Jonathan Chait notes that the XPOTUS, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud), and Hamas all seem to want the Gaza war to continue—at least until November—as well as all the protests calling for the elimination of Israel:
“This encampment escalation divides the Left, alienates influential supporters, and creates a sense of chaos that will move people against it,” writes conservative activist Chris Rufo in his newsletter. “The correct response from the Right is to create the conditions for these protests to flourish in blue cities and campuses, while preventing them in red cities and campuses.”
There are several reasons for this unusual right-left alliance. The most obvious is that Israel is an issue that bitterly divides the Democratic Party while uniting the GOP. Any news coverage raising the salience of this issue detracts from coverage of issues like abortion, Donald Trump’s various crimes, health care, or other subjects that divide Republicans while uniting Democrats.
A second reason is that the campus protests, with their ragged encampments and radical chants, enhance the image of chaos that Donald Trump claims has overtaken the country.
But perhaps the biggest reason is that extremists thrive on an atmosphere of crisis. The Middle East has been teetering on crisis for decades, which is why advocates of peaceful partition and coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians have never had an easy time of it. The more fevered the atmosphere, the easier it is for Trumpian conservatives, along with radicals on the left, to argue that the conflict pits good against evil and that compromise is unthinkable.
[T]he best way to understand the beliefs of protests is usually to read the published statements of the groups organizing them. That is especially true when the protests are well organized by an established network. In this case, the protests have been organized by Students for Justice in Palestine, an organization that’s existed for decades, alongside other left-wing protest groups. And their position is totally explicit: They believe in the total destruction of Israel as a state by any means, including violence.
This is catnip not only for American conservatives, but also for the Israeli right. The central argument advanced by Israeli reactionaries since even before the founding of Israel has held that peacefully partitioning the land into Jewish and Arab states is hopelessly naïve. The two sides are engaged in a zero-sum struggle for control of the land, and only one can prevail.
And perhaps not incidentally, the protests increase the chance Trump wins, a prospect Netanyahu no doubt would relish.
Chait doesn't explicitly say that Hamas also wants the war and the protests to continue; Hamas does. At least, by surrounding their leadership with human shields while refusing every concession Israel offers, they seem uninterested in ending the suffering of the people they claim to represent.
Finally, Julia Ioffe brought up a good point in her weekly email today: how come we have massive protests about the Palestinians, but not about the Uighurs? Or the Rohinga? Or the Yemeni? Or...you get the point. I don't know either, but I have a hypothesis.