The initial and ongoing moral inversion is the "blood libel". Although Kosher salt is widely used, it's original purpose might not be known to many. Orthodox Jews abhor the consumption of blood. The salt was and is used to kosher the meat by "removing all blood" from the meat. The steaks that are today considered "best" aren't kosher because they may contain some blood related material. And then the long lasting myth of the Jewish "need" for blood becomes the cause of death for untold numbers of people who were just as real as you or me.
Sadly, the first sentence in this article confirms what I've been seeing with my own two eyes! The fact that the majority of Democrats under the age of 50 have a more favorable opinion of Iran than of Isreal is a testament to the stupidity that results from the fact that we have allowed Muslim nations to buy their way into our colleges and universities, our mainstream and social media, and our political process. And, the far-right side of the political spectrum is no better! It's as if any concepts of history or common sense have ceased to exist among large segments of our population. I'm starting to wonder if I live in a democratic country or an insane asylum!
The central tenet of anti-Zionism seems to be that everyone is lying. When Israel says that they don't want to hurt civilians and they just want to live in peace with their neighbors they are lying. When Hamas and Iran explicitly call for the destruction of Israel and the genocide of the Jews they too are lying.
I am very grateful to have this space where I don’t have to feel completely insane. I wish there were more such spaces, but unfortunately, this is one of the few. I guess it’s proof that people are unknowable, in that I have had to revise the way I viewed many people I know in the wake of October 7. I wish the educated class was not so morally and intellectually lazy and complacent. But they are.
Ha, you've basically hit the nail on the head for me.
Back in the 90s, I was an Anthropology major (callback! to the article) in college and was as anti-US & Israeli as they come (then anyways, tame by today's standards); taking Arabic, MIddle Eastern Studies, had multiple friends from the Palestinian diaspora, even occasionally going to Masjid for Khutba sermon on Friday. I wanted to work in the MENA region, but Islamic focused.
But, I was never so anti-israeli that i believed in divestiture. Even in the 90s, i still believed Israel had a right to exist, especially as a haven. But, i wanted nothing to do with the country personally. Then, October 7th happened, and I've completely flipped.
The open cheering...while the bodies were still burning...and little to no complaint or condemnation from the left (or their politicians). The calls for Israel to stand down while they're still under attack?! The "believe all women" versus "#MeToo_Unless You're a Jew", which was real and i saw that as well.
Ironically, now I want to go visit Israel and serve some kind of penance, by learning more about the culture and people. I've cut myself off from a good percentage of my former friends (& even divorced my wife, but that was only the final nail of that coffin and much more complicated). I'm a lifelong atheist but i cannot abide this moral equivalency/inversion/
relativism not even from the closest around me.
I know some people & celebrities (no, they're not the same) talk of 9/11 as when they left the Democratic Party for good. Technically, I've always been a registered Independent. Mostly voted 3rd party (yep, proudly wasted my vote many a time!), but frequently voted Democrat (2020 was the beginning of the end of that "relationship" and I don't mean the election) and very rarely Republican (usually local). Well, much like with the friends and wife, October 7th was the final nail in the coffin for myself and the Democrats/regressives/post-modern Puritans.
The question is, what do we do about this? I'd like to think we could educate people not to be such idiots, but knowledge is their enemy. They want absolutes; they need to blame somebody for their own failings, moral and otherwise, and as always, the Jews are the ultimate scapegoat. Israel is just a convenient excuse. Trying to educate is pointless—they don't want to know.
What are we left with then? Well, I for one am glad Israel is a military power and has the bomb.
You’re dead right. Trying to win the argument worldwide against anti-Zionism is hopeless. The Gaza War and the Iran War are far too unpopular to change minds for Israel, on the right as well as the left. More Americans sympathize with the Palestinians now than with the Israelis. Israel’s worldwide pariah status is now baked in the cake. It’s a South Africa with no way to get the apartheid monkey off its back, or to wipe out all the horrific images from Gaza that are as seared in humanity’s memory as those of the Holocaust. Then there’s going to war with Iran and seriously harming the world economy for dessert.
Nukes can’t cure what ails Israel worldwide now. The irony of Israel’s nukes and mighty military tech is the massive hubris and defiance of world opinion they produced, leading straight to the PR debacles of the wars in Gaza and Iran. It’s as if Israel, after all its successes, came to believe, like Napoleon and Hitler at the top of Fortune’s wheel, that it could get away with anything. Historians will ses the massacre of Gaza and the war with Iran, easily dragging our fool leader Trump in with them, as Israel’s version of invading Russia.
Let’s face it - progressives, in general, (the most likely anti Zionist and antisemites) aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed. They can’t argue their way out of a wet paper bag because logical thinking is beyond them. Ever notice how, rather than argue their points, they just scream over the logic of anyone they debate in order the shut the debate down? Smart folks don’t need to do that.
>>The author George Orwell described how language can be used to “make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.”
From The Principles of Newspeak
"The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought — that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc — should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. "
Take a look at what Medhi Hasan and his team at Zeteo are doing on their substack. You will find evidence that they are advancing Holocaust inversion and appropriation theories, in attempts to weaponize it against all Jews.
Why does not every news story end with, "As of today, as usual, none of the 22 Arab countries and 47 majority Muslim countries has offered to take in any of the Gazans they claim are being subjected to a genocide - yet, at the same time, they also claim that they are the 'moral' ones.
