Conservative vs. Progressive Takes on Hamas and Israel

What the three-axis model predicts

[Note: it is outside of my normal custom to post on topics in the headlines. For reasons I sketched out yesterday, I prefer to direct my writing elsewhere. This week, though, I am replacing the posts that I had scheduled with more current takes.]

In The Three Languages of Politics, I lay out the three-axis model: I say that Progressives like to use the oppressor-oppressed axis to frame issues; Conservatives like to use the civilization-barbarism axis. And Libertarians use a liberty-coercion axis.

The reason that such a simple model wound up as a book, or extended essay, is that I wanted to emphasize the way that the axes are used as communication shortcuts, not as analytical approaches. The book talks about tribal signaling, demonization of those with whom one disagrees, arrogantly claiming to know the “true motives” of the other side, and related issues. If that interests you, then I encourage you to read the whole book. If you give up on finding the free version at libertarianism.org, you can always pay for it on Amazon (I get no royalties.)

For the Hamas-Israel conflict, I think that the characterization of Progressives and Conservatives fits perfectly. For the remainder of this essay, I will set aside Libertarians.¹

For Progressives, Israel is the oppressor and the Palestinians are the oppressed. In fact, perhaps an even better way to describe the conflict from a Progressive perspective would be in Mind Club terms as robot vs. baby. In any morally salient conflict, people tend to see one side as having all of the agency (ability to make choices that determine the outcome) but no feeling. This side is the robot. The other side is seen as having feelings but no agency. They are the babies.

Defenders of Hamas will say things like, “They have no choice.” As if launching a coordinated invasion was not a choice. As if it is the people that they kidnap, not the kidnappers, who are the agents able to control the outcome. (As you can tell, I have a hard time taking a charitable view of Progressives on this topic.)

For Conservatives, Israel is civilized and Palestinian militants are barbaric. I think that this is a pretty obvious framing, but it contains a trap. It may set up expectations that Israel must conduct itself with restraint, lest it be labeled as barbaric.

I would make it clear that Israel should not be held to absurd standards of non-barbarity during war. But that point is best made in the context of a subsequent essay, on the usefulness of World War II analogies in framing this conflict.

1. In the past, I have found some libertarians vehemently opposed to Israel and sounding like Progressives, while others view Israel much more favorably, in the process sounding like conservatives. One famous libertarian catch-phrase is “anything peaceful,” and that makes it uncomfortable to take sides in a war. If I had to guess, I would say that should American involvement in the war in the Middle East deepen, libertarians will be opposed to such involvement, just as they tend to be on the side of non-involvement in the Ukraine war.