The Left forgot what liberal means.

The Iran war exposes, yet again, how many modern liberal movements now defend and excuse the very illiberal ideas they are supposed to oppose.

“Silence is violence” we’re told, while much of the Left did nothing about the Iranian regime murdering thousands of its own people in January. (photo: Jason Leung/Unsplash)

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This is a guest essay by Vanessa Berg, who writes about Judaism and Israel.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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There was a time when calling yourself a liberal meant something very specific. It meant you believed in open debate, free speech, pluralism, democracy, and the protection of individual rights.

A liberal society, in the classical sense, was one that tolerated disagreement, defended minority rights, and believed that free institutions were the best guarantor of peace and prosperity.

Recently, however, something strange has happened. Many of the loudest self-described liberals increasingly behave in ways that are anything but liberal. The contradiction is becoming harder to ignore.

A Gallup poll released in February revealed something historically unprecedented: For the first time, Americans’ sympathies leaned more toward Palestinians than toward Israelis. Among Democrats, the shift is even more dramatic: 65 percent say they sympathize more with Palestinians, while just 17 percent sympathize more with Israelis.

The irony is striking.

Israeli society is democratic and liberal (in the classical sense). Palestinian society, by contrast, is inherently illiberal, which has nothing to do with so-called “oppression” or “occupation,” and everything to do with longstanding Arab and Muslim values that go back centuries before the modern State of Israel’s creation in 1948.

In other words, many Western liberals now instinctively side with societies that embody fewer liberal values over those that embody far more. This would be intellectually interesting if it were merely a shift in geopolitical preference. But the deeper issue is that the shift reflects something more profound: the erosion of liberal principles themselves.

One reason for this change is that politics has become less about principles and more about opposition.

Take, for example, the reaction to Israel’s recent war with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Within hours of the conflict erupting on February 28th, a chorus of Left-wing politicians across the West rushed to condemn the U.S.-Israel attacks on the Islamic Republic. U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren declared, “This is not a war supported by this country.” Congressman Ro Khanna insisted the Democratic Party must “clearly oppose this war.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said, “Our decision that the UK would not be involved with the strikes on Iran was deliberate, not least because we believe that the best way forward for the region and for the world is a negotiated settlement” — ignoring the fact that there was a negotiated settlement in place since 2015 that the Iranian regime repeatedly violated.

French President Emmanuel Macron added: “The ongoing escalation is dangerous for all. It must stop.” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called the war “an extraordinary mistake,” and Member of European Parliament Irene Montero went even further, calling the United States and Israel the “biggest threats to global security.”

But notice something about these reactions and others: They often seem less about the actual issue — the Iranian regime’s violent oppression of its own people, genocidal nuclear ambitions, and regional aggression — and more about the decision-makers involved, namely Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu.

During a conversation about Trump’s decision to go to war against the Islamic Republic, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff, a member of the Democratic Party, sparred with political commentator Bill Maher, who read a government statement to Schiff: “The President had the constitutional authority to direct the use of military force because he could reasonably determine that such use of force was in the national interest.” Then Maher asked Schiff, “That’s too vague for you?” Schiff responded: “Totally vague!” Maher proceeded to clarify that the statement he just read came from President Barack Obama’s justification for the Libya intervention in 2011.

And that’s precisely the point: For many people and politicians on the Left, what matters less is the policy itself; what matters more is who’s implementing it. A serious political movement evaluates each decision, action, and directive on their merits. It has a healthy balance of being agreeable and disagreeable. But a movement that opposes literally everything associated with their political opponents is not principled; it is guided by automatic opposition as identity.

Many of us know by now what a growing number of liberals oppose (Israel, Zionism, Trump, ICE, racism, war, fossil fuels, fracking, capitalism, billionaires, nationalism, patriotism), but it’s becoming harder to understand what they actually support. The Left increasingly feels less like a set of values and more like a reflexive habit of saying “no, no, no” — like a child crossing their arms in frustration because they didn’t get their way.

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For two and a half years, many liberals have argued that Israel’s war against Hamas (in response to the terror group’s unprecedented massacres and kidnappings on October 7th) was immoral and disproportionate. Yet when the Iranian regime bombs Israeli population centers and murders thousands of its own people at home, the outrage largely disappears.

Where are the campus protests? Where are the viral slogans and hashtags? Where are the petitions and open letters? Where are the celebrities and influencers? Where are the international solidarity encampments? Where are the marches urgently interrupting Western streets?

Criticism of democratic allies is relentless. Criticism of authoritarian adversaries is nearly nonexistent. A political movement that is picky and choosy about its activism feels inauthentic at best and deeply hypocritical at worst.

Of course, the media plays a major role in reinforcing these distortions. After Israel killed Iran’s Supreme Leader on the first day of the war, the New York Times ran a front-page photograph of thousands of Iranians mourning him. What readers were not told, at least not prominently, is that polling and protests consistently show that 80 to 90 percent of Iranians strongly oppose the regime. Just weeks earlier, thousands of protesters had been massacred in the streets.

There were also plenty of images of Iranians celebrating the Supreme Leader’s death — which, unsurprisingly, did not make the front page. This is the subtle, manipulative transformation of honest journalism into unhinged activism. Instead of reflecting reality, Left-wing media outlets increasingly curate reality to reinforce preconceived narratives. The goal is no longer simply to report events; it is to guide public opinion toward the “correct” interpretation.