Agreed! But even before he was first elected in 2016, they never pointed out the absurdity of the situation: It's cruel, awful, open air prison - Israel is evil! Let them immigrate to our countries? No way!
The progressive's rejection of logic and evidence (AKA moral confusion) is astonishing. If the US and Israel are so terrible, please go live in Iran (or Russia or North Korea). Iran's human rights trend should be improving since any freedom loving Iranians are already dead or their mouths are shut tight or they've been living in California since 1979.
There is something real in this essay, and something missing—and both matter.
The warning about “moral inversion” lands because it names a genuine temptation: to assign roles before examining facts. When Israel is cast as permanent aggressor and its adversaries as permanent victims, analysis can collapse into reflex. That is not serious moral reasoning; it is narrative discipline.
But the argument overreaches when it treats dissent as pathology. Not every critic of Israel’s actions—or of a potential war with Iran—is confused, inverted, or captured by ideology. Many are asking older, harder questions: about proportionality, escalation, civilian cost, and the long shadow of unintended consequences. Those are not signs of moral failure. They are the beginning of moral responsibility.
If there is a danger of inversion on one side, there is a risk of overcorrection on the other—where clarity hardens into certainty, and certainty into permission.
The task is not to choose a framework and fit the world into it. It is to resist frameworks that do the thinking for us.
Iran can be a malign actor. Israel can face real threats. And still, the use of force can remain tragic, contingent, and subject to judgment.
Moral clarity is indispensable. Moral certainty is not.
I don’t think the essay comes out and says, in so many words, “all dissent is pathological.” That would be too crude. The move is subtler.
It’s in the framing. When a broad swath of criticism is gathered under a label like “moral inversion,” the implication is that the disagreement is not just mistaken, but rooted in a kind of moral confusion or distortion. That shifts the conversation from argument (“you’re wrong about X”) to diagnosis (“you’re thinking in a fundamentally inverted way”).
To be clear, there are cases where that diagnosis fits—where people excuse or minimize the actions of groups like Hamas or ignore the role of Iran. Calling that out is not only fair, it’s necessary.
My point was narrower: when that label is applied too broadly, it risks sweeping in people who are not confused so much as they are weighing different factors—civilian harm, escalation risks, long-term consequences—and coming to a different conclusion.
So the overreach isn’t explicit; it’s structural. It’s the difference between identifying a real phenomenon and letting it become a catch-all explanation.
And once it becomes a catch-all, it can crowd out the harder work of engaging specific arguments on their merits.
"The move is subtler.""It’s in the framing."-- Huh, funny, kind of what i was thinking when i made my comment about yours.
You seem to be doing a bit of "advocating" on here. I'm kidding, but i frequently have read your comments on this thread and thought "Whoa, multiple long posts?!". Then, I'd read them and notice a specific structure... let's call it framing...and i was thinking, AI? Bot? He's recently read some self-help book? Maybe on debating? Art of the Deal? 48 Laws of Power? Or How to Have Impossible Conversations? How to Impress People and Undermine your Enemies"?! (Might have just made that last one up).
No bot, no secret handbook, and (alas) no mastery of the 48 laws of anything. Just someone who tends to write the way he thinks: a bit structured, probably a bit long, and occasionally guilty of trying to hold too many sides of an argument at once.
You’re not wrong, though—there is framing going on. There always is. The only real choice is whether to be conscious of it or pretend it isn’t happening. I’m trying (imperfectly) to do the former rather than smuggle in conclusions under the guise of neutrality.
As for the length—guilty as charged. Some of these topics feel like they punish brevity. Though I take the hint that a lighter touch might sometimes serve the point better.
In any case, I appreciate the good humor. If nothing else, it’s a reminder that even in serious disagreements, we don’t have to take ourselves too seriously.
I hear the gravity behind what you’re saying, and there’s more common ground here than might appear at first glance.
History does confront us with moments—like the end of World War II—where overwhelming force was used to bring a catastrophic conflict to a close. Serious people can debate those decisions, but they can’t dismiss the underlying reality: there are regimes and movements for which half-measures fail, and whose continued existence carries its own terrible cost.
The regime in Iran, and institutions like the IRGC, fit into that category for many observers. It is not unreasonable to ask what it would take to end their capacity for violence and destabilization. And you’re right that many Iranians themselves have suffered under that system and express a desire for change.
At the same time, history also teaches something more sobering: even when the ends feel morally clear, the means remain morally fraught. The line you mention—between not far enough and too far—may be contested, but it is not meaningless. Democracies, in particular, are judged not only by whether they prevail, but by how they conduct themselves in doing so.
On your second point, I would again agree in part. There are indeed bad actors—those who exploit this conflict to launder older hatreds, including antisemitism. That has to be named without hesitation. But I’d be cautious about letting those voices define the entire field of criticism. Many people who identify as “anti-Zionist,” however much we may disagree with them, are not motivated by hatred but by a (sometimes misapplied) moral framework.
If we collapse all criticism into malice, we risk missing both the genuine bigotry and the genuine moral concern—and we end up persuading neither.
Perhaps the steadier footing is this:
Take threats seriously enough to avoid naïveté.
