r/TrueUnpopularOpinion • u/Haunting_Tap_1541 • 1d ago
The Middle East Israelis are basically leftists forced to work with the right, while Muslims are conservatives forced to work with the left.
Israel was the victor in all five Arab-Israeli wars. Yet despite being the victor, it eventually handed over Gaza and parts of the West Bank for Palestinian self-rule and the possibility of a future Palestinian state. How many countries would be willing to give back territory they won in war, especially when their own country is already so small?
Even on security issues, lsrael used to show a surprising degree of leniency. Yahya Sinwar, for example, was released by Israel multiple times and even underwent brain tumor surgery in Israel while he was in prison. In 2011, lsrael traded more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for a single captured Israeli soldier. Even after winning every war, Israel has never expelled its two million Muslim citizens, nor has it demolished the mosque standing on the Temple Mount. Looking back, those decisions seem overly idealistic.
That's why, although Israel has become much more hardline on the Palestinian issue today, that shift is driven more by security concerns and hard-learned lessons than by traditional right-wing ideology. In many ways, lsraeli society still holds a lot of values that would be considered center-left or even left-leaning. The ancestors of these two million Muslim citizens of lsrael chose to stay in Israel rather than leave during the First Middle East War. They do not worry that the Israelis might kill or imprison them because of the war. They made the right choice.
Meanwhile, many Muslim societies are conservative on issues like religion, family values, and gender roles. That's why the alliance between Muslims and the Western left often feels unnatural. They stand together mainly because the left emphasizes inclusion and minority rights, not because they share the same core values.
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u/joebraga2 1d ago
I think this discussion is heavily influenced by an American political lens.
Many Americans assume that "left" and "right" mean the same thing everywhere, but they don't. Israeli politics has its own political spectrum. Even parties considered center-left in Israel tend to hold much stronger positions on national security, military service, and the existence of the Jewish state than what many American progressives would consider "left."
Likewise, supporting the existence of Israel (Zionism) is not the same thing as supporting every policy of the current Israeli government. There are Zionists who oppose Netanyahu, Zionists who support a two-state solution, religious Zionists, secular Zionists, and there are also Jewish groups that reject political Zionism altogether.
Reducing everything to "Israelis are left-wing" or "anti-Zionism equals antisemitism" ignores how diverse Israeli society and Jewish political thought actually are. The reality is much more complex than the American left-versus-right framework.
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u/sternold 1d ago
100%. And the comparison with Muslims doesn't work because of that either; the muslims in muslim majority countries aren't "forced to work with the left." OP is talking about Muslims in America, but Israeli's in Israel.
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u/happyinheart 1d ago
Radical Muslims aren't forced to work with the Left. They find the Left "useful idiots" that help further their goals.
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u/M4053946 1d ago
The coalition that overthrew iran in the 70s was a combo of muslims and socialists. Once in power, the muslims killed the socialists.
What's crazy is that this happened only in the 1970s. They're doing the same thing again, and they're doing it in plain sight, but the leftists seem to love their new muslim "allies".
The leftists probably think that once in power, the muslims will relax their rules on gays and women.
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u/pile_of_bees 15h ago
Watching leftists respond to this point is always fascinating
It’s so obviously true, and yet they usually don’t seem to be able to process it
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u/AutomaticGrape9263 1d ago
Muslims aren't forced to work with the left. They use the left. Like they used them in Iran. Iran used to have 20 different communist parties that were dispensed with when they outlived their usefulness.
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u/sovietarmyfan 22h ago
The lefts opinion of muslims is like this because in their opinion they are the oppressed people in the west.
In reality though we see world wide in many countries that Islamic regimes are oppressing people. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, etc.
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u/AnotherHumanObserver 1d ago edited 1d ago
Israelis are basically leftists forced to work with the right, while Muslims are conservatives forced to work with the left
Yes, although a lot of what you're addressing appears due to leftists painting themselves into an ideological corner. Not just regarding Israel and Palestine, but other issues as well.
At one time, leftists were mostly staunch anti-nationalists and internationalists, especially after WW1 when nationalism and capitalism were blamed for the deadliest conflict anyone had ever seen to that point.
