November 3, 2023 - 3:15pm
This week, UnHerd welcomed two thinkers from opposite ends of the political spectrum, James Lindsay and Aaron Bastani, to discuss how the Israel-Gaza conflict has led to the creation of another frontier in the West’s “culture war”.
Lindsay, a cultural critic and author, has for some years positioned himself against the “woke” movement through his writing and social media posts. He claims that this group has now taken to defending Hamas, and has traced the “intellectual lineage” of “woke” politics to explain how this has come to be.
In Lindsay’s view, the early movements geared towards Palestinian liberation were heavily influenced by Marxism. “The word ‘liberation’ referred originally to a kind of Communist liberation,” he told UnHerd. “This was a term that got used for a lot of third-world projects that were either informed by or directly involved with Marxism.” As examples, he cited Vietnam’s Viet Cong, Che Guevara’s National Liberation Army in Bolivia, as well as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which he described as a “Marxist-Leninist project that was brought into the Arab world […] to answer the West’s incursion in 1948.”
Conversely, Bastani, a journalist and UnHerd contributor, describes his own politics as Marxist. Speaking to UnHerd, he observed that sympathy with the Palestinian cause was not historically a cause célèbre for British Leftists and was instead more of an establishment stance.“If you look at the formation of the State of Israel in 1948, one of the first [countries] to recognise it, then support it, was the USSR,” he pointed out to UnHerd. “And there was also a predilection amongst the British establishment to actually be quite Arabist. So there was once a strong Tory Arabism.”
Bastani argued that the Labour Party once championed a liberal form of Zionism, with former prime minister Harold Wilson in particular “squarely behind Israel and squarely behind the idea of liberal Zionism”.
Lindsay and Bastani found common ground on the question of free speech in times of crisis, concurring that this right is meaningless if not extended to those with whom one disagrees. “It’s obviously been a really horrific series of events stretching out now over the best part of a month,” Bastani said. “But that’s precisely when you need to uphold your principles.”
He compared the present situation to the silencing of pacifists in the run-up to the First Word War as an example of the risk of abandoning free speech at a dangerous moment. Bastani declared “profound respect for people on the Right” who continue to defend the free speech of those with whom they profoundly disagree on the current conflict.
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SubscribeWhy does the Left support Palestine – because in the main they’ve fallen for the myth that Israel are the eternal oppressor and the Palestinians are the eternally oppressed.
But, regardless of Left or Right, where are the political leaders – from BOTH sides of the aisle – who should be coming out to counter these myths and lies that “Pro-Palestinians” use as justification for their anti-Israeli attitudes, and in many cases as cover for their anti-Semitism?
The radicalised haters are going to hate, there are no rational, temporal arguments that will dissuade them because they truly believe their hate is divinely mandated. That is a huge problem, but one to be discussed elsewhere and on another day.
What needs to be challenged is the widespread adoption of misconceptions and blatant untruths that seemingly have been taught to a whole generation of students – already inculcated with Critical Race Theory and the need to De-Colonise everything. Those lies can AND MUST be confronted with truth and demonstrable facts. It is the job of our political and cultural leaders to calmly and clearly make that case.
If you read the marchers’ placards, the two most prevalent lies are that Israel is a “Colonial” and “Apartheid” state.
Firstly, Apartheid
There is no apartheid in Israel, there are Israeli Arabs – muslims – at every level of Israeli society. Over 20% of the entire population is Arab. They have full equality of rights and there are no limits on how far they can climb in their chosen career. There are Arab Doctors, Lawyers, businessmen. The Head of Israel’s largest bank is an Arab, there are Arabs serving in the Knesset. Israel’s Arab poulation enjoy freedoms that would be unthinkable in Egypt, Jordan, Syria or Iraq. Could a Jew survive, let alone thrive, in Palestinian controlled areas? There is no equivalence. Claims of “Apartheid” defy observable reality, and certainly bear no comparison with actual apartheid. No blacks were able to run banks or sit in parliament in South Africa.
Israel is a liberal democracy. No Arab citizen anywhere across the Middle East enjoys the freedoms that their counterparts do in Israel, as a simple matter of fact, it is not even close. The only reason such an equivalence was first drawn was due to the checkpoints run by Israel’s security forces, where Palestinian Arabs are searched when they want to come into Israel. But you’d have to be wildly dishonest to claim that such security measures are not warranted, given the long history of suicide attacks on Israeli citizens.
