How so?

If you're actually interested in how Neil Druckman has talked about how TLOU2 is directly inspired by his vengeful thoughts about Palestinians as an Israeli (that's the liberal view of Zionism I mentioned), you can read the article

I am aware of what he said. I’m also aware of how story and metaphor work, whether that’s regarding the Bible, Harry Potter, or The Last of Us. People write what they know. However, I’m curious about how that’s the “liberal view of Zionism.” Do explain.

There's an article for that

Core liberal positions on Zionism: • Two-state solution • Human rights • Criticism ≠ antisemitism • Occupation opposition Where Zionist policy diverges: • Settlement expansion • Annexation and one-state realities • Security-first approach

Trolling: • Trolls conflate sympathy for Israel’s existence with blanket endorsement of all Israeli policies, to stifle nuanced debate. • Liberal Zionism exists, advocating Israel’s right to exist while opposing occupation and settlement policies, is deliberately oversimplified by both sides.

Man, read the article. You can’t go ahead with establishing your terms of the debate without even bothering show the other side the same respect. In a way, this blind self-righteousness only reminds one of the Israeli side in the conflict more generally...

I read it when it dropped. I have read others like it. I just reread it. Doesn’t change what I said.

Your original point was that people are free to see the story as a metaphor for any number of things... and that simultaneously those who see it as a metaphor for Israel/Palestine are ‘red-pilled conspiracists’. Given the formative influence of IL/PS on the show’s creator, that claim is... bonkers.

It is not bonkers. It’s conspiratorial hermeneutics, which assumes the narrative is an encoded manipulation. You and he are working to deflate the metaphor, which strikes me as a kind of motivated literalism, not so different from evangelicals interpreting the Bible as literal.

This in itself is a liberal fantasy about liberal Zionism, which does not actually include any of those things

To create the future, we must first imagine it. Cynicism is the refuge of those lacking both ambition and curiosity.