Envy and ignorance – why the Left hate Israel

WHENEVER I discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with western Leftists who believe Israel is an illegitimate state, I’m shocked at their ignorance of basic historical facts. Most Leftists believe that before the 1947 UN Partition Plan for British Mandatory Palestine there was a country called Palestine inhabited by mostly Arab Muslim Palestinians, and that it was stolen by Jews emigrating from Europe.

I always ask Leftists why the Arabs of Palestine should be granted two states comprising the entirety of historic Palestine but the Jews of Palestine shouldn’t have a sliver of the land for themselves? Almost always, the Israel-haters will look confused. It’s new information for them to be told that Jordan was the first Arab state carved out of British Mandatory Palestine in 1921.

The 1947 UN Partition Plan involved creating a second state out of British Mandatory Palestine that again comprised mostly Arab Muslims and a minority of Arab Christians. There was also going to be a small Jewish state where there has been a Jewish presence long before Arabs left Arabia and spread Islam via the sword across the Middle East, north Africa and beyond. Israel rightly accepted this plan. The Arabs of Palestine and the wider Arab world rejected it, which led to the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli war.

Even if your average Leftist concedes that there was a Jewish presence in Palestine before the arrival of Arabs, he or she will assert that the current Arab population have been there longer than the majority of Jews who arrived from Europe or elsewhere over the last century. While the Jewish presence did grow significantly through inward migration to Palestine during the 19th and 20th century, it is also a fact that many of today’s Palestinians are themselves of immigrant stock, having arrived from other parts of the Arab world during the same period.

Palestinian leaders themselves have admitted that Palestinian nationalism is a recent invention and motivated by Arab imperialism that cannot countenance a tiny Jewish state in its midst. In 1977 senior PLO official Zahir Muhsein stated:

‘The Palestinian people do not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism.’

More recently in 2012, the senior Hamas figure Fathi Hammad told Egypt’s Al Hekma TV: ‘Every Palestinian, in Gaza and throughout Palestine, can prove his Arab roots whether from Saudi Arabia, from Yemen or anywhere.’

If Arab migrants and the descendants of these Arab migrants within the region of Palestine are entitled to a Palestinian state, Jewish migrants and their descendants have an equal right to self-determination in a homeland of their own. Unless, of course, our Leftist fanatical Israel-haters are arguing that one set of migrants should be treated very differently because of their religion and ethnicity. In most cases I don’t think your average Leftist is making this argument. They are just ignorant of the complex history of the region, but at the same time worryingly incapable of accepting such facts when presented to them.

The most glaring double standard the Left applies to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is related to matters of defence. Hamas quite regularly fire rockets at Israeli civilians, but the Iron Dome anti-missile system is able effectively to deal with most rockets if the numbers are low. In these instances, Israel doesn’t retaliate and they rarely make the news. However, the recent large-scale rocket attacks initiated by Hamas against Israeli civilians did lead to deaths and casualties and so Israel responded. It is well established that Hamas launch their attacks from within densely populated civilian areas to maximise casualties resulting from retaliation for propaganda purposes. Under international law it is a war crime to use your civilian population in this way. Before they launch a retaliatory attack on a given building, the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) send text messages, make phone calls and drop leaflets warning civilians to flee. Their intention is not to harm civilians and they do all they can to avoid it. Hamas on the other hand intentionally target Israeli civilians. As tragic and upsetting as it is to see innocent Palestinians killed in a retaliatory airstrike, the Left ignore the fact that the IDF try to prevent it. They reserve their outrage for Israel and their compassion for the Palestinians. You will never see a western Leftist on a march protesting about the intentional killing of Israeli civilians. When you ask them how many Israeli citizens should Israel allow to die by ignoring sustained, large-scale rocket attacks, they either won’t answer you or will show their true colours by arguing that the Palestinians have been pushed into a corner and it’s inevitable they will fight back. The reason Hamas are not criticised to the same extent, or indeed not criticised at all, is because there is an underlying assumption by many people on the Left that as Israel is an ‘illegitimate state’ it deserves to be attacked and as such has no right to defend itself. Hamas, who have substantial support in Gaza and the West Bank, openly state that they want to eradicate all Jews in Israel. The Left like to proclaim their opposition to fascism and racism and calling anyone who disagrees with them Nazis yet they completely ignore the fact that Islamo-Fascism and a genocidal hatred of Jews is rife among many Palestinians. Were Israel to ignore this fact it would be suicide. Why would a people who were almost eradicated from the face of the earth less than a century ago not want to do all they can to protect themselves from a second Shoah?