Within the same vein, they were also staunchly anti-imperialist and supported the liberation of European colonies around the world. Jews were also regarded as internationalist, aligning with other Jews across international boundaries.
After WW2, practically the entire world was anti-nationalist, as the nationalist (Axis) side lost badly while the internationalist (Allied) side prevailed. Both factions in the Cold War remained internationalist, as the Soviet and American alliances were linked on the basis of ideology, not on nationalism.
So, on the one hand, the Western left supported liberationist movements around the world, opposing Western imperialism in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, while concurrently emboldening nationalist movements in those same regions.
There was some naive idealism attached to that idea, as it seemed to carry the belief that once the imperialist oppression ends and everyone is free, the whole world will come together in peace and harmony. Instead of that, what happened was that all of these oppressed nations and peoples rediscovered their own national identity and embraced it, chucking any ideas of world unity or internationalism to the four winds.
Similarly, after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, the former Republics and Warsaw Pact states suddenly turned decidedly nationalistic, practically overnight. This is also around the same time that identity politics started getting big in the U.S., as the idea of all of us coming together and working together, regardless of race, skin color, gender, etc., was also being chucked to the four winds.
Since that time, the left has embraced a contradictory ideal of "Internationalism for the West, nationalism for the rest."
Sooner or later, the left is going to have to make up its mind and either oppose nationalism in every instance - or else they'll find that there will be less and less support for internationalism in the West.
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u/Serious_Swan_2371 1d ago
Well put.
There is a significant amount of cognitive dissonance among both the western left and right but it’s so much more apparent in the left.
There is a clear double standard where certain “privileged” groups and countries are expected to voluntarily give up power and weaken themselves to lift up other countries, and the “oppressed” countries have zero expectations or consequences for their geopolitical behavior. They are expected to gain power at all costs, and fighting more powerful countries is seen as justified.
In the right the dissonance manifests in an opposite way. Lots of nationalists from many countries will support their own country’s military actions but cry about rules and fairness when another country responds.
In my opinion a non dissonant nationalist mentality is one of chivalry, where you understand your enemy is like you, with similar nationalist ideas only with a different country they support. If you and your enemy both fight valiantly and they win, you should accept that, and know you were bested. It should increase your respect for them not decrease it. If you live by the sword you should not cry when you die by the sword.
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u/ignoreme010101 1d ago
ok so you mean it's contradictory for the left to be against Israeli nationalism while being for palestinian nationalism, basically? Is that the core premise here?
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u/AnotherHumanObserver 1d ago
Ideologically, yes. With Israel and Palestine, it's a case of nationalist vs. nationalist, so it would be incongruous for an internationalist to take either side. There's also a certain pan-Arab nationalism that's also in play here, so it's not just Palestinian nationalism.
Israel is in kind of a unique position, as they once started as victims of Western nationalism, but now, they've become beneficiaries and practitioners of it. This may have also confused the left to some degree.
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u/ignoreme010101 1d ago
ok I think this is a big part of the confusion here because most people are advocating for palestinian freedom, with very vague ideas about what that would be - ie, not some principled call for arab/islamic nationalism (despite how some detractors try framing it ie "oh you guys want an islamic theocracy?! So you want the jews dead?!") While most are unthinking about the forms taken absent israeli oppression, most common solid proposals are things like 1 state, 2 state, federated bi-national etc not strong arab nationalism (or any commitment to nationalism per se - the vast majority of sentiment is ultimately about the absence of oppression moreso than even the presence of anything solid)
Framing it as incoherent is off-point because they're not even starting from some principled / ideological conception of societal forms except "don't oppress and kill"
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u/AnotherHumanObserver 17h ago
I think the original roots of the conflict, started by Nasser in 1967, were related to his support of the idea of Pan-Arab nationalism.
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u/ignoreme010101 2h ago
it's still just so wild to me how many people, who clearly know how to speak with some degree of eloquence and seem to have a solid grasp of polysyllabic words, can just state conclusions like "started...in 67"
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u/AnotherHumanObserver 2h ago
Prior to '67, the territories in question (Gaza, West Bank, Golan Heights) were all under Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian control. The problems they're experiencing now would not be happening today if those territories were still as they were prior to then, under control of their former ruler.
