The ‘Progressive Left’ Has Abandoned Israel

In the U.K., as in the U.S. with the “Squad” in Congress, many in the so-called “progressive left” have abandoned Israel. For those “progressives” who still remain supporters of the Jewish state, the sense of abandonment is palpable. This split in the left is discussed here.

When Sir Keir Starmer became leader of Britain’s Labour Party after the hard-left Jeremy Corbyn was unseated, he vowed to rid it of the antisemitism that had exploded under Corbyn’s viciously anti-Israel leadership.

He purged the party’s most egregious antisemites and embarked on serious bridge-building with Britain’s Jewish community.

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Many British Jews decided as a result that the party was once again a safe harbor. Now, however, in the wake of the Hamas pogrom on Oct. 7 and in the war that has followed, they have discovered that the Labour waters are still teeming with sharks.

True, Starmer is holding the line he took from the start, standing alongside Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in support of Israel’s right to defend itself against existential attack. But Starmer is under enormous pressure from a large section of his still widely anti-Israel party to withdraw that support.

Calls for a ceasefire have come from the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar; the Labour mayor of London, Sadiq Khan; and the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham. At least 13 shadow ministers have also joined calls for an end to the fighting, and 23 of the party’s local councilors have resigned….

So far Starmer is standing firm, when he has had several occasions on which he could have distanced himself from Israel’s campaign against Hamas. He has never done so; he’s not for turning; ever since he booted Jeremy Corbyn from the party, and took on the Corbynites for their antisemitism, with many of them leaving the Labour Party as a result, he has shown his “mettle more attractive.”

But the pressure mounts.

This pressure comes from two overlapping constituencies: the anti-Israel left and the Muslim community. A similar problem is now on display within the Democratic Party and “progressive” circles in America.

When the House overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning Hamas for its barbaric atrocities, 15 Democrats refused to vote for it. True to form, Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) called for an end to “unconditional” military aid to Israel while Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said “this heartbreaking cycle of violence will continue” unless the funds are cut off.

An open letter from 100 Columbia professors called the pogrom in which Hamas butchered children in front of their parents, raped women, and burned and beheaded babies “a military resistance by a people who had endured crushing and unrelenting state violence from an occupying power.”

Some American Jews on the left have also supported the morally degenerate demand to prevent Israel from stopping the Iran-backed genocide. At a campaign event in Minneapolis, Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg shouted at U.S. President Joe Biden: “As a rabbi, I need you to call for a ceasefire right now.”

Such attitudes have caused shock and disorientation among some of these left-wingers’ erstwhile ideological allies. They are aghast to discover that people who have been shoulder to shoulder with them across the left-wing landscape—from identity politics to opposing Israel’s so-called “occupation” of the “West Bank”—are displaying indifference towards or even support for a depraved genocidal agenda against the Jewish people, and worse still, are now even accusing them of sharing in the oppression of the Palestinians.

The air is suddenly loud with their cries of anguish and betrayal.

Rabbi Sharon Brous, a “progressive” activist in Los Angeles who regularly slams Israel, described from the pulpit, with her voice reportedly breaking, her horror and feelings of “existential loneliness.” “The clear message from many in the world, especially from our world—those who claim to care the most about justice and human dignity—is that these Israeli victims somehow deserved this terrible fate,” she lamented.

What took her, and many others, so long to see the handwriting on the wall? The hard left long ago abandoned Israel, embraced the Palestinian cause, and now has gone so far as to defend the Hamas pogrom on October 7 as a “legitimate act of resistance.”

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Kuffar

4 months ago

Big surprise

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Staff Sgt

4 months ago

Um yea, no surprise. I know your being sarcastic Kuffar, lol!

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Sebastian Tombs

3 months ago

As a youngster I used to be a leftie. A card carrying member of the CPGB at one stage. I was considerably embarassed at my own ignorant stupidity when I grew up a bit, learned a bit more about history and life and realised what an ars*hole ignoramus I had been.

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Stephen Honig

3 months ago

Kudos to Starmer!

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George

3 months ago

England is toast, they are far too far gone to ever recover. The same will happen to the United States if Trump or another American loving freedom fighter isn’t elected President next year.

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Ronald Nuxon

3 months ago

If Jews in the progressive movement were normal (well, we’ll see), the abandonment of Israel by the movement would be a Hitler-Stalin Pact moment. I’m referring to how, in 1939, the sudden alliance between the two totalitarian giants (previously viewed as mutual antagonists), set leftists’ heads spinning, and Jewish leftists needing to make a choice. It all depends on which is a prime value, solidarity with the progressives or solidarity with a beleaguered western-oriented nation, long the object of distain by moral leper countries.

Last edited 3 months ago by Ronald Nuxon

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