quite like Israel, and explicitly pro-Palestinian organizations exist to hoover up fresh energy from the under-35 cohort. These are not the sort of people who win and lose elections — the middle-aged and senior citizens vote in much higher numbers — but they may well determine the future: how Americans, especially Democrats, view the Jewish state….