When Leftists attend anti-Israeli demonstrations in the West and chant ‘From the river to the sea Palestine will be free’, they are regurgitating a genocidal Islamist slogan that refers to Israel being free of its Jews. This is not the slogan of a two-state solution supported by moderate Palestinians and Israelis.

Apart from the historical ignorance, there are other factors that motivate such visceral hatred towards Israel from the Left. Israel is a successful capitalist country and its largely Jewish population, one of the world’s most ancient and historically oppressed minority groups, reject Neo-Marxist identity politics and instead focus on hard work and being global leaders in many industries. Neo-Marxists and woke centrists don’t like minorities that refuse to participate in the intersectional oppression Olympics.

Israel is also a staunch ally of the United States, a state despised as a bastion of white supremacy and Islamophobia by the Left.

Finally, when they are attacked by Islamist terrorists the Israelis fight back. The Left and the biased western media can’t stand this. Unlike weak, supine western countries who prostrate themselves before radical Islam, Israel refuses to do so. Don’t the Israelis know that the politically correct response to terror attacks against your own civilians involves blaming yourself and people holding hands at candle-lit vigils while clutching teddy bears and belting out some anodyne song about love conquering hate? Sure, one day in some idealised future love may well conquer hate, but in the here and now it’s ineffective at neutralising a crazed Islamist on a stabbing spree or deflecting a rocket launched at a synagogue

“The Byzantine era was a time of great prosperity and cultural flourishing in Palestine. New areas were cultivated, urbanization increased, and many cities reached their peak populations. Towns increasingly acquired new civic basilicas, porticoed streets with space for shops, and the erection of churches and other religious buildings invigorated their economies. The total population of Palestine may have exceeded one and a half million, its highest ever until the twentieth century.”

“The Christian Ghassanid Arabs were the largest Arab group in Palestine. Starting in the third century, they migrated from South Arabia and settled in Palaestina Secunda and Palaestina Tertia, where they created two client kingdoms that served as the Byzantines’ buffer zones.”

“In the late 6th century, the Arab leader Muhammad founded a new monotheistic religion called Islam whose followers became known as Muslims. Muhammad united the Arabian tribes into a religious polity, a caliphate, ruled by caliphs, whose domains he and his successors extended into a vast empire through holy war (jihad). They conquered Palestine in 636 to 640.”

“Throughout the period, Palestine was a sort of gold mine for the caliphate and among its most prosperous and fertile provinces. Palestine’s wealth derived from its strategic location as a hub for international trade, the influx of pilgrims, its excellent agricultural produce, and from a number of local crafts. Products manufactured or traded in Palestine included building materials from marble and white-stone quarries, spices, soaps, olive oil, sugar, indigo, Dead Sea salts, and silk. Palestinian Jews were expert glassmakers whose wares became known as “Jewish glass” in Europe. Palestine was also known for its book production and scribal work.”

“The Muslims invested much effort in developing a fleet and in restoring seaports, creating shipyards, fortifying coastal cities, and in establishing naval bases in Palestine. Acre became their chief naval base from which a fleet set out to conquer Cyprus in 647. Jaffa came to replace Caesarea as Palestine’s main port due to its proximity with Ramla.”

“The Yaman tribes came from the Yemeni region of the Arabian peninsula. Many of them had migrated northwards and settled in the southern Levant before the Islamic conquest. Some had even embraced Christianity and had fought alongside the Byzantines. The majority of the Qays, however, arrived after the Islamic conquest and settled in the northern Levant.”

“The Fatimidis established a caliphate based in North Africa in the early 10th century. In 969, they conquered the Ikshidid’s territory and established precarious control over Palestine. Their arrival marked the beginning of six decades of almost uninterrupted and highly destructive warfare in Palestine between them and their many enemies, the Byzantines, the Qarmatians, Bedouin tribes, and even infighting between Berber and Turkic factions within the Fatimid army.”

“In the 11th century, the Muslim Turkic Seljuk Empire invaded West Asia and both the Byzantines and the caliphates suffered territorial losses. Baghad fell in 1055, and Palestine in 1071-1073. Thus, the period of relative calm ended and Palestine again became the scene of anarchy, internal wars among the Turks themselves and between them and their enemies. The Turkic rule was one of slaughter, vandalism, and economic hardship. In 1077, an uprising against the unpopular Seljuk rule spread in Palestine which was quashed with an iron fist. The Seljuks slaughtered the people of Jerusalem, despite having promised them pardon, and annihilated Gaza, Ramla, and Jaffa. In 1098, the Fatimids recaptured Jerusalem from the Seljuks.”

