There is probably nowhere in the world which has had such
a long and on the whole successful experiment with socialism as Israel. In no
other western country that I can think of are there anything like the kibbutzim
in Israel. Here are small experiments in socialism which to various degrees put
into practice the ideals of shared ownership, collective living and all of the
other things that socialists are supposed to admire. Yet the left and
especially the far-left hates Israel. Why?
I think part of it is that Israel was a Cold War
battle. The Soviets helped and sympathised with the Arabs. The Americans helped
and sympathised with Israel.
People on the left in the West were not initially
hostile to Israel or at least not universally so. But with each war there was
less and less sympathy for Israel and more and more sympathy with the
Palestinian cause.
This became still more the case as the number of
Muslims living the UK increased.
The Far Left has a hierarchy of virtue. Because ethnic
minorities are frequently the victims of racism, they are placed at the highest
pinnacle. So too because Muslims are frequently the victims of prejudice, they
gain a place at the top not merely because they often are from an ethnic
minority but also because of their religion.
Anyone who criticises the migration of people with a
different skin colour is liable to be called a racist by the Left. Anyone who
criticises the migration, the views or the behaviour or Muslims will be called Islamophobic.
Just as it was natural for the Left to side with Black
Lives Matter, so too it is natural for Black Lives Matter to side with Palestinians
or Hamas.
But are Jews not a minority too? The Left doesn’t
really treat Jewish people as a minority even though Jewish people are without
doubt the most persecuted minority in history.
The reason for this I think is that many Jews are
often indistinguishable from Europeans. Of course, there is not one Jewish
look. There are black Jews from Ethiopia, and many Jews look indistinguishable
from Arabs. But although Jews were murdered by the Nazis because of their race
and their ancestry, they are not treated as a race by the Left. If you said
what it is permissible by the Left to say about Jews about Black people or Brown
people or Asian people you would certainly be a racist, but you can say what
you like about Jews and certainly what you like about Israelis.
Muslims come from a variety of countries and have a
variety of religious and political views. But many Muslim countries do not
recognise Israel and I think it is fair to say that many Muslims are
sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.
It may be that not all Muslims in Britain side with
the Palestinians, but I would be surprised if the overwhelming majority did
not. I have yet to come across a British Muslim who supports Israel and
celebrates it.
I think this is one of the reasons why the Left also
came to hate Israel.
If you sympathise with the Palestinian cause, you
might hope that Palestinians were treated better and had better lives. You
might hope that there was a Palestinian state. These are perfectly legitimate
goals.
But there is a part of the Left that hates the West
and sympathises with all those who also hate the West. It is for this reason
that some people blamed 9/11 on American foreign policy. So too when there were
Islamic attacks on Britain some on the Left blamed Britain’s foreign policy.
Now when Israel is attacked some blame Israel and argue
that it deserved to be attacked.
Worse that that some on the Left and some Muslims too
openly hope that the attack on Saturday would go still further and lead to a
Palestinian state from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea. This would
involve the expulsion or extermination of most of the Israeli population.
There is a refusal to believe eyewitness accounts of
atrocities even when these are accompanied with evidence. There is an attempt
to equate and compare Hamas murdering, raping and mutilating civilians with Israel
taking military action in response. This is nonsense.
When the British attacked the city of Caen after D-Day
many civilians died, but this was not the goal of the operation. The goal was
to defeat the Nazis. This is warfare. When the Das Reich Waffen SS Division
massacred the population of Oradour-sur-Glane, this was a war crime. That is the
difference. Anyone after being presented with evidence about the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane
who denied it is the equivalent of a Holocaust denier and a sympathiser with
Nazis.
Everything I have read about Israel since it was created
in 1948 tells me that it has wanted to make peace not only with the
Palestinians but with all its neighbours. It has on a number of occasions been
willing to trade land for peace including Sinai in 1982 and dismantling its
settlements in Gaza in 2005.
If Palestinians laid down their arms and ceased all
involvement in terrorism or rebellion, there is little doubt that soon
afterwards the lives of Palestinians would vastly improve.
But neither the Left, nor many Muslims generally nor indeed
Palestinians want to coexist with Israel in peace. They think Israel is
illegitimate and should be destroyed.
How do you make peace with that? You might as well
have told Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto to make peace with the SS.
But this is what worries me. If a large proportion of the Left and significant numbers of Muslims in Britain support Jihad against the Twin Towers and Jihad against Israel, then at some point they are likely to support Jihad against Britain too. We too would deserve and for a variety of reasons.
If you think that it a joyous occasion when Hamas comes to a kibbutz and rapes the women, murders the babies and slaughters the men, if that is a matter for celebration, then at some point it may also be a matter for celebration to do the same here.
Most people on the Left are not serious Jihadists.
They enjoy wearing a Palestinian scarf but that’s all. The overwhelming
majority of British Muslims are decent peaceful people. We generally have good
relations with everyone living here.
But the Muslim population of England and Wales
increased from 2.7 million (4.9%) in 2011 to 3.9 million (6.5%) in 2021. How many of those would rejoice in the
destruction of Israel? Perhaps none, but that is not the impression I am
getting.
There is no easy solution to the Israeli-Palestine conflict.
We must hope that the lives of the innocent are spared on both sides. We must
hope above all for a solution that makes both the lives of Israelis and
Palestinians better.
But I’m sorry dear Lefties you cannot expect Israel to
make peace with people who want to destroy it. If Cornwall was run by Hamas and
attacked a village just over the border in England in the way Hamas did just
over the border from Gaza, we would conquer Cornwall and hunt down every
terrorist until there were none left. If we would do that, why should we require
Israel to do less.
The Left and some Muslims across the world have
disgraced themselves this week. This will have lasting consequences all over
the world. Who wants to live next door to people who support Jihadist death
squads? I don’t.
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