Support for Israel has
changed substantially over time. From
its birth in 1948 until “The Six Day War” support was unquestioned. Two pillars undergirded the unconditional
support -- the moral imperative derived from the Holocaust, and the existential
threat posed by powerful Arab enemies surrounding the then weak and vulnerable Jewish state
The narrative began to change
following the “Six Day War”. Israel
convincingly won the war and captured both the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The David vs Goliath view reversed. Israel became the Goliath, with its more
powerful military. The Palestinian Arabs, subjected to the humiliations of an
occupying force, became the David.
With time and distance, the impact of
the Holocaust faded. Born decades later,
a whole generation knew the Holocaust only from the cold pages of history. The emotional connection replaced by an
objective view.
The generational split was most
pronounced between the WW II generation and the millennials. The WW II generation, the parents of the baby
boomers, were either holocaust survivors, or had family members or friends murdered in the
death camps of Nazi Germany. Being
Jewish, belonging to a synagogue, and seeing Israel’s survival as an essential
safety hatch for Jewish survival was unquestioned. To do otherwise denigrated the memory of the
dead burned in the ovens. Every Jew who assimilated or did not fully support the Jewish homeland was considered a symbolic
victory for Adolph Hitler.
Religious doubts brought on by
modernity hardly effected the World War II generation. It was their children, the baby boomers that
questioned the role of religion in a modern scientific world. Many of the boomers became culturally Jewish,
and this trend towards secularism accelerated with their children, the millennials.
With secularism came a shift in moral
thinking. The old moral divide of good vs evil was replaced by the new moral code -- strong vs weak and rich vs poor. As such, the more powerful Israel was held by
many on the secular left to a different standard of behavior than that of the weaker
Palestinians.
Witness the reactions to the Gaza war
between Hamas and Israel. Israel was
criticized for the number of Palestinian casualties caused. The body count defined the moral behavior of
the two sides of the conflict. With the
lopsided Palestinian death count, Israel fared poorly in the court of public
opinion.
Left out of this calculus was the moral
view of good vs evil. The disproportionate
loss of life was an intentional Hamas strategy.
They placed their SCUD missiles in large population centers to ensure
large loss of Palestinian lives, and daily launched the SCUD missiles from these
population sites towards towns in Israel.
Faced with a “Sophie’s Choice” between
saving the lives of Israelis or Palestinians, Israel tried to do both. Deploying their anti-missile system to shoot
down incoming SCUD missiles, and using their guided missiles to target the SCUDS
without hitting Palestinian civilians. Prior
to launch, Israel warned the population to leave the area, only to be thwarted by the inhumanity of Hamas which prevented its citizens from
evacuating. The missiles were not always accurate
and there was loss of civilian life. At
the same time Israel deployed its anti-missile system to destroy incoming Hamas
missiles. Many, but not all, Hamas
missiles were destroyed mid-air, preventing many Israeli deaths.
The immorality of Hamas’ actions was summed
up in one pithy sentence by the Prime Minister of Israel. Israel used missiles to protect people, Hamas
used people to protect missiles. Nevertheless, through their evil
strategy, Hamas had the “moral” victory it sought -- the optics of death and
destruction by a powerful enemy against a weak and vulnerable people.
The optics played well in the U.N.
where Israel was condemned for its actions.
Indeed Israel has been condemned and sanctioned more often than any
other member of the U.N. The latest
being the resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East
Jerusalem as a flagrant violation of International Law based on the justification that
the West Bank is “Occupied Palestinian Territory”.
The U.N. justification twists the history of the West Bank for its twisted purpose of condemning Israel. The West Bank was
never Palestinian Territory, but an occupied territory of Jordan. The West Bank was acquired by Israel in the course of
defending itself in the 1967 Six Day War. International Law provides that territory seized
in a defensive war may be occupied for defensive purposes, and that security
measures may be implemented within that territory to defend against any future
attacks.
The U.N resolutions against Israel bear heavily on the
politics within the U.N. – politics grounded neither in history nor law, but
rather in anti-Semitism. How else to
explain a different legal and moral standard applied to Israel than to any
other nation state.
By the moral standard of body count,
there are many nation states that are far more immoral than Israel. The most recent being Syria, bolstered by its
allies Russia and Iran. Using chemical
weapons, barrel bombs, guided missiles, regular bombs, and starvation sieges, over 400,000
civilians have been killed in Syria. Compare
that to the U.N. count of 1462 Palestinians killed by Israel in the Gaza war.
Yet Israel has been singled out for far more sanctions or criticism than Syria, Russia, and Iran combined! Consider the U.N. resolutions adopted during 2015, the last year I could find such a count. Israel was singled out 20 times for criticism, Syria once, Iran once, and Russia never.
2015 was not an anomaly but
rather part of a larger pattern to discredit and delegitimize Israel, the only
State in the region which protects human rights. De-legitimization is a troubling trend that
has greatly infected the secular youth of our country, often through the educational
environment of our liberal colleges.
Once again the Jews are the canary in
the coal mine. How Israel will continue
to be viewed and treated will say a lot about the value of the world body and
the values of our colleges and country.
For those wishing to read a short impassioned
historical justification of the legitimacy of Israel’s actions in the
Middle-East, check out this web site:
http://bigarticlesoftheweek.blogspot.co.il/2017/01/an-open-letter-to-theresa-may.html
Hat tip to Judy Gedali for telling me of the website
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