This video:

This video was close to causing me a medical emergency from laughing so hard, blinking streams of tears away while having a coughing fit. These were Arab-American voters who rallied behind Trump because of Gaza (?????) and who are now sort of kind of maybe regretting their decision.

I cannot fathom the blistering delusion these voters were operating on. Throughout Trump’s entire political career, there was never ever ever any ambiguity that his position on Israel was anything besides handing Netanyahu a comically-sized prop check with “do whatever the fuck you want” scribbled onto it. During the campaign, Trump was promising tax cuts on whatever random object he saw that morning, but his fanatical support for Israel had never flinched across many years. What could possibly have deluded these morons into believing otherwise? Where did this hallucination come from?

The goal for any effective activism should be to raise support for its cause — whether through public relation campaigns or direct lobbying. Take BLM for example, regardless of whether you agree with their objectives, there’s no denying they were spectacularly successful activists. They had a crystal clear message (“Black men are routinely being shot by police”) which they leveraged into omnipresent public attention and support (even Doritos posted a black square!) which accelerated passing some actual police reform legislation. There was also the bonus of raising plenty of cash for its founders to buy mansions along the way.

In contrast, pro-Palestinian activists have been their cause’s biggest saboteurs. Their messaging was a muddled mess, their tactics actively eroded support rather than gain it, and they have fuck-all accomplishments to show for it.

Consider the energy incinerated towards “divestment” campaigns across hundreds of campuses, demanding that their university “divest from genocide”. This was an extension of the Boycott/Divest/Sanctions movement, which previously swallowed a delusion that if enough random matzah bakeries got boycotted, Palestine would be free or something. Maybe the comparatively more targeted divestment campaigns could have been justified as a practical activism outlet if any given university somehow happened to be a major investor in some Israeli defense contractor, but we were never anywhere close to that.

Instead, we had homeopathic levels of watered-down culpability. Their ask was to divest from index funds which contained some companies for which a portion of their operations took place in the civilian Israeli sector. This is why the Google logo was replicated across banners dripping with blood, in case you were wondering.

Rallying around demands for a “ceasefire” could have been a more promising Schelling point, had it not immediately run into a serious ambiguity problem. Were they asking for a temporary humanitarian pause, or a permanent end to Israel’s military operation against Hamas? Don’t make us answer!

Getting on a soapbox with “We demand that Israel stop trying to get its hostages back from insane terrorists!” is not a winning message, and so they tried to falsely moderate their Jihadi simping. The unabashed loons braying for the complete destruction of Israel could take cover behind the normies who showed up to protests simply because they hated seeing pictures of dead kids on their Instagram feed. Kind of like human shields.

The confused mixed messaging isn’t a sustainable gambit though, it creates a repellant miasma. But when all you’re left with are a bunch of dipshits who literally cheer on Jihadi terrorists, or cowards too squeamish about denouncing their fellow protestors for literally cheering on Jihadi terrorists, you’re so fucked. Give up and reset.

This was not inevitable, but averting this trajectory required a complete, total, absolute, and unconditional disavowal of Hamas as a non-negotiable minimum. Instead, we get a parade of squeamish humiliation. Rare breed, but there are unimpeachably pro-Palestinian activists who have made anti-Hamas a central plank of their advocacy, such as Samer Sinijlawi:

Palestinians need to put in place a strategy that prioritizes the security of Israelis—not for the Israelis’ sake, but for our own national interest. We need to make sure that the Palestinian Authority properly criminalizes violence committed by Palestinians—just as Israel must end settler violence in the West Bank and respect that the lives of Palestinians are as sacred as the lives of Israelis. Both sides in this conflict need to gain control over their violent tendencies.

Or Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib:

Along with the stubborn unwillingness by some on the left to acknowledge how horrendous Oct. 7 was, there exists an equally staunch refusal to denounce Hamas as a seriously violent terror group that not only committed a vile atrocity against Israelis, but has exercised authoritarian violence against Gazans for over 17 years.

Thankfully, Alkhatib — an actual Gazan who lost several family members to IDF air strikes — has been elevated by the pro-Palestinian movement for his stalwart and inspiring calls for peace and LMAOOOOOOOOOO no actually he’s an outcast who is branded a traitor. What a very curious reaction!

The atrocious messaging discipline combined with the barely concealed militant venom evaporated whatever audiences may have been initially receptive (read: the Democratic party). The activists responded to this self-inflicted vanishing cachet by launching a temper tantrum cosplaying as a serious political campaign. The “Uncommitted” movement postured to holding the presidential election outcome hostage, threatening to withhold votes from Kamala Harris unless she somehow forced Israel to accept a unilateral surrender (shush, don’t worry about how). A shift on that platform plank would have both gained and lost voters, and nobody from “Uncommitted” was able to plausibly argue a net positive effect, especially when their messaging had become so irredeemably toxic.

In the process, they advertised how little anyone important gave a shit about what they wanted, with their diminishing demands repeatedly rebuffed by the Democratic party apparatus. Abbas Alawieh, one of the leaders of the movement, was asked whether his tactics had backfired, and true to form he also responded with a temper tantrum:

For me, as someone who experienced the discrimination, I don't think it's appropriate for me to be asked and for our group to be asked. But don't you think that you shouldn't have put the group that discriminated against you in a position to discriminate against you? I don't think that's a fair thing to ask of us.

Whatever leverage they were posturing with was patently suicidal (I’m sensing a recurring theme here!) because either Harris wins and proves “Uncommitted” could be ignored with impunity, or she loses and the elected crazy person gives us Gaz-a-Lago. Whether “Uncommitted” had the votes to make do on their threat, their cause was destined to lose either way. Fucking brilliant.

Across the entire spectrum of their demands — everything from humanitarian pauses, to a Palestinian state, to the dissolution of Israel — has the pro-Palestinian movement gained any ground? Have they increased popular support or gained more influence with policymakers on any issue? Anything at all?

From the public sentiment side, favorability ratings for Israel among all Americans has indeed declined (from 68% to 58% as of March 2024) but that paralleled a proportionally much worse decline for the Palestinian Authority (from 26% to 18%).

For activists fighting in the lobbying trenches, they now have to square off against an administration unironically floating a policy of permanent relocation for all Palestinians. Good luck flexing your influence to officials who don’t even think Palestinians are real!

Welcome to the world these activists have directly incubated. Absolute fucking losers.