Blindness: October 7 and the Left: Jewish Quarterly 256

Jewish Quarterly #256

by Hadley Freeman

After October 7, many on the left justified, dismissed or championed acts and beliefs they otherwise view as unconscionable. Why?
‘October 7 was horrific. Then came October 8, and that's when Jews understood how hated they really are.’


After October 7, many on the left justified, dismissed or even championed acts they otherwise view as unconscionable. It has been a disturbing phenomenon, in which a fanatical form of denial, obfuscation and hatred has been propagated by those who claim to be champions of justice. During a devastating war, it has left Jews in the Diaspora, regardless of their politics, feeling isolated, shocked and – many for the first time – fearful.


In Blindness, author and columnist Hadley Freeman explores the willingness of progressives to abandon values they purport to represent. With bitter clarity she outlines the equivocations, contortions and hypocrisy displayed by elements of the left, including many who were unable to acknowledge or condemn the atrocities of Hamas. And she examines the beliefs that have swept across liberal sectors such as universities and the arts with a fervour that blinds adherents to the immense complexities of history and justice.

Genres: Nonfiction

73 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 2, 2024

About the author

Hadley Freeman (born 1978) is a columnist and writer for The Guardian, who also contributes to the UK version of Vogue. She was born in New York to Jewish parents, and attended Oxford University. Her first book, The Meaning of Sunglasses, was published in 2008.

Reviews

[Malcolm Murrell-Byrd · Rating 1 out of 5]

This text is weak and easily deconstructed to an echo of state media propaganda. Grammar and punctuation is often incorrect and arguments are half-baked thoughts with no reliable evidence. Where are the footnotes or endnotes for the quotations and supposed statistics that are given? At least have a further reading section or bibliography at the end of the book. I haven read thousands of pages, numerous books, academic articles, and newspaper articles that this book is as shallow and "blind" as it can get. Anti-semitism has increased and is a problem as I have discussed with my groups in Friends of Jewish Voice for Peace, but that is about where this books argument(s) ends in providing any such insights. If someone is interested in writing a paper on Israel/Palestine, resistance, Zionism, militarism, religious fundamentalism, human rights, pariah states, and propaganda this book is useful to cite and argue against. I will never forget what happened on October 7th, but I will not forget how people in my family, Israelis and Americans in power, have strongly suggested the nuking of Gaza. Absurd. I can't forget the social media posts by IDF soldiers of raiding and looting Palestinian homes. IDF soldiers dancing and playing music on Gaza's rubble. IDF soldiers proposing to each other on rubble in Gaza saying "we'll make a new home here." IDF soldiers stealing Palestinian women's undergarments to pin on walls for dating app pictures. The blood that flows in Gaza, the forced starvation, the daily bombardment that includes schools, hospitals, and refugee camps, and not to mention the targeted killing of hundreds of journalisms and humanitarian aid workers. And this is just Israel's recent treatment of Gaza, aka "mowing the grass," how about Israel's and settler actions in the West Bank? Thousands of Palestinians have been illegally detained by Israel, many of which are children, for months without arrest. Collective punishment is handed out to the Palestinians in the West Bank constantly. Read history, understand others and your own bias, consider the context and the times experienced, consider what evidence is used and is ignored, what are the arguments and how to they argue against and criticize others, and finally make your own analysis. How we counter anti-semitism, islamophobia, propaganda, injustice, ect. is by thinking rather than blindly believing and letting emotions take over rational thought.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have said that I will not host discussion about current wars,  but I have also always said that I confront antisemitism whenever I come across it.  It's personal for me: I have relations who are 'Jewish enough' to have perished in the Holocaust.  And among the miscellany of my friends of all faiths but mostly of none, I have Jewish friends.

But confronting antisemitism is also a moral issue.  We cannot recoil in horror from Germany's industrial scale murder of six million Jews without recognising that we have a moral responsibility to do what ordinary Germans did not do: to confront antisemitism even when it's difficult.

Which is why I am drawing attention to the latest issue of the long-form-essay Jewish Quarterly.

I'm not Jewish, but my niece converted to Judaism to marry the love of her life, and she lives in London.  She has three school age children and it is from her and reports from my local friends, that I know that amid a fog of propaganda this essay is highlighting the truth about the rise of overt and sometimes violent antisemitism.

Blindness, October 7 and the Left is by Hadley Freeman, and I read most of it not realising that she was a woman. (As I found out when I Googled her), at The Guardian, (which she has now abandoned) she has written some notable articles about celebrities and A-listers, people I would not recognise if I saw them on the street, from Michael J Fox  to Ben Affleck and Keanu Reeves.  At The Guardian these pieces are below the news and I don't even scroll down past the headlines to look at them.  I don't do popular culture.

But Blindness, October 7 and the Left is deadly serious stuff. 

https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/05/09/b...

[Lenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short but powerful analysis of the raging antisemitism on the left that has been simmering for decades, but was brought to a boil in the wake of October 7. Freeman expertly addresses key issues in the left’s hypocrisy, sacrificing their own professed values (including diversity of opinions) for the sake of aligning singularly with one “oppressed victim” (Palestinians), ignoring its leaders’ genocidal aims, sexual violence, treatment of gay people and women, and treatment of the hostages while using their own people as human shields. And largely ignoring Jewish/Israeli pain, suffering, rape and deaths.

Let’s be clear: Freedman is upfront in sympathy for Palestinians and criticism of Bibi and Israel, as most Jews are. She says so multiple times. This book has nothing to do with dehumanizing Palestinians but holding the left responsible for turning a blind eye to murdered and raped Israelis, antisemitism in protests and on campuses, and for the failure of institutions to protect their Jews. The idiots who wrote one star reviews read this book with both eyes closed, and prove every single point in it.

It was haunting to read this book as the horrific news of the youngest hostages, nine month old Kfir Bibas and his brother, four year old Ariel Bibas, murdered by Hamas terrorists with their bare hands over a year ago, their coffins paraded in the streets by joyful (civilian) crowds, who brought their own children to the spectacle. Kfir and Ariel’s only crime: being born Jewish and Israeli. Their mother Shiri was just recently confirmed murdered as well. And the world, particularly the left, largely remain silent. Because the murder of babies is unremarkable if they are Jews! Jewish mothers are not women worthy of protection! The torture of Arab or Thai hostages are unremarkable if they are Israeli! I hope one day the members of the left look back with horror and shame, but I won’t hold my breath.

[Mia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Highly biased, anti-Palestinian point of view.
Freeman writes as if only one issue exists: Israel's existence and Zionism.
Like most cultish and extreme Zionists, she is wiling to sacrifice ALL other progressive issues -- if Palestinians count as actual people.
Progressive without Palestine has an expiration date, a fact which Freeman has yet to perceive accurately.
If Palestinian humanity causes Zionist fear, Zionists should ask themselves what it is they are defending in the first place. Why would any moral human being fear another group's humanity?
Another reason to avoid this: constant 'victim' -framing as expected of white feminist Zionists which cram everyone else to the margins.

This piece is one long whine -fest.
Disclosure: this was read and discussed in a WOC group; some ideas above are shared.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This would have to be one of the greatest books I’ve ever read.

Insightful , well researched, and a real analysis on what has happened to the far left in politics.