In the Jerusalem Post, William Shawcross has written a blistering piece about the ‘irrational, obscene hatred’ of Israel now coursing so terrifyingly across both the Islamic and western worlds. ‘Shut up. Go back to Auschwitz’ was the flotilla’s response to the Israelis when they warned it not to enter the area under naval blockade. As Shawcross writes:
It is not surprising that such racist loathing creates a siege mentality in Israel. Worse is the fact that Israelis know it’s not just ‘the black Islamic banners’ with which they have to contend, but also the irrational hatred of much of the rest of the world.The realities of Gaza, Israel and the West Bank – where, with Israel’s assistance, the Palestinian economy is booming – are deemed irrelevant to the conventional narrative. Israel is a cartoon villain, beyond sympathy, beyond even redemption.What is deeply shocking – and frightening – is that the narrative the world accepts is always that of Israel the evildoer... The hatred that Israel arouses is absurd, even obscene... The Muslim world and the Western Left are in an unholy alliance; they do not want to improve the Jewish state, they want to remove it.
There are however a few brave voices on the left speaking up for decency and sanity. In Spain, where anti-Israel bigotry is white-hot, politician and journalist Pilar Rahola delivered at the end of last year an impassioned speech supporting Israel against this madness and denouncing her comrades on the left for its part in promoting it:
Why don’t we see demonstrations against Islamic dictatorships in London, Paris, Barcelona? Or demonstrations against the Burmese dictatorship? Why aren’t there demonstrations against the enslavement of millions of women who live without any legal protection? Why aren’t there demonstrations against the use of children as human bombs where there is conflict with Islam? Why has there been no leadership in support of the victims of Islamic dictatorship in Sudan? Why is there never any outrage against the acts of terrorism committed against Israel? Why is there no outcry by the European left against Islamic fanaticism? Why don’t they defend Israel’s right to exist? Why confuse support of the Palestinian cause with the defense of Palestinian terrorism? An finally, the million dollar question: Why is the left in Europe and around the world obsessed with the two most solid democracies, the United States and Israel, and not with the worst dictatorships on the planet?
The international press does major damage when reporting on the question of the Israeli-Palestinian issue. On this topic they don’t inform, they propagandize. When reporting about Israel the majority of journalists forget the reporter code of ethics. And so, any Israeli act of self-defense becomes a massacre, and any confrontation, genocide. So many stupid things have been written about Israel, that there aren’t any accusations left to level against her. At the same time, this press never discusses Syrian and Iranian interference in propagating violence against Israel; the indoctrination of children and the corruption of the Palestinians. And when reporting about victims, every Palestinian casualty is reported as tragedy and every Israeli victim is camouflaged, hidden or reported about with disdain.
It is the key point. The treatment being meted out to Israel is qualitatively and quantitatively different from the treatment meted out to any other nation. Ever. It's not just that the tyrannies of the present are not even reported on, let alone seen as a worthy and legitimate target of protest. Even the great progressive causes of the past, such as the campaign against apartheid South Africa, for example, never provoked such hysterical obsession, let alone such a sustained and frenzied onslaught of lie after distortion after fabrication after blood libel. Just like the Jew-hatred of the past, the characteristics of this victimisation are unique; just like the Jew-hatred of the past, it treats the Jewish people as some kind of cosmic evil; and just like the Jew-hatred of the past, ultimately it simply defies explanation. But it is happening, right now, before our disbelieving eyes; it is quite simply a derangement of the world.