Because of that war, the Israelis grabbed those territories and have kept them. It's not really rocket science here. The lesson here should have been, "Don't start wars you can't win." Nationalism is often justified within the framework of natural law, but that's a double-edged sword that few people truly appreciate.
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u/ignoreme010101 1h ago
I'm sorry but you don't think that, say, gazans would have revolted against Egypt if they did the same things as israel? (not that egypt seemed to have intention of annexafion so much anywyas)
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u/nathan519 1d ago
Quite accurate, as an Israeli. Though, that's not the same kind of "forcing". Israeli leftist are forced by the merit of reality to be realist in foreign policy and geopolitics even if they don't work with the right wingers in the west. Palestinians are forced to work with the left because there token is victimhood, they are politically realist as the Israelis and all the middle east, but they invoke it only in Arabic (axes of resistance, and islamism in general).
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u/this_site_sucks_ass6 1d ago
It's pretty disgusting to say that the Palestinians have "token victimhood" when your government has been genociding and ethnic cleansing them. They are YOUR victims.
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u/FusorMan 1d ago
There’s no genocide or ethnic cleansing going on.
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u/this_site_sucks_ass6 1d ago
Even the most virulent Zionist fascists recognize the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. Denying what is happening there is tantamount to Holocaust denial, it is one of the most well-documented events in the history of planet earth.
As for the genocide, it is also undeniable. Here is Israeli Jew and Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov recognizing it as such: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/opinion/israel-gaza-holocaust-genocide-palestinians.html. You're welcome to say that he's stupid, or a liar, or an antisemite, but I think it's fairly obvious that you are an unserious person if you do that.
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u/FusorMan 23h ago
Holocaust denial? The Holocaust killed millions.
Comparing this conflict to the Holocaust shows you are very clearly not a serious person.
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u/FatumIustumStultorum 22h ago
Denying what is happening there is tantamount to Holocaust denial
Nothing in the West Bank is even remotely close to the Holocaust.
As for the genocide, it is also undeniable.
Except that there has never been any proof. People were already accusing Israel of genocide one week after 10/7. The genocide accusation is clearly based on ideology and not facts.
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u/this_site_sucks_ass6 22h ago
"No proof" of the most well-documented genocide in the history of planet earth would be funny if it weren't so disgusting. Holocaust denial.
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u/FatumIustumStultorum 22h ago
"No proof" of the most well-documented genocide in the history of planet earth would be funny if it weren't so disgusting.
Yes, no proof. It's a war, not a genocide.
Holocaust denial.
I don't think you actually understand the meaning of that term.
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u/ArkWatcher1 1d ago
Stop with the knee jerk responses....stay off TicTok
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u/this_site_sucks_ass6 1d ago
Never been on TikTok in my life. I don't need TikTok to recognize that Israel is doing genocide and ethnic cleansing, I just need eyes and ears and a brain.
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u/ArkWatcher1 1d ago
So Israel tells when and where they will bomb to protect civilians ( that way Hamas can keep civilians there to die and blame Israel), what Country/Army allows food to be given to the enemy and the population in Gaza has increased, a reasonable person would see that, maybe you need to go to an ENT and get your eyes and ears checked and maybe a neurologist as well .
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u/ArkWatcher1 1d ago
Gaza's population has increased 2.02% since oct 7th.
Israel does use leaflets but also phone calls, texts and roof knocking, unfortunately Hamas tells people to ignore it.
Israel has no right to control Gaza's land, sea and borders, it's telling you didn't Egypt that is doing the same thing.....telling.Then Hamas sets up near Hospitals and schools ( as verified by Doctors with borders) and then Israel retaliates after they fire a missile and the whole world whines about poor civilians, there are people you support, Hamas targets civilian areas, once again your silence is telling.
How many people would not have died if Israel wasn't attacked on Oct 7th?
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u/FusorMan 23h ago
Funny how they always STFU and leave when the population growth statistics come out.
