The true test of politics is where you stand on Israel.

Now that the political construct of Left and Right has collapsed, the Israel question exposes who defends civilization — and who's enabling its destruction.

photo: Levi Meir Clancy/Unsplash

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This is a guest essay by Adam Hummel, a lawyer in Toronto.

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

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The political spectrum of Left versus Right is dead.

Buried.

Gone.

What we are watching in the world right now is not a continuation of that tired ideological duel. It’s the collapse of it.

For generations, we were told that all human politics could be understood through a single line: one side progressive, the other conservative; one side peace, the other security.

But in 2025, that narrative is a rotting carcass. It just doesn’t make sense anymore.

The horseshoe theory once tried to explain the chaos, arguing that the extremes of Left and Right bend back toward each other until they almost meet.

It was a cute metaphor, but the truth today is way uglier. The horseshoe has bent so far it has fused into a single blunt instrument. A circle, lying on its side, with no apparent meaning anymore.

A few months ago, I had the privilege to speak with the inimitable Israeli journalist Matti Friedman. He explained, as he has said many times before, that in Israel, Left versus Right meant something slightly different than in the rest of the world.

In Israel, being Left-wing implied wanting a two-state solution, whereas being Right-wing generally meant you rejected it. There is also a huge centrist population in Israel which is more nuanced about the Israeli-Palestinian solution, but for the sake of this essay: Simple and predictable, it defined Israeli politics for decades.

And then came October 7th.

That day, Hamas tore apart not just Israeli lives, but the entire framework of Israeli politics. The idea of a two-state solution all but evaporated overnight. Today, hardly anyone in Israel still utters it with a straight face. How could the Palestinians be trusted when the overwhelming majority of Palestinians living in both the West Bank and Gaza support what happened on October 7th?

With the effective death of the two-state solution, the Left-Right divide in Israel now no longer effectively exists. Is it now that Left-wing is anti-Netanyahu whereas Right-wing is pro-Netanyahu? Unclear.

But on October 7th, it was not just Israel that lost its Left-Right divide; it was the entire world.

Look around. The so-called “Right” in the West (or at least in North America) embraces protectionism, tariffs, and industrial policy, all once sacred cows of the Left. The “Left” obsesses over border walls, their own speech, and enforcing ideological purity with McCarthyist zeal. “Progressives” now defend Hamas in the streets, while conservatives march for Jewish survival. Liberals deploy authoritarian emergency powers, conservatives shout about civil liberties. Don’t even get me started on woke-ism and where that fits into the alleged spectrum.

The words “Left” and “Right” are now bereft of meaning. They tell you effectively nothing anymore about a person’s moral compass. They explain nothing about their sympathies. In fact, I’d argue they conceal more than they reveal.

So, what replaces this spectrum?

Well here’s the one question that cuts through the noise, provides a current litmus test for humanity, and tells you everything you need to know about a person: Do you stand with Israel, or do you stand against it?

That’s it.

Not “pro-Palestinian” versus pro-Israel. That’s the old dodge. “Pro-Palestinian” in practice has become a fig leaf for being anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, anti-Western civilization itself. Most of those activists aren’t really “pro-Palestinian” anyway, otherwise they’d want to get rid of Hamas and have peace with Israel.

The real binary is pro-Israel or anti-Israel.

Because Israel today is not just a country; it’s an idea, and not just one for Jews. It is the frontline trench of civilization. It is the test case for whether a democracy has the right to defend itself against monsters who kidnap children and livestream atrocities.

If you are pro-Israel, you may disagree about taxes, trade, or climate policy, but you understand the basics: Civilization must defend itself. If you are anti-Israel, no matter what you call yourself, your sympathies are with the people who would happily burn the world down.

The old spectrum was about policy differences. It was horizontal. This new axis is about morality. It is vertical. On one end: people who believe in order, law, survival, and human dignity. On the other: people who cheer for chaos, excuse slaughter, and carry water for theocrats who stone women and execute homosexuals.

This is not a debate between economic models. It’s not about welfare percentages or tax codes. This is good versus evil, life versus death, civilization versus barbarism.

