Rex Kerr
2 min readMay 6, 2024

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That should be fine.

There are two problems, one of which you point out and one of which you don't seem to have noticed.

Problem number one is that people incorrectly conflate being pro-Palestine as being necessarily anti-Israel and being anti-Israel with being necessarily antisemitic. This leads to self-righteous anti-antisemitic fury being directed at people for simply wanting an end to a humanitarian catastrophe.

But problem number two is that people exploit pro-humanitarian pro-Palestinian sentiment to embolden Hamas and attack Israel, and the pro-humanitarian side of the camp has, thus far, done an absolutely atrocious job of policing "their side". This leads to self-righeous fury being directed at people for simply not wanting to be victims of endless brutal aggression.

The biggest reason by far that it "isn't acceptable to be pro-Palestinian" is that it's so badly contaminated with antisemitic and/or anti-Zionist slogans and talking points, with little to no acknowledgement of the problem.

For instance, you probably wouldn't be very trusting of a company that said it was going to have its diversity training outdoors under a confederate flag and statue of Robert E Lee. Even if they claim until they're blue in the face that to them, the confederate flag and Lee are symbols representing that we need to respect everyone, consider everyone, support everyone in the ways they need to be supported.

So, if you see supposed pro-Palestinians who can't seem to spare a single word out of thousands to criticize Hamas' treatment of Palestinians, who say things like "from the river to the sea" despite the historical meaning and Hamas' contemporary meaning being attacking Israelis until Israel is no more, and who find reasons why everything Israel announces is duplicitous but no reasons why anything Hamas announces could be, it's kind of hard to believe that really it's all about Palestinians, or about peace.

So while I very much oppose the immense suffering in Gaza, and wish for Palestinians to be able to thrive and organize their own affairs, I nonetheless recognize that the antagonism against the so-called pro-Palestinian movement is greatly facilitated by the behavior of people who are allowed to identify as part of that side.

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Rex Kerr
Rex Kerr

Written by Rex Kerr

One who rejoices when everything is made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sayer of things that may be wrong, but not so bad that they're not even wrong.

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