Take moral limits seriously enough to avoid becoming what we oppose.
And distinguish, as carefully as we can, between those arguing in bad faith and those simply seeing the world through a different, if imperfect, lens.
Should we be more worried about wrongly labeling a critic as being morally inverted or about the threat that Iran and their proxies pose to the existence of Israel?
Also, proportionality in the context of war is idiotic, particularly when one side openly advertises their desire to end the existence of those they attack as does Iran and their proxies. If a gang of 10 men invade your home, murder your wife and threaten to do the same to your kids, if you have the means do you exercise proportionality in defending yourself? No, that's absurd. You do your best to eliminate the entire threat. Israel issues warnings about their intended bombing targets days ahead of time. Does Iran or their proxies?
I hear the concern you’re raising, and it’s not trivial. The threat from Iran and its proxies—including Hamas and Hezbollah—is real, declared, and in some cases explicitly eliminationist. Any serious discussion has to start there.
But I don’t think this is an either/or.
We can recognize the gravity of that threat and be careful about how we describe those who question the conduct of the war. Mislabeling critics as “morally inverted” too quickly doesn’t just risk unfairness—it can also weaken the case we’re trying to make by substituting diagnosis for argument.
On proportionality: I understand the instinct behind your analogy. A society under attack has not only the right but the obligation to defend itself decisively. But in the law and ethics of war, proportionality doesn’t mean “matching force for force,” or pulling punches in the face of danger. It asks a narrower, harder question: whether the expected military advantage of a given action justifies the foreseeable harm to civilians.
That principle exists precisely because war is not a home invasion. It involves entire populations, not just perpetrators. And without some limiting framework, the logic of total threat can slide into the logic of total war.
Israel’s efforts to warn civilians ahead of strikes are, as you note, a meaningful distinction. They reflect an attempt—imperfect, contested, but real—to operate within those constraints. The question is not whether Israel should defend itself. It must. The question is how a democracy does so while preserving the moral and legal standards that define it.
So perhaps the balance is this:
Take the threat seriously enough to reject naïveté.
Take moral language seriously enough to avoid absolutism.
We don’t strengthen Israel’s case by abandoning those distinctions—we strengthen it by showing they still matter, even under pressure.
I appreciate the conversation here, Brad, and your rational and thoughtful comments. I still disagree about a few things, especially that most people have the facts. They don't. I live in a very Blue city, in a very Blue state, and the Left, who toute themselves as the intellectuals of the parties, are way off the mark (as we say in Judaism). These are the people who defended every marginalized group except Jews and Israelis. These are the people who have betrayed Jews for political votes and political power and because of their hatred of the Right and Trump. These are the people who were duped by the billions flooding into their universities by the Middle Eastern powers that are behind terrorism and the dismantling of the West and Israel. But do we hear them admit that they were duped? No. They have doubled down, voting against supporting Israel with bulldozers. The facts are there. But the very people who have been telling us that they are the "morality police" have failed the very people who have been working side by side with them to fight for the rights of those who are bullied.
I appreciate that you are an optimist (so am I) who believes that these same people are "not confused so much as they are weighing different factors—civilian harm, escalation risks, long-term consequences—and coming to a different conclusion," but you are giving them too much credit. They are not doing these things. The data on civilian casualties in a war exist and Israel is a shining example of having one of the lowest civilian to combatant casualty rates EVEN if you take the Gaza Health Ministry's (aka Hamas') numbers. Escalation risks? Again, not taking a risk is asking them to be sitting ducks. And long-term consequences? This war did not start yesterday, or on 10/7. This has been decades in the making. And the people who were supposed to be on the morally right side of the ledger appeased Iran, etc. for all sorts of reasons that the average person (or even ones with many degrees) does not know about, doesn't care about, and doesn't accept even when they are spoon fed this information. I know that this is the case near me and I live right in between Harvard & MIT. These folks *should* know better. They don't. I know them personally.
For many Jews, especially those who have long identified with progressive spaces, this moment feels like a rupture. There is a sense that allies have turned away, or that a movement grounded in protecting the vulnerable has not extended that same clarity to Jews and to Israel. That perception, whether one agrees with every aspect of it or not, is real and widely felt.
At the same time, I would be careful about treating the progressive left as a single unified stance. What we are seeing is a convergence of different impulses. A post colonial framework that simplifies the conflict. A powerful emotional response to images of civilian suffering. And in some cases a failure to grapple seriously with actors like Hamas or the role of Iran.
That mix can produce conclusions that feel not just wrong, but like a betrayal.
But it is not always rooted in hostility to Jews. Sometimes it is a moral framework applied too rigidly. Sometimes it is lack of knowledge. And sometimes it does shade into something darker that should be named clearly.
There is a real and painful disconnect right now. It deserves to be acknowledged without exaggeration and challenged without writing off everyone on the other side.
If this moment is as consequential as it feels, then clarity matters. So does keeping the door open to those who may yet see more than they do today.
Sometimes total or near total elimination seems necessary. Not the entire populace but of those responsible. The line between not far enough and too far is subjective. There will be many on both sides. Were the means to bring an end to WWII in both Europe and the Pacific too much? Is total annihilation of the Ayatollah and IRGC too far? It seems most Iranians wish for this. Victor Davis Hanson's "The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation" is a good read on this topic.
