What’s the Real Reason So Many People Hate Israel?

Brendan O’Neill, editor of “Spiked”, asks the question “What’s the real reason so many people hate Israel?“

Did you know that for the past three weeks Turkey has been engaged in a military assault on Iraqi Kurdistan? It’s been brutal. The Turks, who have one of the most powerful military forces on Earth, have used F-16s, F-4 Terminators and other terrifying hi-tech weaponry to pummel Kurdish positions in northern Iraq.

[…]Have you seen any big, rowdy protests in the UK about this worrying act of asymmetrical warfare? Have you seen any footballers wave the Kurdish flag in solidarity with displaced, terrified Kurds? Have you seen social media swamped by furious denunciations of the ‘bloodthirsty’ Turks and outpourings of love and concern for the brutalised Kurds?

I haven’t. I have seen all of that kind of stuff in relation to Israel, constantly, every minute of every day — loud and ever-more self-righteous condemnations of Israel for being a vile, evil, crime-committing nation, a pox on the Earth. But on Turkey’s latest assault on the Kurds? Nothing. Not a peep. Carry on, Turkey — no one’s watching.

There’s a question that hangs like a long, dark shadow over Western leftists’ and liberals’ furious opposition to Israel, and I have never heard a satisfactory answer to it. It’s this: why do you hate Israel more than any other nation?

Why does Israeli militarism offend and horrify you more than Turkish militarism, or Saudi militarism, or American and British militarism for that matter? Why is it ‘genocide’ and ‘war crimes’ and ‘bloodletting’ when Israel takes action against Palestinian militants, but not when Turkey takes action against Kurdish militants? Seriously — what is the answer?

[…]The woke set’s myopic loathing for Israel really is extraordinary. We are so used to it now that we take it as normal. But it isn’t normal. There are military tensions and conflicts around the world that are causing great suffering — in Kurdistan, Yemen, Xinjiang — yet none of them triggers the rage reflex in virtuous Westerners anywhere near as much as Israel’s actions do.

Saudi Arabia can bomb a school bus and kill 40 children, as part of its brutal war in Yemen, and most Western campaigners don’t lose a wink of sleep. But Israel just has to start wheeling its military aircraft out of the hangar and they’re up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday, dusting down their Palestinian flags, putting the finishing touches to their ‘Israel is Evil’ placards, and taking to the streets in their tens of thousands to condemn this most wicked, genocidal, apartheid state.

On the rare occasion they do try to justify their feverish obsession with Israel, it just doesn’t add up. The Israel-Palestine conflict has been going on for decades and it’s really tragic, they say. And Israel is supported by our governments, so we have a responsibility to act, they insist. What’s more, Israel occupies Palestinian land and that just has to be challenged, they argue.

But all of these things can be said about Turkey versus Kurdistan. It’s a very old conflict. Turkey is a Western ally; it’s a member of Nato for heaven’s sake. And Turkey occupies what many, many people consider to be Kurdish land. So, again, answer this question: why does Israel offend you more than Turkey does?

[…]It seems to me that, increasingly, there is nothing very rational or normal about the hatred for Israel that sporadically sweeps the West. Rather, Israel has become a whipping boy for the elites, a nation that has cynically been turned into the embodiment of evil by virtue-signalling Westerners in desperate need for an outlet for their rage and pontification.

Fair call but it begs the question why has Israel become a whipping boy for the elites? Antisemitism is one obvious answer. After all, Palestinians are brought up on it. But it’s difficult to accept that all the media and journalists who side against Israel are knowingly antisemitic.

What we do know is that the typical journalist isn’t that bright and that the Palestinian leadership are very good at manipulating the media. That explains why the media are ignoring the Kurds and Saudi militarism for example. It’s not so much ignoring but more ignorance.

Like I say, your average journalist isn’t particularly bright.