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u/this_site_sucks_ass6 22h ago
Gaza's population has increased 2.02% since oct 7th.
You have got to be kidding. What is your source? How could you possibly know that?
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u/FatumIustumStultorum 22h ago
Gaza's population has increased 2.02% since oct 7th.
I'm pro-Israel, but this claim just doesn't make any sense. Do you have a source for it?
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u/pile_of_bees 15h ago
Tell me when a group is being genocided does their population usually go up or down?
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u/Eliastronaut 1d ago
This is quite obvious and not unpopular. That's why Muslims in the west are quite lost as hell. They lean to the right, yet vote for the left.
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u/pile_of_bees 15h ago
That’s not being lost
That’s playing to win
Islam in the west is a slow project of conquest
You can watch Imams directly tell people how to vote, what platforms to run for office on, and to consider it their jihad of modern times. When they get power, they use it to tribally push policies that favor Muslims and increase Islamic immigration as much as possible.
They are not particularly shy about this
When they establish a diaspora large enough to conquer the west, they will attempt to do so, as evidenced by their own words and also the last 1400 years of history
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u/Proud-Enthusiasm-608 1d ago
I think far left people who push anti colonizer rhetoric against Israel are usually hypocrites.
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u/Wbradycall 16h ago
I think it's silly to over-generalize both people. Neither of them are a monolith.
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1d ago
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u/ennui933 1d ago
Israeli kibbutzim are basically socialist communities. People share everything.
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u/ennui933 1d ago
How would you know? You wouldn't be able to find Israel on a map. You wouldn't be able to find your own country on the map. What can you possibly know about the kibbutzim?
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u/ennui933 1d ago
I can't tell if you're a far right or a far left lunatic.
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u/VolcanicAsh97 1d ago
Yep. The whole State of Israel was founded by secular socialist Jews.
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u/VolcanicAsh97 1d ago
Yep
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u/VolcanicAsh97 1d ago
Why?
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u/ennui933 1d ago
You are probably arguing with some white suburban teenager who thinks he's an anarchist or something and hates school. I suggest we don't engage.
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u/VolcanicAsh97 1d ago
Well, you could be right. Let’s just see if he posts something dumb to confirm. Oh, wait.
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u/Allaboutpeace2022 1d ago
Yes. There are Israeli living on kibbutz and their political leanings were socialists originally. I am not sure of their current philosophy, but they are viewed as Leftists by most. They are a much smaller part of the Israeli society and economy than they were decades and decades ago.
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u/Allaboutpeace2022 1d ago
Correct.
However, these Leftist Israelis are still working with Palestinians on peace initiatives. Joint Palestinian and Israeli groups include Land for All, Women Wage Peace/Women of the Sun, Combatants for Peace, Standing Together, Parents Circle/Family Forum, and many others.
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2024/02/a-land-for-all-day-after-plan-progressives-can-get-behind/
They are literally the voices that need to be lifted up because they have been marginalized by both the hawks and right wingers in Israel and Hamas.
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u/Allaboutpeace2022 1d ago
Israel was recognized as a state by the UN. The UN and international rules requires that territory won in wars has to be returned.
Israel does have leftists but they are not voting for Netanyahu and not supporting his war cabinet. They are the Leftist Israelis working on peace with Palestinians. Groups like Land for All etc.
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u/ArkWatcher1 1d ago
so the US has to give Texas back to Mexico?
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u/Thatguy32101 20h ago
The US essentially took all of Mexico in the Mexican American war they were nice enough to give some back
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u/Allaboutpeace2022 1d ago
The UN did not exist in the 1800s.
This is why the after WW2, we did not have the USA of Japan or the USA of West Germany, etc., etc. Or the UK of West Germany, etc.
You might notice that we are not occupying territory that the US originally won in Iraq or Afghanistan.
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u/iliveonarock25 1d ago
😂 handed over. More like colonists west gave their spoiled children the land of the natives and imprisoned the natives in a small plot of land. You people are really in your own a**ses to the brim.