Regarding Israel, the loudest voices are the charlatans who look to profit from antisemitism, not legitimate criticism. They've influenced millions of weak-minded, ennui afflicted lemmings to take up the "anti-Zionist" cause. This is the moral inversion I believe the essay speaks of. It's led to violence and murder against Jews around the world.
Agree with you in theory, Brad, and appreciate your thoughtful post. But the reality right now is that the people who are critical of Israel's actions have neither the facts, nor the interest in gaining the facts, and do not criticize any other nation, including but not limited to Nigeria, Russia, Sudan, China, Iran, Syria, Turkey, and so on ... That is why their criticism holds no water. Everyone can agree that war is awful and lost lives are tragic. This is not what this is. And that is why it's a sign of moral failure and moral IRRESPONSIBILITY. Especially our politicians on the Left currently, who are pandering for votes at the expense of Israel, Jews, and the West. ALL EXCEPT FETTERMAN. He seems to be the only one who understands what this is.
JAM, I take your point—and there is a frustration there that many feel, even if they express it more bluntly than you have.
There is a pattern worth naming: Israel is often subjected to a level of scrutiny that is not consistently applied to other conflicts. The silence—or far softer voice—around places like Sudan or Syria, while Israel dominates headlines and protests, raises legitimate questions about selectivity. That asymmetry can erode trust in the criticism itself.
But I would be careful about drawing the circle too tightly.
It is not quite right that critics “have neither the facts nor the interest.” Some surely don’t. Others are misinformed. But many are reacting—however imperfectly—to images of suffering, to the scale of destruction, and to a genuine moral unease about war in dense civilian environments. That instinct, even when poorly reasoned, is not nothing. It is part of the same moral fabric we would want applied elsewhere.
Where I think you are closer to the mark is on consistency. Moral credibility depends on it. If one condemns Israel but is silent about the brutality of Iran or Russia, or minimizes the conduct of groups like Hamas, then the critique begins to look less like principle and more like preference.
But inconsistency is not the same as bad faith—and labeling it as “moral failure” across the board risks shutting down the very conversation we’re trying to elevate.
As for politics, there is no doubt that some voices are shaped by coalition pressures and electoral incentives. That is as true on the left as it is anywhere else. But if we reduce every disagreement to pandering, we lose the ability to distinguish between cynicism and conviction.
Perhaps the narrower, and more durable, claim is this:
Criticism of Israel carries weight when it is informed, consistent, and willing to apply the same moral standards across actors—including Israel’s enemies. Without that, it risks becoming noise. But with it, it becomes part of the necessary discipline of democratic accountability.
And that, in the end, is not a threat to Israel—it is one of the things that distinguishes it.
The problem as I see it lies more with Iran and its proxies. Why did Hamas build tunnels for its own use, but nothing to shelter their population? Why did they hide in schools and hospitals? The reason is because Hamas encourages the martyrdom of its population as another weapon against Israel pulling at the heartstrings of many of us (including myself). It may be their most useful one seeing as how well it’s succeeding. Israel has tried repeatedly to separate out the population, but it is near impossible.
Meanwhile, Iran is killing young people intentionally, there are all sorts of tragedies around the world that are at least as important, but Israel demonized for trying to survive? I don’t see it.
There’s a great deal here I agree with, and it’s worth saying so plainly.
The conduct of Hamas—its use of tunnels for fighters rather than shelters for civilians, and its embedding of military infrastructure in dense civilian areas—creates a tragic and morally corrosive reality. It puts its own population at risk and, as you note, can weaponize that suffering in the court of global opinion. That is not incidental; it is part of how the group operates.
And the role of Iran, in funding, arming, and enabling these dynamics, cannot be ignored. Nor should we avert our eyes from the many other conflicts around the world that receive far less attention despite immense human cost.
Where I would gently add a note of caution is in what follows from that.
Recognizing Hamas’s strategy does not eliminate the moral weight of civilian harm—it explains part of why it occurs. And while Israel’s efforts to warn civilians and separate populations are meaningful, the reality on the ground remains extraordinarily difficult, as you rightly point out.
So perhaps the shared ground is this:
We can be clear-eyed about the tactics and responsibilities of Hamas and the influence of Iran.
We can acknowledge the asymmetry in global attention.
And still hold that the suffering of civilians—however it comes about—deserves to be taken seriously, not dismissed as merely instrumental.
That balance is uncomfortable, but it’s also what keeps the conversation anchored in reality rather than pulled entirely into one narrative or the other.
This is an excellent article. But will any of Israel's critics bother to read it? Israel needs to do a better job telling their story in U.S. colleges and universities. It is here that the leaders of tomorrow are getting taught that Israel is a "settler colonial" nation that must be opposed.
I don't think most U.S. colleges and universities would all any pro-Israel speaker within a mile of their campus. These places are cesspools of leftism.
The initial and ongoing moral inversion is the "blood libel". Although Kosher salt is widely used, it's original purpose might not be known to many. Orthodox Jews abhor the consumption of blood. The salt was and is used to kosher the meat by "removing all blood" from the meat. The steaks that are today considered "best" aren't kosher because they may contain some blood related material. And then the long lasting myth of the Jewish "need" for blood becomes the cause of death for untold numbers of people who were just as real as you or me.
