Victor Davis Hanson: On Hating Israel
July 24, 2003

Every supporter of Israel has at one time or another asked themselves: why does Israel continue to grace the front pages of world newspapers, engendering such bile and searing criticism, while other conflicts go virtually unnoticed?

The most commonly advanced explanation is that the terrible treatment of Palestinians arouses the wrath of Arabs and Muslims worldwide, but this makes less than perfect sense. It was only last February when nationalist Hindus went on a rampage of benumbing savagery in the Gujarat province of India, killing hundreds of Muslims in the span of three days, including atrocities like the burning alive of entire families and slitting the bellies of pregnant women. Muslims in Chechnya are pounded daily by the Russian army – and tens of thousands of civilians have died – whose record of brutality includes systematic rape, looting, extortion and torture. And should we forget than Muslims faced one of history’s few campaigns of genocide by Serbs during the 1990s? Yet can anyone point to riots in Arab capitals against the Indians, Syrian-sponsored resolutions in the UN against Russia, or a single suicide bombing in Belgrade to punish the Serbs for their crimes?

Israel is occupying the Palestinians, no doubt, but this cannot account for the blood-curdling hatred found daily on the streets of the West Bank or the vicious campaign of terrorism, one unprecedented in duration and cold-bloodedness. Estonia became independent in 1918, only to be invaded in 1940 by the Soviets and occupied, brutally so, for the next 51 years. Though they’re still furious about it, the farthest Estonians are willing to go is legislate discriminatively against Russians, usually on language issues.

In the last thirty-four months – three years -- somewhere around 3,000 Israelis and Palestinians have died. In the last three years in the Congo, 3.3 million – million – have died from war and war-related causes. Despite the fact that for every dead Israeli or Palestinian, 1,000 Congolese have died, how many people can find Congo on a map, let alone identify the parties involved or explain why they are fighting? Where are the rallies to help them, where are the human rights campaigns?

The inbred animus against Israel – including on the part of the journalists – is occasionally revealed beyond deniability. The Battle of Jenin – an eight-day clash between Israelis soldiers and Palestinian militiamen in April 2002 -- was a major turning point in this respect. Here’s Janine di Giovanni, the London Times's correspondent in Jenin, on April 16: "Rarely in more than a decade of war reporting from Bosnia, Chechnya, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, have I seen such deliberate destruction, such disrespect for human life." Is she aware that when Russia invaded Chechnya in 1994, they lost 2,000 soldiers in the first few days? At its peak, 4,000 shells an hour were raining down on Grozny, reducing to rubble 80 percent of all major buildings and destroying half the city. That’s what a country can do, just not an exceedingly moral and democratic one like Israel.

Palestinians initially claimed 3,000 dead in Jenin, then 500. Now we know 52 Palestinians died, and 23 Israelis. It was as if people wanted there to be a massacre in order to justify their pre-existent hatred. For Palestinians this was definitely true – you can point to how they exhumed bodies and strew them around Jenin, or that famous scene where a dead body fell of a stretcher, got up, yelled at his handlers, and got back on.

Nothing said above (and I apologize for the morbidity) is meant as a justification or apology for Israeli occupation and brutality against Palestinians. But it does contextualize the conflict in relation to the rest of the world. Once you do that, Israel’s role as a lightning-rod for worldwide hatred becomes extremely curious, and frightening. If more people understood how other countries have dealt with similar problems like terrorism and territory exchanges, it might temper their hysterical denunciations of Israel, for Israel is a fundamentally good country that ought to be admired.

Read Victor Davis Hanson's "On Hating Israel," which explores the causes of Israel-hatred.

Here's a selection:

"There may be nearly half a billion Arab-speaking peoples. Millions of Islamic citizens reside now in the West. Just a few hundred miles of the Mediterranean separate Europe from medieval regimes in Libya, Algeria, and Syria. The importance of the Arab world vis — vis Israel, then, can be gauged in an array of cultural, economic, and political fears and opportunities — from the size of expatriate populations to profits to be made from expansive trade and enormous markets. Were Israel large — say 400 million Jews — and the Arabs around them scarce (perhaps 10 million), then we would see dozens of U.N. resolutions condemning Mr. Arafat, for everything from murdering U.S. diplomats in the past to his present complicity in ordering suicide bombing."

"Partly Marxist, partly ignorant, and mostly naive, these insufferable and affluent European and American leftists see their solidarity with Palestinians as inseparable from their own embarrassed personas. It is easy, cheap — and safe — to right the injustices of the world by marching, shouting, and signing petitions, rather than by living among, marrying, seeing daily, or materially aiding the "other." It can all be done in a few seconds on campus, on television, or in the suburb — without any true self-introspection about what really ensures one's own rather comfortable material existence in the university, media, or government."