Fierce Divisions Within The Left & Right Over Israel-Hamas Are Due To Competing Factions

Geopolitics and principles lie at the heart of these newfound internecine divisions.

The global systemic transition has largely rendered the traditional Left-Right dichotomy irrelevant as each traditional camp counts amongst itself supporters of both the West’s unipolar order and the emerging multipolar one led by the Global South’s rise in recent years. Nevertheless, this remains a convenient frame of reference for many since there still exist some prominent differences between most of their members on socio-cultural and economic issues, hence why it’s being employed in this piece.

Fierce divisions have erupted within each camp over Israel and Hamas as highlighted by these reports:

* “Israel Violence Underscores the G.O.P. Divide on Foreign Policy”

* “The generational rift that explains Democrats’ angst over Israel”

* “The left faces a reckoning as Israel divides Democrats”

* “MAGA Divides Grow as Israel War Intensifies”

* “MAGA Influencers Tearing Each Other Apart Over Israel-Hamas War”

* “On Israel, Progressive Jews Feel Abandoned by Their Left-Wing Allies”

This is arguably the result of competing factions vying for control over each camp as will be explained.

Geopolitics and principles lie at the heart of these newfound internecine divisions. As regards what can broadly but of course imperfectly be described as the Left, there’s traditionally been a desire to fight against hegemony in support of the oppressed, ergo this camp’s historical support of Palestine that’s also reflected to a large extent through its establishment representatives in both the West and the Global South. Within its Western branches, however, disputes have arisen over the tactics employed to this end.

Some American and European members, especially Jewish ones, reject the use of terrorism by the Palestinians. They consider it to be against their principles and firmly believe in relying solely on political and economic means, which respectively take the form of strong denouncements and the BDS movement respectively, for punishing Israel and promoting Palestine. These members are naturally appalled by their Antifa and BLM allies’ refusal to condemn Hamas’ terrorist attack in early October.

Those two’s tacit support of such tactics isn’t surprising since they employed them to a much less lethal extent during summer 2020’s Hybrid War of Terror on America that was encouraged by the “woke” elite after George Floyd’s death as part of their cult’s nationwide power play. Because it wasn’t anywhere as deadly as Hamas’ terrorist attack, few realized that Antifa and BLM are cut from a similar cloth, including many of the same “woke” cultists who are now appalled by them but supported their unrest back then.

In these people’s eyes, the Palestinians are still oppressed freedom fighters opposed to hegemony, and that’s why their cause remains a just one. At the same time, however, those civilians who were slaughtered by Hamas in that cause’s name are also victims. This faction’s establishment rivals feel differently though and insist that all European-descended Jews in Israel are colonizers who deserved what happened to them, which has led to an irreparable rift between these two factions over principles.

Similar such divisions are also discernable within what can broadly but of course imperfectly be described as the Right, which has traditionally supported Western unipolarity and thus stood in solidarity with Israel. Many members also consider the Jewish State to be much more civilizationally similar compared to the majority-Muslim Palestinians, and they appreciate that country’s role in functioning as their bloc’s “unsinkable aircraft carrier” in energy-rich West Asia, which perpetuates Western hegemony.

Some within the Right’s MAGA faction, which goes by different names depending on the country but shares their members’ prioritization of conservative and nationalist interests, challenge this worldview. They believe that multipolarity is inevitable so their governments shouldn’t waste valuable lives and treasure fighting in vain to uphold the fading unipolar order. These folks are against Western military and economic aid to Israel for that reason, though this doesn’t mean that they all sympathize with Hamas.

Some veritably do, just as other MAGA members like the movement’s US figurehead Donald Trump sympathize with Israel, but the so-called “revolutionary” subgroup within this faction consider Hamas to be just one of the “woke” hydra’s many heads alongside Antifa, BLM, DSA, etc. This view became popular after footage of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar eulogizing George Floyd in June 2021 began circulating once more since many MAGA believe that his death was exploited by the “woke” to take over America.

Their conservative-nationalist principles naturally prevent them from ever supporting Hamas, especially after the group justified its acts of terror on “decolonization” pretexts that are identical to the rhetoric pushed by BLM, which makes these folks fear that they might be targeted next. These concerns led to an irreparable rift between them and those MAGA who sympathize with Hamas, not to mention between those two and the other MAGA subgroup as well as the establishment Right that both stand with Israel.

All of this insight leads to some intriguing observations. These camps’ US establishments support Israel with the exception of the Democrats’ “Squad”, which is hyper-“woke” and therefore supports Hamas, including its use of terrorist tactics (though some have tried to dispel this perception under pressure). The Leftist establishment in the EU and the Global South supports Hamas, however, while the Global South’s multipolar Rightist establishment represented by Putin and Modi are neutral as proven here.

Some among MAGA’s multipolar faction share those two’s balanced stance, as do some (but importantly not all) non-“woke” leftists in the Global South, while other non-“woke” leftists and multipolar MAGAs support Hamas (including its use of terrorist tactics). By contrast, MAGA’s unipolar faction represented by Trump supports Israel, which places it on the same side as both camps’ US establishments. As can be seen, the global systemic transition has indeed made the Left-Right dichotomy increasingly irrelevant.