Sadly, the first sentence in this article confirms what I've been seeing with my own two eyes! The fact that the majority of Democrats under the age of 50 have a more favorable opinion of Iran than of Isreal is a testament to the stupidity that results from the fact that we have allowed Muslim nations to buy their way into our colleges and universities, our mainstream and social media, and our political process. And, the far-right side of the political spectrum is no better! It's as if any concepts of history or common sense have ceased to exist among large segments of our population. I'm starting to wonder if I live in a democratic country or an insane asylum!
The central tenet of anti-Zionism seems to be that everyone is lying. When Israel says that they don't want to hurt civilians and they just want to live in peace with their neighbors they are lying. When Hamas and Iran explicitly call for the destruction of Israel and the genocide of the Jews they too are lying.
I am very grateful to have this space where I don’t have to feel completely insane. I wish there were more such spaces, but unfortunately, this is one of the few. I guess it’s proof that people are unknowable, in that I have had to revise the way I viewed many people I know in the wake of October 7. I wish the educated class was not so morally and intellectually lazy and complacent. But they are.
Ha, you've basically hit the nail on the head for me.
Back in the 90s, I was an Anthropology major (callback! to the article) in college and was as anti-US & Israeli as they come (then anyways, tame by today's standards); taking Arabic, MIddle Eastern Studies, had multiple friends from the Palestinian diaspora, even occasionally going to Masjid for Khutba sermon on Friday. I wanted to work in the MENA region, but Islamic focused.
But, I was never so anti-israeli that i believed in divestiture. Even in the 90s, i still believed Israel had a right to exist, especially as a haven. But, i wanted nothing to do with the country personally. Then, October 7th happened, and I've completely flipped.
The open cheering...while the bodies were still burning...and little to no complaint or condemnation from the left (or their politicians). The calls for Israel to stand down while they're still under attack?! The "believe all women" versus "#MeToo_Unless You're a Jew", which was real and i saw that as well.
Ironically, now I want to go visit Israel and serve some kind of penance, by learning more about the culture and people. I've cut myself off from a good percentage of my former friends (& even divorced my wife, but that was only the final nail of that coffin and much more complicated). I'm a lifelong atheist but i cannot abide this moral equivalency/inversion/
relativism not even from the closest around me.
I know some people & celebrities (no, they're not the same) talk of 9/11 as when they left the Democratic Party for good. Technically, I've always been a registered Independent. Mostly voted 3rd party (yep, proudly wasted my vote many a time!), but frequently voted Democrat (2020 was the beginning of the end of that "relationship" and I don't mean the election) and very rarely Republican (usually local). Well, much like with the friends and wife, October 7th was the final nail in the coffin for myself and the Democrats/regressives/post-modern Puritans.
That is the key problem: intellectual laziness. I see it in almost every conversation I have with the "educated" class.
The question is, what do we do about this? I'd like to think we could educate people not to be such idiots, but knowledge is their enemy. They want absolutes; they need to blame somebody for their own failings, moral and otherwise, and as always, the Jews are the ultimate scapegoat. Israel is just a convenient excuse. Trying to educate is pointless—they don't want to know.
What are we left with then? Well, I for one am glad Israel is a military power and has the bomb.
You’re dead right. Trying to win the argument worldwide against anti-Zionism is hopeless. The Gaza War and the Iran War are far too unpopular to change minds for Israel, on the right as well as the left. More Americans sympathize with the Palestinians now than with the Israelis. Israel’s worldwide pariah status is now baked in the cake. It’s a South Africa with no way to get the apartheid monkey off its back, or to wipe out all the horrific images from Gaza that are as seared in humanity’s memory as those of the Holocaust. Then there’s going to war with Iran and seriously harming the world economy for dessert.
Nukes can’t cure what ails Israel worldwide now. The irony of Israel’s nukes and mighty military tech is the massive hubris and defiance of world opinion they produced, leading straight to the PR debacles of the wars in Gaza and Iran. It’s as if Israel, after all its successes, came to believe, like Napoleon and Hitler at the top of Fortune’s wheel, that it could get away with anything. Historians will ses the massacre of Gaza and the war with Iran, easily dragging our fool leader Trump in with them, as Israel’s version of invading Russia.
The oppressor oppressed moral philosophy must be ended.
Let’s face it - progressives, in general, (the most likely anti Zionist and antisemites) aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed. They can’t argue their way out of a wet paper bag because logical thinking is beyond them. Ever notice how, rather than argue their points, they just scream over the logic of anyone they debate in order the shut the debate down? Smart folks don’t need to do that.
Yes, instead of debating you, they will yell and drown you out. They don't want to hear facts or logic.
>>The author George Orwell described how language can be used to “make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.”
From The Principles of Newspeak
"The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought — that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc — should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. "
Take a look at what Medhi Hasan and his team at Zeteo are doing on their substack. You will find evidence that they are advancing Holocaust inversion and appropriation theories, in attempts to weaponize it against all Jews.
Why does not every news story end with, "As of today, as usual, none of the 22 Arab countries and 47 majority Muslim countries has offered to take in any of the Gazans they claim are being subjected to a genocide - yet, at the same time, they also claim that they are the 'moral' ones.
Because that would change main stream media's narrative. And other than TFP, I don't see any MSM with the courage to do that.
