The left must hang on to its moral authority This piece by Eric Levitz brilliantly examines all the complexities I imagine many of you are feeling about the war in Israel. I know I am. It’s very difficult and social media has made it almost impossible to express any nuance about any of it. (I’m reeling from being buffeting in all directions.) Anyway, this is the most honest, most mature analysis of how we should be thinking about this if we have a conscience: This weekend in Israel, a far-right Islamist group perpetrated the largest mass killing of Jews since the Holocaust, murdering entire families, including babies, in their beds and slaughtering 260 concertgoers. More than 1,000 Israelis were killed in all, and over 100 others taken hostage. Israel’s far-right government predictably responded by choking off all food, electricity, and fuel to Gaza’s 2 million residents and then preparing a military assault more untempered by concern for civilian casualties than ever before. Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, made the brutality of what is to come plain on Monday, saying, “We are fighting human animals, and we will act accordingly.” And no small number of supposed leftists found in all this cause for celebration. Others, meanwhile, loudly refused to condemn Hamas’s atrocities, insisting it was not their place to decry the “military strategy” or “violent resistance” of oppressed Palestinians. In my view, these responses constitute a betrayal of the left’s most fundamental values. Either one upholds the equal worth of all human lives, opposes war crimes, and…