X platform “For You” setting: anti-Israel, pro-Hamas

Screenshot just now, from my X feed, showing the two settings:
“For You” and “Following”. 

The X platform (ex “Twitter”) has two settings you can choose to see stuff: One is “For You” and the other is “Following”. 

The “For You” one throws up posts to you, based on what you’ve shown an interest in. The “Following” setting is so all you see are the people you follow. 

I usually set my X to “For You”: I like to be surprised by what might turn up and what might be interesting. 

But lately this setting has become clogged by anti-Israel posts, often glorifying Hamas. It was balanced for a while after October 7th, then shifted, each day by an observable amount, till I noticed yesterday that it was pretty much all, at least 90%, anti-Israel and pro-Hamas. All of this is driven by an algorithm that knows I’m interested in the Middle East, and has been feeding me people’s posts on the issue. Which used to be balanced, but are no longer. Perhaps that’s due to the algorithm, perhaps due to simple more people posting anti-Israel pro-Hamas stuff. 

That’s fine and I learn what’s on their minds. But it’s also obvious that they follow a narrative. A narrative, moreover, which they repeat without understanding. Or, for which they willingly ignore the truth. Because the narrative is so often so wrong. 

I used to think that people were not as stupid as I now believe they are. So many of the people protesting in the centre of London, or in Sydney, against Israel, pro a ceasefire, don’t know the simplest things. Most don’t know what the “From the River to the Sea” chant calls for. How easy would it be to have found that out, before going on the streets to chant it yourself? But they haven’t bothered. 

If they don’t understand the simple chant of “from the River to the Sea”, it’s hardly surprising they don’t know the rather more complex history of Israel and Palestine. It’s not the least surprising that they don’t know the reality of history in the Levant, in this part of the Middle East. Mostly, they haven’t a clue. 

Here’s my summary of the narrative of the posters on “For  You”. Reductive, I know, but here it is, FWIW:

• European Jews (mostly white) invaded Palestine straight after the war. 
• These white supremacist Jews stole land from the peaceable locals, the Palestinians, the Muslim Arabs, who had been there for generations. They kicked the Palestinians off their own land, occupied it, oppressed the Palestinians and set up an apartheid state.
• They are now a colonialist, settler, white supremacist, apartheid state. 
• Palestinians, via the brave Hamas soldiers, took revenge on the horrid oppressors, on October 7th. In this they were fully justified. 
• Nothing Hamas has done is bad, or a war crime. It’s the expression of anger against the constant oppression. 
• Israel are the Nazis of the Middle East
• Israel is committing war crimes
• Israel is a genocidal state
• Israel is an apartheid state
• Israel must be stopped. Especially from killing children and babies, the innocents in Gaza. 
• There must be a ceasefire: no matter if Israel achieves nothing of its goals, in which no Israeli hostages are released. Israel Defence Forces must retreat from the positions in Gaza. 

This narrative is wrong or warped in all its claims. I’m not going to do a debunk here, as I’ve done that over the years on this blog. In any case I doubt any facts are going to prevail over the emotion and hysteria that grips the anti-Israel, pro-Hamas crowd. “You can’t reason people out of positions that they’ve got to without reason."

What’s really dispiriting is that delivers in the narrative above is a large group and it's growing. And that some people -- including some of my own family and friends -- think that because there are so many people on the streets and the outrage is so great on X, that they must be right, these anti-Israel pro-Hamas people. 

For me, not so. I won’t change my mind on this issue -- just because of large numbers -- unless there’s a good case. And so far, I don’t see the good case for Israel to stop from attacking Hamas terrorists and their venal leaders within Gaza, even if that does have the tragic collateral of killing the children Hamas uses as shields. 

There was so much anti-Israel, pro-Hamas rhetoric on the “For You” setting, so much of it feverish, hysterical, that I’ve switched over in the past few days to “Following” mode. That gives me a soothing relief, just of the 200 or so people that I’ve decided over the years I like to hear from. 

Which is, by the way, why everyone’s X feed is different from everyone else’s. You can’t say “X has become a cesspit”, without it reflecting on the people you follow. Each feed in the over 600 million X feeds is different and unique. At least we know can have our own views, and I in no way want to stop the anti-Israel, pro-Hamas crowd -- a very big one, it seems -- from having their say. 

Just that from time to time (like now), it gets a bit much and I have to tune out for a bit. 

And have to declare, for absolute clarity, that I remain a firm supporter of Israel, a firm hater of Hamas. They are day and night. Hamas is evil; Israel is a flawed democracy. Hamas is bad; Israel is good. 

There, that’s it.