Agreed! But even before he was first elected in 2016, they never pointed out the absurdity of the situation: It's cruel, awful, open air prison - Israel is evil! Let them immigrate to our countries? No way!
The progressive's rejection of logic and evidence (AKA moral confusion) is astonishing. If the US and Israel are so terrible, please go live in Iran (or Russia or North Korea). Iran's human rights trend should be improving since any freedom loving Iranians are already dead or their mouths are shut tight or they've been living in California since 1979.
Excellent study - one of many by Network Contagion Research Institute which has become go-to source of sophisticated data
There is something real in this essay, and something missing—and both matter.
The warning about “moral inversion” lands because it names a genuine temptation: to assign roles before examining facts. When Israel is cast as permanent aggressor and its adversaries as permanent victims, analysis can collapse into reflex. That is not serious moral reasoning; it is narrative discipline.
But the argument overreaches when it treats dissent as pathology. Not every critic of Israel’s actions—or of a potential war with Iran—is confused, inverted, or captured by ideology. Many are asking older, harder questions: about proportionality, escalation, civilian cost, and the long shadow of unintended consequences. Those are not signs of moral failure. They are the beginning of moral responsibility.
If there is a danger of inversion on one side, there is a risk of overcorrection on the other—where clarity hardens into certainty, and certainty into permission.
The task is not to choose a framework and fit the world into it. It is to resist frameworks that do the thinking for us.
Iran can be a malign actor. Israel can face real threats. And still, the use of force can remain tragic, contingent, and subject to judgment.
Moral clarity is indispensable. Moral certainty is not.
"But the argument overreaches when it treats dissent as pathology." --I must have missed that. Where was that again?
Fair question—and a reasonable push.
I don’t think the essay comes out and says, in so many words, “all dissent is pathological.” That would be too crude. The move is subtler.
It’s in the framing. When a broad swath of criticism is gathered under a label like “moral inversion,” the implication is that the disagreement is not just mistaken, but rooted in a kind of moral confusion or distortion. That shifts the conversation from argument (“you’re wrong about X”) to diagnosis (“you’re thinking in a fundamentally inverted way”).
To be clear, there are cases where that diagnosis fits—where people excuse or minimize the actions of groups like Hamas or ignore the role of Iran. Calling that out is not only fair, it’s necessary.
My point was narrower: when that label is applied too broadly, it risks sweeping in people who are not confused so much as they are weighing different factors—civilian harm, escalation risks, long-term consequences—and coming to a different conclusion.
So the overreach isn’t explicit; it’s structural. It’s the difference between identifying a real phenomenon and letting it become a catch-all explanation.
And once it becomes a catch-all, it can crowd out the harder work of engaging specific arguments on their merits.
"The move is subtler.""It’s in the framing."-- Huh, funny, kind of what i was thinking when i made my comment about yours.
You seem to be doing a bit of "advocating" on here. I'm kidding, but i frequently have read your comments on this thread and thought "Whoa, multiple long posts?!". Then, I'd read them and notice a specific structure... let's call it framing...and i was thinking, AI? Bot? He's recently read some self-help book? Maybe on debating? Art of the Deal? 48 Laws of Power? Or How to Have Impossible Conversations? How to Impress People and Undermine your Enemies"?! (Might have just made that last one up).
Fair enough—that gave me a genuine smile.
No bot, no secret handbook, and (alas) no mastery of the 48 laws of anything. Just someone who tends to write the way he thinks: a bit structured, probably a bit long, and occasionally guilty of trying to hold too many sides of an argument at once.
You’re not wrong, though—there is framing going on. There always is. The only real choice is whether to be conscious of it or pretend it isn’t happening. I’m trying (imperfectly) to do the former rather than smuggle in conclusions under the guise of neutrality.
As for the length—guilty as charged. Some of these topics feel like they punish brevity. Though I take the hint that a lighter touch might sometimes serve the point better.
In any case, I appreciate the good humor. If nothing else, it’s a reminder that even in serious disagreements, we don’t have to take ourselves too seriously.
I hear the gravity behind what you’re saying, and there’s more common ground here than might appear at first glance.
History does confront us with moments—like the end of World War II—where overwhelming force was used to bring a catastrophic conflict to a close. Serious people can debate those decisions, but they can’t dismiss the underlying reality: there are regimes and movements for which half-measures fail, and whose continued existence carries its own terrible cost.
The regime in Iran, and institutions like the IRGC, fit into that category for many observers. It is not unreasonable to ask what it would take to end their capacity for violence and destabilization. And you’re right that many Iranians themselves have suffered under that system and express a desire for change.
At the same time, history also teaches something more sobering: even when the ends feel morally clear, the means remain morally fraught. The line you mention—between not far enough and too far—may be contested, but it is not meaningless. Democracies, in particular, are judged not only by whether they prevail, but by how they conduct themselves in doing so.
On your second point, I would again agree in part. There are indeed bad actors—those who exploit this conflict to launder older hatreds, including antisemitism. That has to be named without hesitation. But I’d be cautious about letting those voices define the entire field of criticism. Many people who identify as “anti-Zionist,” however much we may disagree with them, are not motivated by hatred but by a (sometimes misapplied) moral framework.
If we collapse all criticism into malice, we risk missing both the genuine bigotry and the genuine moral concern—and we end up persuading neither.