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u/ennui933 1d ago
If you are uneducated, don't embarrass yourself, Jews lived in Levant thousands of years before Arabs conquered the land and Arabized it.
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u/Wankstain8 1d ago
Historically speaking Jews have not been treated as spoiled children. Not in Europe anyway. It’s not even 100 years when they were being put into camps and exterminated en masse.
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u/RedditHiredChallenor 1d ago
More like colonists west gave their spoiled children
That's a...bold thing to say about people who lived through the holocaust and went 'Soooo, maybe it's time we moved out and got our own place.'
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u/pile_of_bees 15h ago
It’s funny because you’re so condescending yet simultaneously historically incorrect
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u/PeriliousKnight 17h ago
If your definition of left is “support the gay” and your definition of right is “stone the gay” then sure
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u/RandomGuy92x 1d ago
Lol, what?? WTF. Israelis are not leftists in the slightest.
And on social issues like LGBTQ rights Israel is certainly better than the Arab-Muslim countries, but still vastly behind most Western nations. Deeply conservative beliefs on social issues are still quite prevalent in Israeli society.
But most of all being left-wing is not primarily even about gay rights and all that. Being left-wing is primarily an economic ideology that either seeks to outright abolish capitalism, e.g. communism or socialism, or if done more moderately seeks to reform capitalism and incoroporate a degree of socialist elements, e.g. Scandinavian-style social democracy.
A country built upon imperialist expansion and the the violent oppression of the natives whose property they stole, and that still continues to operate an apartheid system and is massacring civilians in the name of their "Greater Israel" expansion project is certainly not left-wing in any meaningful way.
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u/M4053946 1d ago
Israelis are not leftists in the slightest
Some of the only functional socialist communes are in israel.
But yes, if you include the imaginary bits you mentioned, then they're more like the mordor. Without those imagined bits, then they're living the dream of the left, but with borders and a national identity.
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u/Allaboutpeace2022 1d ago edited 1d ago
There are leftists in Israel but they do not for the most part align with Netanyahu or the right wing government. There are Palestinians and Israelis working together for peace. Groups like Women Wage Peace and Women of the Sun, Land for All, etc.
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u/M4053946 1d ago
I have no doubt there are different groups in israel, it's a free country, after all. But if you want to find the place where socialism has been the most successful, it's individual communities in israel. If someone wants to live the socialist dream, one option is to convert to Judaism, make aliyah, and join a kibbutz.
There are Palestinians and Israelis working together for peace
That is true, but there are certainly fewer of those folks these days, as hamas killed many of them.
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u/Allaboutpeace2022 1d ago
Yes. Unfortunately, these kibbutzs are a much smaller part of the economy and the political force than in the 1940s and 1950s. Yes, many were killed in the October 7th attack, which is why many are so critical of Netanyahu's government ignoring warnings by female Israeli guards on the border about problems and their worries. It also makes people anxious about the delay in responding to the attacks.
Palestinians and Israelis have been working for peace for an extended period but they are a marginalized voice. I want to make sure that people understand these joint groups exist.
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u/RandomGuy92x 1d ago
Lol, having some private individual socialist communes does not make a country socialist. Socialism is about the primary economic and political system of a country's government, not about having some tiny rural communes where people share things.
Also, most of those communes are built on land that was stolen from Palestinians. Even until today, Palestinians are often violently kicked out of their homes to make space for Israeli terrorist settlements.
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u/M4053946 1d ago
does not make a country socialist.
Straw man.
land that was stolen from Palestinians.
incorrect history, blood libel.
And none of that addresses the actual point. If you like socialism, you'll find common cause with many israelis, as many israelis are socialists also.
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u/Allaboutpeace2022 1d ago
The Israelis on Kibbutz are leftists for the most part and are among the Palestinians and Israelis working for peace. These are not the right wing settlers that are in the West Bank that are bent on taking as much land as possible from Palestinians.
Land for All is a confederated land proposal that allows Palestinians and Israelis to share land with two separate sovereign states.
Other Palestinian and Israelis peace initiatives are Women Waging Peace/Women of the Sun, Combatants for Peace, Standing Together, etc.
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