“In 1244, Jerusalem was captured by Khwarizmians who went on to burn churches and to massacre the Christian population. The shock of the atrocities goaded the Latins into action. The Latin nobility pooled all the resources they had together into the largest field army amassed in the East since the late 12 century. Strengthened by troops from dissident Muslim rulers, they met the Ayyubid-Kwarizmian coalition at the Battle of La Forbie north-east of Gaza. There, they suffered a disastrous defeat, marking the end of Latin influence in southern and central Palestine. In 1291, the Mamluks destroyed Acre, the Kingdom of Jerusalem’s capital and last stronghold.”

“During the period of Crusader control, it has been estimated that Palestine had only 1,000 poor Jewish families. Jews fought alongside the Muslims against the Crusaders in Jerusalem in 1099 and Haifa in 1100.”

“Jerusalem was held by the Mongols for four months.”

“The Mamluks, continuing the policy of the Ayyubids, made the strategic decision to destroy the coastal area and to bring desolation to many of its cities, from Tyre in the north to Gaza in the south. Ports were destroyed and various materials were dumped to make them inoperable. The goal was to prevent attacks from the sea, given the fear of the return of the crusaders. This had a long-term effect on those areas, which remained sparsely populated for centuries. The activity in that time concentrated more inland.”

“Most of Palestine’s population, estimated to be around 200,000 in the early years of Ottoman rule, lived in villages. The largest cities were Gaza, Safad and Jerusalem, each with a population of around 5,000–6,000.”

“Ottoman property administration consisted of a system of fiefs called timar and trusts called waqf. Timar lands were distributed by the sultan to various officers and officials, particularly from the elite sipahi units. A timar was a source of income for its holder, who was responsible for maintaining order and enforcing the law in the timar. Waqf land was owned by various individuals and its revenues were dedicated to religious functions and institutions, social welfare and individual beneficiaries. Over 60% of cultivated land in the Jerusalem Sanjak was waqf land. To a lesser extent, there was also privately owned land predominantly located within villages and their immediate vicinity.”

“The name ‘Palestine’ was no longer used as the official name of an administrative unit under the Ottomans because they typically named provinces after their capitals. Nonetheless, the old name remained in popular and semi-official use, with many examples of its usage in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries surviving. The 16th-century Jerusalem-based Islamic jurist Sayf al-Islam Abu’l Sa’ud Effendi defined the term as an alternative name for Arazi-i Muqaddas (Turkish for “the Holy Land”). The 17th-century Ramla-based jurist Khayr al-Din al-Ramli often used the term “Filastin” in his fatawat (religious edicts) without defining the term, although some of his fatawat suggest that it more or less corresponded with the borders of Jund Filastin. Thomas Salmon’s 18th-century book, Modern history or, the present state of all nations, states that “Jerusalem is still reckoned the capital city of Palestine, though much fallen from its ancient grandeur.”

“Gaza’s political influence in Palestine rose under the Ridwan dynasty, particularly during the governorship of Husayn Pasha, which began in the 1640s. It was considered the “capital of Palestine” by the French consul of Jerusalem, Chevalier d’Arvieux.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Palestine

There’s much more, but my bed awaits.

I agree, the ignorance is an issue.

Another aspect is the position that the history of Israel being imposed on Palestine and then treating hardline Zionism like it’s reasonable is the single biggest reason for the growth in anti-jewish, antiwest, hardline Islamism.

The likes of Jeremy Corbyn, former opposition leader in the UK, are convinced that aggressive Zionism was met with aggressive Islamism and there’s no way you can fix one side of that equation by excusing and egging on the other.

They point to Afghanistan, and Iraq, and even Iran, being comparatively liberal until the religious institutions took over.

They focus only on the Zionism side of it because they think the western world sees everything through the WW2 lens and so focuses on the Islam side and point blank refuses to see anything wrong on the Zionism side.

A common left view is, western Zionists ought to be less cognitively dissonant... just as Israel existed through international interference and the 7 day war happened due to a failure of neighbouring states to accept it and Israel retaliating with full force and fury, the Palestinian area existed because of the 2 state solution and the PLO existed because Israel refused to accept it and all the violence that follows - tickets, but also Palestinian kids lobbing stones at Israelis - is because they’re furious.

It leads to problematic and vile comparison, eg the perception that Gaza is tolerated by the USA because a lot of people who had nothing to do with the Warsaw Ghetto but recognise the evil of Nazis treating the population like ‘untermensch’ and regarding its leaders as ‘scum’, think Palestinian kids only have to live under similar treatment because they’re part of an “untermensch” whose leaders are ‘scum’.

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