by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
W<\/span>hat explains most of the world’s dislike of\u00a0Israel\u00a0?<\/p>\n Since Israeli settlers withdrew from\u00a0Gaza\u00a0in 2005, Palestinian terrorists have replied by consistently shooting homemade Qassam rockets at civilian targets inside\u00a0Israel\u00a0. Just recently, they’ve kidnapped a soldier and a hitchhiker (who has been killed) \u2014 and promised to do the same to others.<\/p>\n You’d expect these terrorist attacks on\u00a0Israel\u00a0to be viewed by responsible nations as similar to the jihadist violence we read about daily around the world \u2014 radical Islamists beheading Russian diplomats over\u00a0Chechnya\u00a0, plotting to do the same to the Canadian prime minister or threatening murder over insensitive Danish cartoons.<\/p>\n But that isn’t the case at all.\u00a0Israel\u00a0is always seen as a special exception that somehow deserves what it gets.<\/p>\n Other states can retaliate with impunity, brutally killing thousands of Muslim terrorists, while\u00a0Israel\u00a0is condemned when it takes out a few dozen.<\/p>\n When in late 1999 Russians stormed\u00a0Grozny\u00a0, thousands of Chechnya Muslims died. Yet the press was mostly silent. Baathist\u00a0Syria\u00a0went after the Muslim Brotherhood in 1982, wiping out much of the city of\u00a0Hama\u00a0and killing perhaps more than 10,000. Not many U.N. resolutions or international refugee efforts there.<\/p>\n To this day, no one knows the horrific body count from the Islamic insurrection in\u00a0Algeria\u00a0.\u00a0Darfur\u00a0finally earns occasional airtime, but only after tens of thousands have perished.<\/p>\n But\u00a0Israel\u00a0‘s 2002 “siege” of the West Bank town Jenin, where less than 80 died on both sides, was evoked as “genocide” by those in the\u00a0Middle East\u00a0who often deny the real one that took 6 million Jewish lives. When\u00a0Israel\u00a0retaliates by air to terrorism, it is dubbed a “blitz” by the press \u2014 as if it were akin to the Nazis carpet-bombing\u00a0London\u00a0.<\/p>\n Israel\u00a0‘s border fence is referred to as a “Berlin Wall,” but you never hear\u00a0Egypt’s nearby massive concrete barrier to keep Palestinians in\u00a0Gaza\u00a0described that way.<\/p>\n Then there is the\u00a0open sore of the\u00a0West Bank\u00a0“occupation.” Even if you forget that a series of offensive wars to destroy Israel in part originated from Palestine, or that Israel has given up land acquired by war in its perennial hope for “land for peace,” what is so unique about the West Bank that drowns out all other crises over contested ground (from islands like Cyprus and the Falklands to entire countries like Tibet)? Why has tiny\u00a0Israel\u00a0alone earned more U.N. resolutions of condemnation than all those offered against all other nations of the world combined?<\/p>\n I<\/span>t is not as if\u00a0Israel\u00a0is a rogue state. For over a half-century, it’s been the only liberal democracy in the\u00a0Middle East\u00a0. Israeli scientists have given the world everything from innovative computer software to drip-irrigation technology.<\/p>\n Oil explains some of the weird discrepancy in how the world views certain countries. It warps policymaking. Take away Iranian and Arab petroleum \u2014 and thus the risk of another oil embargo or rigged price hike \u2014 and Western fears of\u00a0Middle East\u00a0oil states would diminish. Naked self-interest determines the foreign policy of most nations.<\/p>\n The size of\u00a0Israel\u00a0factors in here as well.\u00a0Israel\u00a0has a population of not much more than 6 million and is surrounded by nearly 350 million Muslim Arabs. Most of the world counts heads \u2014 and adjusts attitudes accordingly.<\/p>\n The old anti-Semitism is, of course, another ingredient that accounts for the animus shown\u00a0Israel\u00a0. Even sensitive, multicultural Westerners care little that Arab “allies” often portray Jews as “pigs” and “apes” in their state-run media. Odious tracts like “Mein Kampf” still sell briskly in\u00a0Palestine\u00a0, and Iranian and Gulf money subsidizes a mini-industry of holocaust denial.<\/p>\n Finally, as we know from our own southern border, anytime a successful Westernized nation is adjacent to a poorer\u00a0Third World\u00a0country, primordial emotions like honor and envy cloud reason. Rather than concede that Western-style democracy, capitalism, personal freedom and the rule of law explain why a prosperous, stable\u00a0Israel\u00a0arose from scrub and rock, Palestinians fixate on “Zionism,” “colonialism” and “racism.”<\/p>\n No wonder they do. Otherwise they would have to grapple with intractable and indigenous tribalism, gender apartheid, militias and religious fundamentalism, while building an open society based on the rule of law.<\/p>\n In some ways,\u00a0Israel\u00a0‘s values and success most resemble the\u00a0United States\u00a0.<\/p>\n And that raises a final question: Is Israel hated by the world for supporting us \u2014 or are we hated for supporting it? Or is it both?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a92006 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services What explains most of the world’s dislike of\u00a0Israel\u00a0?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[772],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-11D","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12152,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-israel-u-s-model-has-been-a-resounding-success\/","url_meta":{"origin":3945,"position":0},"title":"The Israel\u2013U.S. Model Has Been a Resounding Success","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 23, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Whether by accident or by deliberate osmosis, Israel and the U.S. have adopted similar solutions to their existential problems. 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