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Adam Zivo: Cheering on Iranian strikes, Israel's 'progressive' critics show their true colours

After raging about civilian deaths in Gaza, the 'pro-Palestinian' movement is now bloodthirsty for civilian casualties in Israel

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TEL AVIV — One of the most disturbing aspects of the Iran war has been the enthusiasm with which pro-Palestinian voices have cheered for Israeli civilian casualties. Their bloodlust suggests that they aren’t as moral as they present themselves to be, and that they ultimately just want Israelis — and Jews more broadly — to suffer or die.

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This phenomenon pervades pro-Palestinian social media spaces, where reports of Iranian strikes on Tel Aviv, whether authentic or not, are being gleefully celebrated. This joy is not limited to attacks on military targets and encapsulates any suffering inflicted upon Israelis of all backgrounds.

Adam Zivo: Cheering on Iranian strikes, Israel's 'progressive' critics show their true colours Back to video

The X posts of prominent anti-western social media influencers — such as Jackson Hinkle and Sulaiman Ahmed — provide endless illustrative case studies. Not only do these influencers celebrate strikes on civilian targets, their followers call for war crimes to be committed with an almost feral rage.

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“I love the Israel bombing porn. Keep them coming. I just wish those jew rats would stop hiding in the basement and come outside,” wrote one X user, in response to photos showing a missile-struck civilian neighbourhood. “Iran are not doing enough, I don’t want to see any building standing,” wrote another, reflecting the sadistic tenor of the thread.

These examples are just droplets in a churning ocean of hate. While some of this content is probably generated by authoritarian-financed bot accounts, a significant portion comes from real people.

To illustrate, after less than a minute of pursuing through these threads, I found an account seemingly linked to an American landscaper who specializes in Japanese gardens. “May they starve underground in their own filth,” read a post, in response to a viral tweet about how “the Zionist rats never come out of their hiding place.” Beneath another video of an Iranian missile strike on Tel Aviv, it replied: “Not nearly enough. flatten the f–king thing.”

The contrast between this barbaric rhetoric and the zen aesthetics of the user’s associated gardening business underlines how evil often hides behind a banal face.

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Notably, many of the online posts calling for anti-Israeli war crimes use the catchphrase “Boom boom Tel Aviv,” referencing the eponymous “anti-Zionist” techno song that went viral last year. The song glorifies Iranian missile strikes on the city and explicitly states that it is time for Israeli civilians to “bleed” because “humanity never expected good behaviour from you, Jews.”

Use of this catchphrase is also seeping into real life. At an Al-Quds Day demonstration in London last month and at another protest in Chicago sponsored by a local teacher’s union, protesters were spotted with “Boom boom Tel Aviv” signs, prompting some backlash.

So I guess the people who spent years condemning civilian collateral damage are, in fact, very comfortable with innocent people dying, or cities being pummelled, so long as the victims are Jewish. They have no moral compass. Their false virtue only sheaths the atavistic rage seething in their chests.

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Many of these online voices claim that attacking Israeli civilians amounts to justice for the suffering of the Palestinian people. “Let the Jews suffer as the Gazans did,” they say. In doing so, they make clear that their conception of morality is defined by vengeance and collective punishment. This is an odious framework, and one that pro-Palestinian voices only selectively endorse, because its universal application could just as easily excuse Israeli punishment of Palestinian civilians, given the crimes committed by Hamas.

It is true that Palestinians, particularly in Gaza, have suffered horrendously. But it is also true that Israeli forces have generally made efforts to mitigate civilian casualties where possible. Yes, some extremists have used incendiary and dehumanizing language — such as calling for Gaza to be “erased” or “flattened” — but they are an oft-resented minority.

Speaking as someone who has spent a fair amount of time in Israel over the past two years, I’ve found most people here show empathy towards Palestinians, even when it is difficult to do so.

Israelis have vigorously debated whether their government has done enough to protect Palestinian civilians and, throughout the war in Gaza, tens of thousands of protesters marched in Tel Aviv each weekend calling for a ceasefire and an end to Palestinian suffering. When radical Israeli settlers unleashed a wave of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank recently, the move was widely — and rightful — condemned throughout Israeli society as inexcusable terrorism.

Would pro-Palestinian advocates show similar empathy towards Israelis? Would they beseech Israel’s enemies — whether in Iran, Gaza or elsewhere — to avoid harming civilians? Evidently, many wouldn’t.

We see this not only in this current war, but also in the days following the October 7 massacre, when these people — who so self-righteously pontificate about human rights — jubilantly celebrated the barbaric murder of over 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

For many pro-Palestinian activists, their hatred of Israelis burns so hot that, when the Iranian regime massacred upwards of 30,000 protesters in January, many either ignored the slaughter or excused it. Although these Iranian civilians had committed no crime against the Palestinian people, they were treated as expendable cannon fodder in the crusade against Israel.

The moral asymmetry between the two sides here is not subtle. Among Israelis, the majority abhors civilian suffering and strives to minimize it — even if that means pushing back against their own extremists or the recklessness of their own government. Among swathes of the global pro-Palestinian movement, the suffering of Israeli civilians is like sweet nectar, and extremism is not condemned, but rewarded.

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