Secondly, “Colonial”
Seriously? Read some history. Muslim scholars love nothing more than celebrating the Islamic conquests of centuries past, across North Africa to Spain, in Central Asia all the way to the gates of Vienna, all through India and beyond and, yes, across the Holy Land, where the indigenous population, the Jews, were conquered, driven out or killed and their lands stolen.
Marchers “for Palestine” are not demonstrating against colonialists, they’re marching in support of the colonisers. Muslims settled Israel, forcing their laws, their language and their customs on the surviving indigenous population. That’s the very definition of colonialism – and one that Muslim scholars were more than happy to celebrate until it became expedient to, instead, revel in victimhood.
That it is our University lecturers and students who are at the forefront of promoting these factually incorrect and ahistorical claims demonstrates the failure of our education system, …. among much else. Countering such obvious lies should be the responsibility of the very Universities and Institutions that promote them.
It falls to decent people everywhere to stand with Jews, regardless of where any of us might be on the political spectrum.
Just be a mensch.
I watched this tonight. It was an interesting discussion but at the heart of it was something not discussed which I feel negated the honesty of the debate. What about the way in which the 1400 people were tortured and killed – roasted, burned, beheaded, taunted – with an enjoyment to the extent that Hamas filmed what they were doing?
This is where the divide begins and will not end. I will condemn people who condone this and this doesn’t even begin to attempt to debate the issue overarching everything – the clowns are calling for a cease fire and Hamas does not want a cease fire.
Important focus here on the Socialist Workers whom, for decades, have been grooming British students and other young people in a creed equivalent to that of the Islamic terrorist groups: the eradication of a ‘colonial, imperial Israel exporting the capitalist West to the Arab East’ which is broadly their message.
They also provide a veil of left-wing legitimacy for young British Muslims to express cultural anti-Semitism. Otherwise, the wide agreement if this pair illustrate that the problem of these violent street politics is generational. And yes, with some older people driving Far Left organisations like the SWP.
I first came across the Socialist Workers Party back in the early to mid ‘80s. At that time, the biggest threats to the British state were Irish republicanism, the inner-city riots and the miners strike. There were a lot of protest groups around, such as the Troops Out Movement and the Anti-N**i League, which were essentially front organisations for the SWP (other front organisations for other leftist groups were also available). Conversing with those activists at the time, it was clear to me that there were two types of people in the SWP. The first were diehard party activists who’s sole aim was the overthrow of the state, and they were cynically using these front groups for that aim. The second were mostly white middle class student types and pseudo intellectuals who had little knowledge of those groups who they were marching for (they had probably never had any interaction with black / Irish / working class people), but were in it either to seem fashionable / radical amongst their fellow students or because they were generally disaffected with their lot in life and would latch on to causes that maybe had a bit more (perceived) credibility than their own problems.
That was back in the 1980’s, but I think the same dynamic is playing out today. The SWP has the same aim – overthrowing capitalism – and they are very good at supplying placards for any march or demo. There is now a larger cohort of disaffected middle class, university educated, youth to support them; overeducated but unable to pay the rent, and more narcissistic than their 80’s counterparts. Maybe the protests in London are more about UK problems than the events in Palestine. The one dynamic that is different, and that I don’t understand, is the tie in with Islamic groups. Maybe the SWP is just aligning with them in the same way that they aligned with other groups in the 80’s. If there is a closer allegiance, we should worry.
We should worry now or we will regret it!
The Left supports the Palestinians simply because the only Marxist shibboleth surviving from the 20th century – all its political and economic principles and policies having been utterly discredited in practice – is the destruction of capitalism, and Islam is its last great hope for achieving that. The fact that what would follow is far far worse is immaterial. History is littered with such half-arsed ‘rationalising’; The French Catholics and royalists in the 1930’s, desperate to destroy the 3rd French Republic, sided with Hitler, reckoning his victory would bring that about. It did. Some ‘success’.
I’m a big fan of UnHerd and Freddy Sayers in particular. He does his usual insightful job of interviewing but I found both Lindsay and Bastani just annoying.
The people embarrassing themselves by publicly supporting the perpetrators of the Oct 7th massacres and basically calling for the end of Israel, have no thought for Ronald Reagan or Harold Wilson. Most of them have no clear idea who either Reagan or Wilson were. All that talk of the early 20th century and the dream of a socialist world (local lore for a kid growing up in NYC in the 70s) means nothing to them.
So, in effect, UnHerd is making the same mistake that our leaders keep making; raising certain people up to the level of “expert” despite their unwillingness to deal with the actual problems at hand: the cancer of anti-semitism that’s popped up in so many unexpected places, the hard-line Netanyahu administration(s), the mindless death-cult of Islamism, the brutality of certain people on both sides, the absense of viable solutions…
And then Lindsay’s mention of “the right to life, liberty and property“. Don’t get me started….!
