The charge of "genocide" is not based on fact but based on wish (well, and also on Jew hate).
The Anti-Israel Hate Machine has been charging Israel with "genocide" for decades. Both the Soviets and Edward Said, patron saint of Left academia, were charging Israel with "genocide" back in the 1970s; Noam Chomsky, everyone's favorite Communist grandpa, has been charging Israel with "genocide" since the 1980s; the Western Left, picking up where their Soviet benefactors left off, has been charging Israel with "genocide" since at least the 2001 UN Conference against Racism, in Durban, South Africa.
What people need to understand is that the charge of genocide has nothing to do with facts or reality and certainly has nothing to do with the welfare of the actual Palestinian people, who exist as props and symbols in the minds of Western liberals. Charging Israel with genocide is an attempt to transform Jews into Nazis and thereby morally delegitimize the Jewish state and the Jewish desire for self-determination. It's not enough that Jews be demonized and attacked, they must be humiliated and stripped of any claims to protected status or as victims, which is the great moral credential of our time.
When a member of the Islamo-Leftist alliance spouts lies about "the millenarian hostility of the Israeli government towards its neighbors", what they're really expressing is an impotent rage over the fact that Israel refuses to give in and let itself be destroyed, that Israel not only fights back but fights better. It drives Muslims crazy that Israel not only turned backwater swampland into a rich prosperous modern country, but also that it's the only outpost of Western Civ not consumed by guilt and shame and that not even a massive assault of propaganda can convince it to surrender.
All the claims about the evils of Israel—settler-colonial white-supremacist imperialist apartheid genocide etc—aren't based in fact or reality, but are all smears designed to turn Israel into a pariah state and ultimately lead to its destruction. Every one of these lies needs to be called out the moment they're uttered.
“Israel has tested the land-for-peace formula again and again. It accepted the UN partition plan in 1947; Arab leaders rejected it. It withdrew from Gaza in 2005; rockets, wars, and kidnappings followed. Israeli Prime Minister Olmert offered 97 percent of the West Bank in 2008; the Palestinians turned it down. The problem is not how much land Israel controls. The problem is that Jews — the subordinate, cowardly dhimmis (second-class citizens) — control any land at all, and dare not only to fight for what is rightfully ours, but to do it successfully.
This is the true root of the conflict. It was never just about borders; it is about whether Jews can be permitted to be sovereign in a land once conquered and ruled by Islam. For Islamists, the answer is no, and until that reality is confronted, every concession will fail, because the demand is not compromise; it’s elimination.”
A truly stupendous essay, Ben that is chalked full of important and insightful facts! No, Israel haters on the hard left and far-left, Israel’s reputation is not forever tarnished nor has the West lost its moral authority. These are absolutely ridiculous claims. First off, there was no Gaza genocide. The IDF in the Gaza War has the lowest combatant to civilian killed ratio in human history. Second, there are plenty of real genocides going on in the world. Saudi Arabia’s brutal campaign in Yemen, the mass murder of black African ethnic groups in Sudan by the Sundanese government and their allies in the Janjaweed Militia that has been going on for twenty-years or what Syria’s Jihadist government is currently doing to its minorities right now. That is ACTUAL genocide, not Israel’s historically humane war in Gaza!
Furthermore, these folks saying the West has lost its moral authority never put much stock in it anyway. Regional integration will not be changed by the war. Work will have to be done on the Palestinian issue for sure, but it’s still going to happen. The Gaza War did nothing to break the Abraham Accords. At Trump’s recent peace summit 14 Muslim nations produced a memorandum which extolled “friendly and mutually beneficial relationship[s] between Israel and its regional neighbors.” Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates all expanded their military coordination with Israel during the war. Wow! Israel has lost so much credibility and squandered the chance for peace! 😉 Heck, even the Sheikhs of Hebron have reached out to Israel about joining the Abraham Accords. Plus, just because a country commits a genocide against another doesn’t mean they can’t live in peace together. The Hutus and Tutsis live in peace together in Rwanda, Germany and Israel established relations, Serbia and Croatia today have relations with one another, etc. Not to mention, Pakistan committed genocide in Bangladesh and yet it stills exists as a state. Neither Israel nor the Palestinians are going anywhere anytime soon.
It is so kind, really so very decent, of Saudi Arabia to suggest normalization at the low low price of Israeli national suicide in the form of establishing a genocidal terror-state of Palestine.
But I've got a better idea. Peace for peace. Friendship for friendship. And friends don't demand friends to commit suicide.
"the provocations of Israel’s own extremists, certainly don’t help matters."
Would you kindly advise the public here what exactly bothers you with "the provocations" and who in your mind are "Israel's extremists"? Why do you think 🤔 so?
The charge of "genocide" is not based on fact but based on wish (well, and also on Jew hate).
