In 1948, yes. In 1978, less certain. In 2025, no. The sticking point, right to return, and the increasing prominence of Islamic fundamentalism in the thinking, have led to the adoption of some really baffling decisions and positions by various groups in the Palestinian side, especially Hamas, but not limited to them.
If this were a normal independence movement, it would already be over, but it's not that. It's something else.
1978 follows 1948, though. 2025 follows both of the prior points you're defining. Israel occupies - illegally (widely recognised as so, except when political inconvenient to do so) - swathes of territory. It is a permanent, occupying force. Irrespective of the fundamentalist religious angles at play (that affect most, if not all powers in the region).
Do you think constant occupation breeds moderation? Do you understand that the average age of men in Palestine is so young, because for some reason they don't get to live to be old? I would argue that it isn't because they all commit offenses for which the punishment is extrajudicial death. We're seeing this in the quality and health of the prisoners released by Israel in the current exchanges.
Though in truth, it'd be inaccurate to say any were greatly influential on my perspective. I am of the belief that a person has a certain glee in the eye when they're hateful and engaging in moralist cruelty, and this comes through much more frequently when I read the statements of Palestinian leaders. It's more or less the same moralist glee I see when the various hillbillies around me are content to degrade the trans community in whatever way possible.
So it's vibes, more than any specific branch of reading that has coloured your perspective. We have different feelings here, different vibes, but I will say it's surprising that you don't see this moralist cruelty from Israel. Whether it's in return or in advance, I'm talking simply r.e. your perspective of what's going on.
This isn't "but Israel" in response to something, it's me talking about your worldview and how you perceive the respective sides.
This is an article by Nate Silver describing fault lines between what I call modern left(he calls it SJL) and the old left/classic American liberals brought to the fore by Gaza. It was written in 2023, and I think you can see the faults evolve exactly as Silver anticipated, eerily accurate. It's pretty well known which side I sympathize with, and which side Coates sympathizes with, so you should be able to glimpse a reasonably in-depth guesstimate of how I'd criticize Coates(sparing me the task of writing as many words as he did!). Although further left economically than Silver, his other criticisms of that side I very much sympathize with.
I think this really underpins your general approach to the whole topic. And I don't say this cruelly, or to bait a response, or the like. I've taken some time to reply so I can try and feel out what to say in purely analytical terms. Which isn't to say that they can't cause offense, but I'm trying not to.
You're significantly conservative. Not by my metric, but by any general metric. You may have moderately liberal economical leanings (I don't know specifically, and economics aren't really my thing), but that doesn't really count for much (hasn't done for a long time). The cultural angle pervades. And it pervades because it affects the geopolitical lens, as we see here. Nate Silver's position on the "progressive left" is that they're too "left". Your own posts on "woke" are well-known. So it makes sense that you can't engage with Coates in anything but reductive terms. It goes back to the impact of colonialism, and how pervasive it is. Which is, weirdly, a "progressive" thing. It should be pretty objective; pretty clear. We study the impact of such efforts elsewhere. We recognise the impact of historical colonialism on modern society across a range of subjects (as humans; the "we" is generic).
So why is Coates' framing of the Israeli occupation so middling to you? I don't actually know. I can guess, but I don't know. But it seems to tie into this greater "modern left" critique. And as such, your engagement with me and other posters. We're often a part of a greater demographic to you. You have, at times, repeatedly switched between individual posts, and your impression of a greater leftist demographic, instead of the actual person. And it's a very human thing to do, don't get me wrong. To such an extent that I really try to engage with the poster specifically. Even if I can rightly determine their political orientation and possibly even predict their position on any given subject due to this (and this isn't an ironclad thing, because you can't always), it's always better to hear it from the person themselves. I interpret you as Voidwalkin, nothing less, nothing more. You are not a signifier of some greater demographic. You're you, in my eyes.
I am not "the modern left". Neither is Coates. There needs to be more nuance; less generalisations. It's not some kind of magical thinking that causes Coates to focus on the legacy of colonialism when evaluating Israel's actions. It's simply an application of cause and effect. To cut to the point, you'd have a stronger argument if you focused on what about the colonialism you disagreed with (even though it's probably a tangent), vs. trying to tie it to some greater catch-all theory about the "modern left" and how everyone in said alleged hive mind perceives any given situation.
(small aside: leftists and liberals have seen themselves as different political blocks for years, I'd argue at least a decade - despite conservatives trying to tie the two together)