Perhaps the steadier footing is this:
Take threats seriously enough to avoid naïveté.
Take moral limits seriously enough to avoid becoming what we oppose.
And distinguish, as carefully as we can, between those arguing in bad faith and those simply seeing the world through a different, if imperfect, lens.
That balance is not easy—but it is the work.
Should we be more worried about wrongly labeling a critic as being morally inverted or about the threat that Iran and their proxies pose to the existence of Israel?
Also, proportionality in the context of war is idiotic, particularly when one side openly advertises their desire to end the existence of those they attack as does Iran and their proxies. If a gang of 10 men invade your home, murder your wife and threaten to do the same to your kids, if you have the means do you exercise proportionality in defending yourself? No, that's absurd. You do your best to eliminate the entire threat. Israel issues warnings about their intended bombing targets days ahead of time. Does Iran or their proxies?
I hear the concern you’re raising, and it’s not trivial. The threat from Iran and its proxies—including Hamas and Hezbollah—is real, declared, and in some cases explicitly eliminationist. Any serious discussion has to start there.
But I don’t think this is an either/or.
We can recognize the gravity of that threat and be careful about how we describe those who question the conduct of the war. Mislabeling critics as “morally inverted” too quickly doesn’t just risk unfairness—it can also weaken the case we’re trying to make by substituting diagnosis for argument.
On proportionality: I understand the instinct behind your analogy. A society under attack has not only the right but the obligation to defend itself decisively. But in the law and ethics of war, proportionality doesn’t mean “matching force for force,” or pulling punches in the face of danger. It asks a narrower, harder question: whether the expected military advantage of a given action justifies the foreseeable harm to civilians.
That principle exists precisely because war is not a home invasion. It involves entire populations, not just perpetrators. And without some limiting framework, the logic of total threat can slide into the logic of total war.
Israel’s efforts to warn civilians ahead of strikes are, as you note, a meaningful distinction. They reflect an attempt—imperfect, contested, but real—to operate within those constraints. The question is not whether Israel should defend itself. It must. The question is how a democracy does so while preserving the moral and legal standards that define it.
So perhaps the balance is this:
Take the threat seriously enough to reject naïveté.
Take moral language seriously enough to avoid absolutism.
We don’t strengthen Israel’s case by abandoning those distinctions—we strengthen it by showing they still matter, even under pressure.
I appreciate the conversation here, Brad, and your rational and thoughtful comments. I still disagree about a few things, especially that most people have the facts. They don't. I live in a very Blue city, in a very Blue state, and the Left, who toute themselves as the intellectuals of the parties, are way off the mark (as we say in Judaism). These are the people who defended every marginalized group except Jews and Israelis. These are the people who have betrayed Jews for political votes and political power and because of their hatred of the Right and Trump. These are the people who were duped by the billions flooding into their universities by the Middle Eastern powers that are behind terrorism and the dismantling of the West and Israel. But do we hear them admit that they were duped? No. They have doubled down, voting against supporting Israel with bulldozers. The facts are there. But the very people who have been telling us that they are the "morality police" have failed the very people who have been working side by side with them to fight for the rights of those who are bullied.
I appreciate that you are an optimist (so am I) who believes that these same people are "not confused so much as they are weighing different factors—civilian harm, escalation risks, long-term consequences—and coming to a different conclusion," but you are giving them too much credit. They are not doing these things. The data on civilian casualties in a war exist and Israel is a shining example of having one of the lowest civilian to combatant casualty rates EVEN if you take the Gaza Health Ministry's (aka Hamas') numbers. Escalation risks? Again, not taking a risk is asking them to be sitting ducks. And long-term consequences? This war did not start yesterday, or on 10/7. This has been decades in the making. And the people who were supposed to be on the morally right side of the ledger appeased Iran, etc. for all sorts of reasons that the average person (or even ones with many degrees) does not know about, doesn't care about, and doesn't accept even when they are spoon fed this information. I know that this is the case near me and I live right in between Harvard & MIT. These folks *should* know better. They don't. I know them personally.
It can feel overwhelming. I understand that.
For many Jews, especially those who have long identified with progressive spaces, this moment feels like a rupture. There is a sense that allies have turned away, or that a movement grounded in protecting the vulnerable has not extended that same clarity to Jews and to Israel. That perception, whether one agrees with every aspect of it or not, is real and widely felt.
At the same time, I would be careful about treating the progressive left as a single unified stance. What we are seeing is a convergence of different impulses. A post colonial framework that simplifies the conflict. A powerful emotional response to images of civilian suffering. And in some cases a failure to grapple seriously with actors like Hamas or the role of Iran.
That mix can produce conclusions that feel not just wrong, but like a betrayal.
But it is not always rooted in hostility to Jews. Sometimes it is a moral framework applied too rigidly. Sometimes it is lack of knowledge. And sometimes it does shade into something darker that should be named clearly.
There is a real and painful disconnect right now. It deserves to be acknowledged without exaggeration and challenged without writing off everyone on the other side.
If this moment is as consequential as it feels, then clarity matters. So does keeping the door open to those who may yet see more than they do today.