Freddy challenges Lindsey about genocide — the protesters are in a frenzy and definitely support the destruction of Jews. I’m disappointed that Freddy tries to imply otherwise.
It ought to go without saying that the re-emergence of Jew-hatred in the West is one of the most shameful and retrograde cultural developments in modern times, but unfortunately nothing goes without saying these days.
Modern leftists use Marxist terminology, but without being real Marxists. They have abandoned class-consciousness for solipsistic moral grandiosity. Hence their selective indignation, choosing as celebrated victims only those they can readily employ as puppets in their little Puritan psychodramas.
The mindless idiots who keep calling for a ceasefire, seem to believe that Israelis should unconditionally lay down their weapons, and allow the barbarians in to make 7th October events seem like a vicarage tea party. Do they really hate Jews so much, or are they just deluded?
Israelis are fighting our fight for us against the forces of Islamist persecution and repression, just as Ukrainians are fighting on behalf of western Europe against Putinism. As such they deserve as the bare minimum, all the material and moral support that democratic nations can offer.
Instead, we get disgusting displays of solidarity with terrorists in the marches that are taking place all over the UK. Where are the counterdemonstrations in support of Israel’s right to exist?
As has been mentioned, the Western Left was a supporter of Israel, with its initially socialist roots, agricultural communes ( kibbutzim, plural of kibbutz) and clear, initial underdog status relative to its bellicose Arab neighbours
Then in 1967 Israel scored a massive military victory and seized territory legally under international law ( much of it surrendered back to Egypt to secure a peace treaty) and now Israel was robbed of its underdog privilege in the eyes of reflexive leftists
As well, demographic shifts and a change in political orientation towards capitalist, more open, less taxed and less socialist economy – leading to a huge surge in inventiveness, business creation, high tech and medical advances enriching the nation ( the “ startup nation”) –
as well as its economic partners – sullied the socialists utopian image of Israel
Finally, the fiction, current to this day, was created by Yasser Arafat of an oppressed, underdog Palestinian nation (woke leftists unthinkingly always ascribe immediate virtue to those with less successful cultures whatever the adverse political and social policies to explain why these cultures are so) – many of whom, like Arafat ( an Egyptian) himself, were Arab migrants to the area when Jewish immigration, with better work and commercial opportunities, beckoned. There was never an Arab Palestine government in history…
In short, leftism displays it’s true roots – revulsion of capitalist success, reflexive utopian impracticality, worship of large government control, lack of tolerance to opposition and difference of thought, large dollops of guilt and self hatred, and self-anointed moral superiority, claim of moral high ground, and virtue signalling ie a secular religion which to excess joins hands with fascists and national socialists against liberal, democratic, open capitalist societies who have been responsible for the greater improvement in the human condition since the beginning of human history
Very interesting format. I hope more of this in the future. I have to say that I was also very disappointed to hear calls of censorship from the right.
Next time, have Bari Weiss on…would be a much more informed, intelligent discussion. This was the worst I have ever seen on Unherd. Was it a rather pathetic attempt to appear “balanced”?
Israels mistake was trying to attack Gaza with bombs and soldiers. All they had to do was cut off the water and destroy any desalination plants. Within a week Gaza civilians would have surrendered. As the civilian population came out load them on ships and dump them in Iran or Africa. Put them adrift in lifeboats off the coast. Hamas holdouts could then be delt with. Underground tunnels can be depth charged using oil well drilling methods. Horizontal drilling is a well-developed technique. Note that underground nuclear explosions collapse tunnels most effectively.
The Jew hatred comes from one source Satan. He hates that God has displaced all of the previous gods. Jews are God’s chosen and Satan wants to harm them. He is the ruler of this world and will stir up antisemitic movements among his children whenever God unleashes him. When the Jews failed to accept Christ, they lost God’s protection and Satan is allowed to take his revenge. As the Apocalypse approaches, God wants all the Jews to move to Israel. The Jews were too comfortable in Poland and Germany to move. He allowed Satan to do his thing which is the holocaust. Recently Satan is again unleashed to create Antisemitism since it scares American and European Jews into running to Israel. The holocaust occurred for two reasons. Many Jews had denied God and worshiped Marx. Most non-Russian Communists in the 1930’s were Jews. Stalin had killed the Russian Jewish Reds. The holocaust was a Devine group punishment of European Jews similar to many in the Bible. It also caused the displaced remnant Jews to come to Israel. Arab outrage at the foundation of Israel caused their Jewish population to flee to Israel. We are very close to the Apocalypse. All the signs listed in the Bible are being fulfilled. The big one being the return of the Jews to Israel. After the Christians fly off to heaven, the Jews will have 7 years to witness for Christ while Satan rules the world.