And yet the New York Times says its mission is to “seek the truth and help people understand the world.” CNN claims its pursuit is “asking the hard questions and bringing unique perspectives from across the globe.” The Associated Press boasts that it is “advancing the power of facts, globally.” In the business world, when a product does not match the messaging, there is a term for it: false advertising (and it is illegal).

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Since October 7th we’ve heard shouts, on repeat, of “Globalize the intifada!” and “There is only one solution: intifada revolution!” These are slogans that, inherently, promote violence.

Now we’re being told by these same activists to be “anti-war” — because the targets have changed. When the violence is directed at Israelis, it is reframed as resistance. When violence is directed at regimes or movements they sympathize with, it suddenly becomes an unacceptable escalation.

And the connection to Islam cannot be understated. Reasonable criticism of Islamist ideology is frequently dismissed as “Islamophobia.” Dissidents who actually grew up under Islamist regimes are often told their experiences are inconvenient or offensive. Iranian-American human rights activist and journalist, who also bills herself as a “full-time headache for terrorist regimes,” said what so many others will not:

“It just breaks my heart because for years we have been warning them (liberals) about the dangers of morality police. … Those who actually talk about Islam and Islamic countries, they never go and live under Sharia laws, but they don’t even let us talk about our own experience. I grew up in a country where I was told that if you show your hair, you will go to jail, you will receive lashes. But here (in the West), they tell me … ‘Shh, if you talk about this, you’re gonna cause Islamophobia.’”

The result is a bizarre inversion: People who lived under authoritarian rule are told they must be quiet so Western activists can defend the ideologies that oppressed them. That is not tolerance; it is ideological gatekeeping.

I know of no Jew who whitewashes, for example, Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes because he was Jewish, or who treats his actions as something that reflects on Judaism itself. Criminals are criminals; their crimes belong to them alone.

Yet when Islamist extremists attempt acts of terror, too many leaders suddenly grow cautious about naming the ideology behind it. Just days ago, Islamist terrorists attempted to bomb a protest outside Gracie Mansion, the official residence of New York City’s mayor — and yet the city’s Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani, still won’t bring himself to say the words “Islamist terrorism.” The double standard is glaring, and figures like him are increasingly shaping Left-wing movements across the West.

In fact, it was Mamdani who effectively wrote the anti-Israel-to-win-elections playbook, which he used to win the New York City mayoralty last year — even though he has no real connection to Israel or the Palestinians, New York City has nothing to do with Israel, and its mayor has exactly zero authority over Middle East policy.

Now even mainstream Democratic leaders are adjusting their rhetoric. For example, Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, and a probable 2028 presidential contender, recently said that Israel is discussed by some “appropriately as sort of an apartheid state.” The direction of the trend is becoming clear: Across the West, more and more politicians are realizing that uncritical support for Israel is no longer compatible with the Left-wing mainstream. Many progressive voters are pressuring their leaders to either abandon Israel outright or at least heavily condition their support for it.

In this political environment, familiar conspiracies have resurfaced as well. Activists frequently accuse the “Israeli lobby” of “controlling Washington,” with particular hostility directed toward AIPAC, a conservative pro-Israel advocacy organization.

The numbers, however, tell a very different story. AIPAC spent $3.8 million on lobbying in 2025 — just 0.076 percent of the more than $5 billion spent on lobbying across Washington, D.C. that year. As one Instagram user dryly noted, “The National Association of Realtors spent $54 million on lobbying — and they can’t even get interest rates to come down.”

The implication is obvious: The myth of overwhelming Jewish political power persists not because the data supports it, but because the narrative is politically convenient. Once upon a time, liberals overwhelmingly embraced logic and reason; nowadays many of them blatantly ignore facts that complicate certain narratives. Increasingly, their arguments are not built on evidence, but on ideological usefulness.

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At its core, liberalism is about defending the conditions that allow freedom to exist: democratic governance, open institutions, rule of law, and the ability to challenge authority.

But many modern activists have replaced liberalism with something else.

Instead of defending democratic values, they prioritize ideological alignment. Instead of defending free debate, they enforce moral conformity. Instead of opposing authoritarianism consistently, they oppose it selectively.

The result is a political culture where the label “liberal” remains, but the substance has faded.

The tragedy of this shift is that liberal values are not abstract philosophical luxuries; they are practical tools for peace.

Democracies tend to cooperate with each other. They build alliances, share intelligence, and resolve conflicts through institutions rather than violence. Political scientists have long observed that democracies rarely go to war with one another.

In other words, the spread of democracy is not merely about ideology; it is about stability. When countries become freer, they also become more predictable partners. That is why the fight for democracy in places like Iran matters. And that is why abandoning democratic allies while excusing authoritarian regimes is not just illiberal; it is strategically dangerous.

The question facing the modern Left is simple: Do they still believe in liberalism? Or have they replaced it with something else entirely?

Because if liberalism means defending democracy, pluralism, and freedom — even when it is politically inconvenient — then many of today’s loudest “liberal” voices have drifted far from the tradition they claim to represent.

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