Sometimes total or near total elimination seems necessary. Not the entire populace but of those responsible. The line between not far enough and too far is subjective. There will be many on both sides. Were the means to bring an end to WWII in both Europe and the Pacific too much? Is total annihilation of the Ayatollah and IRGC too far? It seems most Iranians wish for this. Victor Davis Hanson's "The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation" is a good read on this topic.
Regarding Israel, the loudest voices are the charlatans who look to profit from antisemitism, not legitimate criticism. They've influenced millions of weak-minded, ennui afflicted lemmings to take up the "anti-Zionist" cause. This is the moral inversion I believe the essay speaks of. It's led to violence and murder against Jews around the world.
Agree with you in theory, Brad, and appreciate your thoughtful post. But the reality right now is that the people who are critical of Israel's actions have neither the facts, nor the interest in gaining the facts, and do not criticize any other nation, including but not limited to Nigeria, Russia, Sudan, China, Iran, Syria, Turkey, and so on ... That is why their criticism holds no water. Everyone can agree that war is awful and lost lives are tragic. This is not what this is. And that is why it's a sign of moral failure and moral IRRESPONSIBILITY. Especially our politicians on the Left currently, who are pandering for votes at the expense of Israel, Jews, and the West. ALL EXCEPT FETTERMAN. He seems to be the only one who understands what this is.
JAM, I take your point—and there is a frustration there that many feel, even if they express it more bluntly than you have.
There is a pattern worth naming: Israel is often subjected to a level of scrutiny that is not consistently applied to other conflicts. The silence—or far softer voice—around places like Sudan or Syria, while Israel dominates headlines and protests, raises legitimate questions about selectivity. That asymmetry can erode trust in the criticism itself.
But I would be careful about drawing the circle too tightly.
It is not quite right that critics “have neither the facts nor the interest.” Some surely don’t. Others are misinformed. But many are reacting—however imperfectly—to images of suffering, to the scale of destruction, and to a genuine moral unease about war in dense civilian environments. That instinct, even when poorly reasoned, is not nothing. It is part of the same moral fabric we would want applied elsewhere.
Where I think you are closer to the mark is on consistency. Moral credibility depends on it. If one condemns Israel but is silent about the brutality of Iran or Russia, or minimizes the conduct of groups like Hamas, then the critique begins to look less like principle and more like preference.
But inconsistency is not the same as bad faith—and labeling it as “moral failure” across the board risks shutting down the very conversation we’re trying to elevate.
As for politics, there is no doubt that some voices are shaped by coalition pressures and electoral incentives. That is as true on the left as it is anywhere else. But if we reduce every disagreement to pandering, we lose the ability to distinguish between cynicism and conviction.
Perhaps the narrower, and more durable, claim is this:
Criticism of Israel carries weight when it is informed, consistent, and willing to apply the same moral standards across actors—including Israel’s enemies. Without that, it risks becoming noise. But with it, it becomes part of the necessary discipline of democratic accountability.
And that, in the end, is not a threat to Israel—it is one of the things that distinguishes it.
Agree, but we both know that we would be hard pressed to find examples of people who are doing what you name. Sadly.
The problem as I see it lies more with Iran and its proxies. Why did Hamas build tunnels for its own use, but nothing to shelter their population? Why did they hide in schools and hospitals? The reason is because Hamas encourages the martyrdom of its population as another weapon against Israel pulling at the heartstrings of many of us (including myself). It may be their most useful one seeing as how well it’s succeeding. Israel has tried repeatedly to separate out the population, but it is near impossible.
Meanwhile, Iran is killing young people intentionally, there are all sorts of tragedies around the world that are at least as important, but Israel demonized for trying to survive? I don’t see it.
There’s a great deal here I agree with, and it’s worth saying so plainly.
The conduct of Hamas—its use of tunnels for fighters rather than shelters for civilians, and its embedding of military infrastructure in dense civilian areas—creates a tragic and morally corrosive reality. It puts its own population at risk and, as you note, can weaponize that suffering in the court of global opinion. That is not incidental; it is part of how the group operates.
And the role of Iran, in funding, arming, and enabling these dynamics, cannot be ignored. Nor should we avert our eyes from the many other conflicts around the world that receive far less attention despite immense human cost.
Where I would gently add a note of caution is in what follows from that.
Recognizing Hamas’s strategy does not eliminate the moral weight of civilian harm—it explains part of why it occurs. And while Israel’s efforts to warn civilians and separate populations are meaningful, the reality on the ground remains extraordinarily difficult, as you rightly point out.
So perhaps the shared ground is this:
We can be clear-eyed about the tactics and responsibilities of Hamas and the influence of Iran.
We can acknowledge the asymmetry in global attention.
And still hold that the suffering of civilians—however it comes about—deserves to be taken seriously, not dismissed as merely instrumental.
That balance is uncomfortable, but it’s also what keeps the conversation anchored in reality rather than pulled entirely into one narrative or the other.
Same.
This is an excellent article. But will any of Israel's critics bother to read it? Israel needs to do a better job telling their story in U.S. colleges and universities. It is here that the leaders of tomorrow are getting taught that Israel is a "settler colonial" nation that must be opposed.
I don't think most U.S. colleges and universities would all any pro-Israel speaker within a mile of their campus. These places are cesspools of leftism.
Americans support a state that openly works towards its destruction. The world has indeed gone crazy.
Those are the rules, Candace.
Don't take it out on me.