Thursday, May 13, 2021

Brendan O'Neill: Why Won’t Israeli Jews Let Themselves be Killed?

By An Old Friend
Thu, May 13, 2021 12:33 a.m.

Brendan O'Neill: "Why Won't Israelis Let Themselves be Killed?"

AOF: In my view, the "Palestinians" as a group have earned every bit of lethal misery anyone -- Israel, as a practical matter -- would inflict on them.  (I'm glad to be 72, so I don't have to look forward to more than a couple further decades of the unending stupidity of "the world's" reactions.)


Why won't Israelis let themselves be killed?

The global woke loathing for Israel is taking an even darker turn.



Two weeks ago Turkish forces launched a military assault in the Duhok region of Iraqi Kurdistan. Villagers were forced to "flee in terror" from raining bombs. It was only the latest bombardment of the beleaguered Kurds by Turkey, NATO member and Western ally. It did not trend online. There were no noisy protests in London or New York. The Turks weren't talked about in woke circles as crazed, bloodthirsty killers. Tweeters didn't dream out loud about Turks burning in hell. The Onion didn't do any close-to-the-bone satire about how Turkish soldiers just love killing children. No, the Duhok attack passed pretty much without comment.

The judgement and treatment of Israel by a double standard is one of the most disturbing facets of global politics in the 21st century. That double standard has been glaringly evident over the past few days. Israel is now the only country on Earth that is expected to allow itself to be attacked. To sit back and do nothing, as its citizens are pelted with rocks or rockets. How else do we explain so many people's unwillingness to place the current events in any kind of context, including the context of an avowedly anti-Semitic Islamist movement – Hamas – firing hundreds of missiles into civilian areas in Israel? In this context, to rage solely against Israel, to curse its people and burn its flag because it has sent missiles to destroy Hamas's firing positions in Gaza, is essentially to say: "Why won't Israelis let themselves be killed?"
No other nation would be expected not to respond either to internal disarray – Hamas supporters have rioted in parts of Jerusalem and around Al-Aqsa Mosque – or to foreign attack. Imagine if the Isle of Wight was home to a movement whose founding constitution expressed loathing for all ethnic Britons and which regularly fired hundreds of missiles into Sussex, Kent, Hampshire. Wouldn't the British military respond? Of course, it would. But the woke demonisation of Israel is now so acute that Israel is expected to take the military assaults of the radical Islamists to its south. To Western activists who find the very existence of Israel abhorrent, any effort Israel makes to protect its borders or its citizens is an affront to global peace and decency. They cannot understand why Israel doesn't hate itself as much as they hate it, and therefore will not allow itself to be punished by its righteous enemies. How dare you live?
[N.S.: But they're the same towards America!]
And in this, Hamas has been fully and foolishly assisted by the anti-Israel [read genocidal anti-Semites, many of whom are Jews] obsessives of the West. Westerners' hyper-moralisation of the current tensions, their depiction of the conflict as a black-and-white story of Evil Israel vs. the plucky defenders of the Arabs of East Jerusalem, has enormously benefited Hamas in its intra-Palestinian conflict of legitimacy with Fatah. The naive anti-Israel lobby is witlessly helping to elevate a radical Islamist organisation as the leader of all Palestinians. Indeed, some anti-Israel activists are even rallying behind the repugnant Hamas slogan "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," which is essentially [unnecessary qualifier] a call to wipe Israel off the map. This represents a vile consummation of the unholy marriage between the Western left and radical Islam.
Here's the irony of anti-Israel commentary and activism in the 21st century: it has the form of anti-imperialism but the substance of imperialism. Witness how campaigners brand Israel a "rogue state," borrowing from the language of modern Western imperialism. Observe how they call on the Western powers to isolate and chastise Israel and to enforce sanctions against it. [The same strategy they used, with great success, against South Africa.] Or see how, in its more extreme form, anti-Israel activism promotes a racial caricature of Israelis as bloodthirsty, as uniquely dangerous, as a very particular threat to world peace. Anti-Israel sentiment adopts the postures of 20th-century national liberation while in fact pushing an agenda of Western chauvinism that views Israel as a distinctly problematic state in need of our virtuous punishment.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Will American Jews ever wake up? Except for Orthodox Jews who tend to vote Republican, the majority of American Jews vote for leftists who not only are enemies of Israel, but promote importing Muslims. Jews in Europe are already under attack by Muslims. "Radical" Muslims (actually just Muslims who actually follow the violent teachings of their prophet) want to kill you. "Moderate" Muslims want to just watch while the "radicals" kill you.

Anonymous said...

Molly Hunter of NBC reported tonight that the "biggest unrest in over 15 years,between Israelis and Palestinians,inside the green line,resulted in injuries to Palestians--including one person who was beaten unconscious."

That probably happens on any Saturday night,either way.This is news?

--GRA