The Anti-Israel Hate Machine has been charging Israel with "genocide" for decades. Both the Soviets and Edward Said, patron saint of Left academia, were charging Israel with "genocide" back in the 1970s; Noam Chomsky, everyone's favorite Communist grandpa, has been charging Israel with "genocide" since the 1980s; the Western Left, picking up where their Soviet benefactors left off, has been charging Israel with "genocide" since at least the 2001 UN Conference against Racism, in Durban, South Africa.
What people need to understand is that the charge of genocide has nothing to do with facts or reality and certainly has nothing to do with the welfare of the actual Palestinian people, who exist as props and symbols in the minds of Western liberals. Charging Israel with genocide is an attempt to transform Jews into Nazis and thereby morally delegitimize the Jewish state and the Jewish desire for self-determination. It's not enough that Jews be demonized and attacked, they must be humiliated and stripped of any claims to protected status or as victims, which is the great moral credential of our time.
When a member of the Islamo-Leftist alliance spouts lies about "the millenarian hostility of the Israeli government towards its neighbors", what they're really expressing is an impotent rage over the fact that Israel refuses to give in and let itself be destroyed, that Israel not only fights back but fights better. It drives Muslims crazy that Israel not only turned backwater swampland into a rich prosperous modern country, but also that it's the only outpost of Western Civ not consumed by guilt and shame and that not even a massive assault of propaganda can convince it to surrender.
All the claims about the evils of Israel—settler-colonial white-supremacist imperialist apartheid genocide etc—aren't based in fact or reality, but are all smears designed to turn Israel into a pariah state and ultimately lead to its destruction. Every one of these lies needs to be called out the moment they're uttered.
Well said, thank you
Thanks
Wow great comment. Thanks.
Except Jews are always blamed, never forgiven and the hate tropes just morph into something else
Matthew Nuriel, substack:
“Israel has tested the land-for-peace formula again and again. It accepted the UN partition plan in 1947; Arab leaders rejected it. It withdrew from Gaza in 2005; rockets, wars, and kidnappings followed. Israeli Prime Minister Olmert offered 97 percent of the West Bank in 2008; the Palestinians turned it down. The problem is not how much land Israel controls. The problem is that Jews — the subordinate, cowardly dhimmis (second-class citizens) — control any land at all, and dare not only to fight for what is rightfully ours, but to do it successfully.
This is the true root of the conflict. It was never just about borders; it is about whether Jews can be permitted to be sovereign in a land once conquered and ruled by Islam. For Islamists, the answer is no, and until that reality is confronted, every concession will fail, because the demand is not compromise; it’s elimination.”
Very thoughtful essay. I learned some things. Thank you!
A truly stupendous essay, Ben that is chalked full of important and insightful facts! No, Israel haters on the hard left and far-left, Israel’s reputation is not forever tarnished nor has the West lost its moral authority. These are absolutely ridiculous claims. First off, there was no Gaza genocide. The IDF in the Gaza War has the lowest combatant to civilian killed ratio in human history. Second, there are plenty of real genocides going on in the world. Saudi Arabia’s brutal campaign in Yemen, the mass murder of black African ethnic groups in Sudan by the Sundanese government and their allies in the Janjaweed Militia that has been going on for twenty-years or what Syria’s Jihadist government is currently doing to its minorities right now. That is ACTUAL genocide, not Israel’s historically humane war in Gaza!
Furthermore, these folks saying the West has lost its moral authority never put much stock in it anyway. Regional integration will not be changed by the war. Work will have to be done on the Palestinian issue for sure, but it’s still going to happen. The Gaza War did nothing to break the Abraham Accords. At Trump’s recent peace summit 14 Muslim nations produced a memorandum which extolled “friendly and mutually beneficial relationship[s] between Israel and its regional neighbors.” Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates all expanded their military coordination with Israel during the war. Wow! Israel has lost so much credibility and squandered the chance for peace! 😉 Heck, even the Sheikhs of Hebron have reached out to Israel about joining the Abraham Accords. Plus, just because a country commits a genocide against another doesn’t mean they can’t live in peace together. The Hutus and Tutsis live in peace together in Rwanda, Germany and Israel established relations, Serbia and Croatia today have relations with one another, etc. Not to mention, Pakistan committed genocide in Bangladesh and yet it stills exists as a state. Neither Israel nor the Palestinians are going anywhere anytime soon.
It is so kind, really so very decent, of Saudi Arabia to suggest normalization at the low low price of Israeli national suicide in the form of establishing a genocidal terror-state of Palestine.
But I've got a better idea. Peace for peace. Friendship for friendship. And friends don't demand friends to commit suicide.
Ben, you write:
"the provocations of Israel’s own extremists, certainly don’t help matters."
Would you kindly advise the public here what exactly bothers you with "the provocations" and who in your mind are "Israel's extremists"? Why do you think 🤔 so?