Yet few of Israel's critics could ever explain exactly what the Jewish state was supposed to do after suffering mass murder in peacetime from an enemy that had abducted more than 240 hostages —to the cheers of most Gazans.
"Few predicted that blaming Israel and the Jews who support it would flare up in the early 21st century —and in America of all places, where there are nearly as many Jews as there are in Israel.
"After all, Israel is the only consensual society in the Middle East. It holds regular elections and maintains tripartite judicial, executive, and legislative checks and balances.
"Free speech is found in the Middle East only in Israel, where religious apostasy, criticism of one's own country, gender equity, and tolerance of gays are guaranteed in marked contrast to all its neighbors.
"It was once common knowledge that Israel had survived the huge numbers of its enemies because its tiny population was better educated, freer, more adept at Western technology, more tolerant of dissent —and because it enjoyed the goodwill and bipartisan support of the United States.
"True, the recent affluence of the Gulf States has presented a thin veneer of Westernism that has fooled many in the new anti-Israel media. But just because Qatar did not censor a celebrity newsman's broadcast from Doha does not mean Qatar is a free society. After all, no Western journalist would dare schedule a broadcast from Qatar with a Qatari who had condemned the regime for its intolerance or announced his religious apostasy from Islam.
"So why and how did millions of Americans begin to express hatred for Israel and, albeit more subtly, the Jews who support it?
"There are four converging fronts in this perfect storm.
"Demography
"First, in demographic terms, the US Muslim population is expanding exponentially, due almost entirely to recent immigration and higher birth rates than the American norm (e.g., 2.5 —8 versus 1.6 —1.7)." . . .More...
Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, a professor of classics emeritus at California State University at Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services.
Douglas Murray: The New York Times feeds anti-Jew hatred with a horrific lie "In a piece that has already been widely debunked, Kristof claimed that Israeli prison guards routinely use rape as a method of torture on Palestinian prisoners. The piece portrayed Israeli prison guards and soldiers as rapists, sadists and akin to Nazi prison camp guards. Perhaps even worse.
"Kristof’s most grotesque claim is based on an anonymous source who is described as a “journalist” from Gaza. According to this source, while being held in an Israeli prison in 2024, the Gazan man was stripped naked, blindfolded and handcuffed. Then “a dog was summoned.” The dog’s handler — who we are helpfully told was speaking Hebrew — then encouraged the dog to “mount him.”
"The “source” goes on to claim that he “tried to dislodge the dog, but it penetrated him.” During this time, the Israeli guards were allegedly taking photos and filming the assault while laughing and “giggling.” . . .
"So here we get to the true question: Why would anyone make such a claim? And why would a purportedly serious newspaper publish it?
"The reasons are several-fold. The first is that the New York Times story landed just a day before an anticipated report on Hamas’ use of sexual violence on October 7, 2023." . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment