The idiocy is the point

“In my work I’ve sat across from many politicians [and] civil society leaders who have tweeted horrible things, signed horrible petitions. And when you sit across [from] them and ask them and poke them and scrutinise their conduct, half the time they wilt and crumble, express embarrassment and regret."

That's from a speech Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin gave to alumni of Sydney's Moriah College last December, a video recording of which was leaked to me earlier this year. 

It's an insight into our political system and the people who run it that gets more useful every day. While Ryvchin didn't name names, it isn't hard to imagine who in our current government, faced with the inconvenience of being confronted over a publicly expressed belief, would take the easy way out and renounce the belief instead of defending it.

(I can't help but think there's something distinctly Anglo about that – abandoning your political convictions not out of changing circumstances, or from gaining a new understanding, or even out of ambition, but to avoid a scene.)

It's especially helpful for making sense of the confected hysteria over the Amsterdam soccer riots. I'm not going to rake over the ins and outs of why a bunch of racist hooligans getting their asses beat is a good thing, because I assume you're an intelligent person. 

In case you're looking to read more about it, here's a good recap of how Maccabi Tel Aviv ultras instigated the violence – including by terrorising houses that flew Palestinian flags, chanting through a minute’s silence for the people killed in the Valencia floods, and assaulting a taxi driver – and here's a primer on the insane racism that permeates Israeli Premier League football in general (amazingly, Maccabi Tel Aviv has only the second-most racist fanbase).

I've seen a lot of people openly wondering how the Penny Wongs and Justin Trudeaus of the world can expect people to believe them when they evoke Anne Frank in defence of soccer hooligans chanting "there are no schools in Gaza because there are no children there", and I think I have a read on it.

While the main purpose of hasbara beat-ups like this is to distract from the genocide – from the new United Nations report that found more than 36 per cent of people killed by the IDF in Gazan residential buildings were children aged 14 or younger, or the IDF's casual announcement last week that "there is no intention of allowing the residents of the northern Gaza Strip to return to their homes," or Monday's news that Israel is now planning to formally annex the West Bank next year – they also serve another function: telling crazy, easily disprovable lies is a really effective way of making liberal apologists like those described above by Ryvchin perform and deepen their commitment to Zionism. 

The ridiculousness of the lie – they're pogromming our soccer hooligans, the UN refugee agency is full of terrorists, there's Hezbollah gold buried under the hospital – isn't accidental. The idiocy is the point — the dumber the better. Israel and its proxies demand their liberal defenders loudly and enthusiastically disseminate whatever new horseshit they've come up with, knowing that making them do so ties their political fortunes ever more closely together.

There's a tendency to infantilise liberal politicians as poor dumb innocents being misled by Israeli propaganda. Penny Wong is many things, but she's certainly not stupid. She, and others like her, are fully aware of the choice they have to make every time a new piece of hasbara rolls out: either nod along and further alienate a growing number of their own voters, or call the lie out for what it is and watch their political futures evaporate before their eyes. 

If they state the blindingly obvious – that the lie is a lie – not only would they go from 'Friend of Israel' to 'local Hamas cadre leader', but they would effectively be admitting that they've spent the past year helping perpetrate one of the worst atrocities of the 21st Century. No one can pull off a backflip like that. You can't come out and say 'Israel is committing a genocide' when last week's line was 'IDF soccer hooligans are sweet little babies'  — not without accepting that your political and post-political career is over. What choice do they have but to double down? 

Sure, it disgusts the voters who took their vague platitudes about peace and human rights at face value. Sure, it might eventually cost them an election, or even their seat in Parliament. But public opinion has never factored into the West's support for Israel anyway, and from their perspective the alternative — being cast out of the political establishment entirely — is much worse. No sweet post-parliament gig as a glorified arms dealer; no consolation-prize ambassadorship or lobbyist job; no made-up executive title like 'CEO of Vibes' at a mining company.

There's another aspect to this that I find kind of fascinating. Making liberal politicians lie through their teeth about Israel also functions as a kind of ritual humiliation – an endless public demonstration that they'll faithfully repeat any talking point, no matter how ridiculous, with a straight face. 

The nasty lesson that liberal bottom-feeders are learning in real time is that there's no amount of performative debasement on their part that will satisfy Zionists or Christofascists or billionaires or any other kind of reactionary. Because their voter base and their branding dictates that they have to gesture towards ideas like human rights and the rule of law occasionally, the liberal will always be suspect. From Israel's perspective, this makes perfect sense: why would you want a Diet Zionist when you can have the real thing?

That's what made last week doubly humiliating for Kamala Harris and what she embodies. Harris spent not only her presidential campaign but her entire political life bending over backwards to appease AIPAC, and Netanyahu didn't even disguise his glee when she lost.

The same is true here. If Netanyahu came out tomorrow and said that Ajax beating Maccabi 5-0 was antisemitic, within a fortnight Albanese would be putting a bill before Parliament giving all visiting Israeli soccer teams a 6-0 head start. It still wouldn't change the fact that Netanyahu and co. will dance over his political grave.

I almost envy the ability of Zionists and reactionaries to make an Anthony Albanese or a Keir Starmer crawl on their bellies like this; to make them “wilt and crumble”. It must be kind of fun to have this miserable plaything at your disposal, like how people make their Sims families pee their pants.

This universal acknowledgement that the liberal is the most wretched and unlovable creature that crawls upon the earth is the one piece of common ground we have left. It's true for everyone from Benjamin Netanyahu to Naim Qassem, from Donald Trump to Malcolm X – and it's true for the same reasons. It's like the speed of light; a universal constant. Liberals are the Pete Hornbergers of the political spectrum.

Maybe that's the true power of liberalism — by being an object of universal contempt, it truly brings the world together.

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What I’m looking at

• Hasbara Tracker

• Al Jazeera — At least 40 killed in Gaza as Israeli drone attacks ‘safe zone’ café

• Declassified Australia — Palestine and the lessons of East Timor