Serious question: has there ever been a revolution or uprising where the lefties, academics, artists etc. were not first in front of the firing squad? Have they ever really indulged in some analysis as to why they are always first? Is it because they would, and probably did, sell out their own people and so are not viewed as trustworthy enough to have around?
The British middle class leftwingers dislike the tough practical patriotic working class who in turn despise them as the swots, sneaks, milksops and teachers pets from school. Whereas the tough members from the working class and public school/gentry background fight alongside each other in the toughest military units.
Consequently, the left wing middle class will support any body, especially foreigners, who are not part of the tough patriotic practical working class. It is Third Worldism as outlined by Pascal Bruckner- First World Bad, Third World Good and all the latters problems due to the former.
Orwell said the left wing middle class get their politics from Moscow and food from Paris and nothing has changed.
The Entebbe raid demonstrates demonstrates how the middle class leftwingers enjoys inflicting suffering on Jewish people.
During a stopover in Athens, the aircraft was hijacked by two Palestinian PFLP–EO terrorists and two German RZ terrorists,
Lindsay is hilarious, “the colonised peasants had the cheek to think they could rule themselves rather than just be happy being exploited by us!? This guy’s knows his analysis stinks, Hamas and Islamism in general was caused by the titanic effort that the West dedicated the whole of the twentieth century (and continuing) to stop self determination for ex colonial countries. The plo weren’t psychopaths we had a chance now the situation is fucked. What is this guy arguing: well done for totally f*****g it up and ignoring what the left has been saying. Ignore Marxism, the left wing cause is emancipation for all people.
Anti colonialism has been a position of the left since the pening of the international. I don’t get what’s confusing, people wearing Palestinian scarfs is as much a cliché of the left student movement as Che Guevara t-shirts… I don’t understand how people can see Israel as anything other than just another settler colony. Palestine wasn’t responsible for the Holocaust I’ve never understood why it’s them who should pay. European racism, both colonial and anti-Semitic, can be defined by the impossibility of imagining a Jewish state in Europe.
James Lindsay is thoroughly unlistenable — dodgy reasoning, a shockingly poor historical understanding of the key terms he’s using to tell his narrative of history. His attempt to justify the Nazi party was somehow “socialist” was so poorly construed that I can only hope that he meets better commenters on the dodgy internet forums he appears to be getting his information from. Aaron Bastani on the other hand represents exactly what it is that makes the Twitter Left so thoroughly punchable — smug sanctimonious, and so thoroughly convinced of his own moral virtue.
Props to Freddie Sayers for sitting through, let alone, conducting this interview — I went through the five stages of grief when I watched the first five minutes this debate.
A better question would be, why does anyone support Israel
You’ve been skirting around this for several posts, but now we can see you for what you really are.
Whats that Paddy ?
A better question would be how can anyone anyone condone the actions of either side since October 7th, regardless of Israels treatment of Palestinians in Gaza over decades?
Listen here, if you’re not for obliterating the Gazans you can clear off, Adolf!
I 100% agree
Plenty around here have no issue with the actions of Israel, I think there’re all crazy
I DO NOT SUPPORT OR CONDONE HAMAS, I will leave that kind of thing to leftist clowns and Muslims
I also refuse to support Israel. I don’t have to support the murder of innocent civilians, and BTW nor do you
Do you support Israel’s right to exist?
Do you support Israel’s right to defend itself and its inhabitants?
You are, presumably, aware that leaders of Hamas have openly said they will commit atrocities against Jews at every opportunity given them – so if you said “Yes” to my first two questions, (though I have my doubts that you actually do support either of those ideas) then how do you ask: “why does anyone support Israel”.
If you make obviously anti-Israeli comments, don’t be too surprised if people assume you are an anti-semite and judge you accordingly.
Aren’t you a sword of justice and truth up there on your tiny little fence.
When ISIS terrorists occupied Mosul, the Iraqi Army and the USA and European allies counterattacked in force to dislodge them and ultimately to eliminate them
Many tens of thousands of civilians died
Nary a peep from the ilk of the leftists in this feed …
Why ?
Are you reflexively focussed on Israel and the little Jewish people and their homeland – and resent our resilience, dogged survival and nonetheless our successes and widespread contributions to science, arts, culture and economies in the face of centuries of unremitting, genocidal hostility ?
Are you innately antiSemitic?