Yes, the extremes of Left and Right resemble one another. They march with the same authoritarian swagger. But here’s what the horseshoe theory missed: The middle has collapsed too.

The so-called moderates, those who cheer “both sides” and “nuance,” reveal themselves as cowards. They claim sophistication, but their hedging just protects their own reputations. Neutrality in the face of barbarism is not virtue; it is complicity.

I know that I’ll get pushback for this, with people noting that not everyone has an opinion or knowledge about the conflict in the Middle East. But at the end of the day, when you boil it down to its composite parts, the conflict as it stands today is not that complicated: democracy versus theocracy, good versus evil.

I’ll make it starker: People who warn civilians before hitting a den of terrorists in a sophisticated strategic strike versus those who put babies in ovens in front of their incapacitated parents. Don’t hedge. Pick a side and tell us where you stand.

Politicians themselves are proof that the old spectrum has collapsed into dust. Look at any leader today and try to stick them cleanly on the Left-Right spectrum. It’s almost impossible, and when you can do it, it is largely irrelevant to real-world considerations. Supposed “conservatives” borrow heavily from socialist playbooks on trade and industry, while “progressives” wield surveillance powers and corporate partnerships once associated with hard-nosed Right-wing statism.

A politician like Donald Trump throws everything up in the air, campaigning as a nationalist protectionist while handing out COVID-19 stimulus cheques; Justin Trudeau preached progressive values while centralizing power and clamping down fiercely on certain protestors; Mark Carney now even picks certain policies from the Conservative Party platform; Emmanuel Macron of France sells himself as centrist while cherry-picking policies from every corner of the spectrum, now leaning heavily towards the leftist base; Keir Starmer of Britain’s Labour Party is apparently all in on the creation of an Islamist Palestinian State.

These aren’t ideological betrayals — Who cares about betrayals today anyway? — but they’re the death rattles of a spectrum that no longer explains anything. What we’re seeing instead is a politics of survival, loyalty, and raw identity. Voters don’t line up behind “Right” or “Left” anymore; they line up behind who they think will fight for them, against whoever they perceive as the enemy. Politicians know this, which is why they so easily blur, merge, and contradict old ideological lines. They aren’t Left or Right, but tribal leaders for their camps.

And in today’s world, those camps are less about economics or policy than they are about civilization itself: whether you stand for order, democracy, and defence of the West, or whether you excuse chaos and terror. That’s why the Israel question, more than any other, cuts through the noise. It reveals what all the old labels cannot: who is still committed to defending civilization’s foundations.

Forget the old Left-Right axis. The only compass that matters now is this: pro-Israel at the top, anti-Israel at the bottom. That’s the measure. That’s the test. Everything else is secondary. And this is not just about ethics or morality; it’s about the way people see the world entirely. Israel is not an abstraction, but a reality check. Hit it like a tuning fork and you immediately hear whether someone’s values resonate with civilization or its enemies.

This single axis explains global alignment better than any other framework. Nations, corporations, parties, and movements reveal themselves instantly by where they stand on Israel. Look at the mobs in Western cities screaming “Intifada” while enjoying the freedoms of the societies they despise. Look at governments too cowardly to call terror by its name. Look at intellectuals who twist language into pretzels to avoid saying the obvious: Hamas is evil, Israel is right to destroy it. The war can’t possibly end until all the hostages are freed. Look at the other moral rot that always seems to accompany antisemitism.

Then look at the voices who defend Israel without qualification. They may come from Left or Right, but they share a core: an understanding that survival is non-negotiable and that civilization has both the right and duty to fight back.

This new axis gives clarity. It liberates us from the false nostalgia of Left and Right. It tells us who we can trust, who we should fight beside, and who we must oppose.

It also strips away the excuses. You cannot hide behind your political party, your ideology, or your favourite pundit. Your answer to one question — Are you pro-Israel or anti-Israel? — exposes you.

You cannot dodge this. You cannot nuance your way around it. Neutrality is a choice, and it is the wrong one.

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