Inexplicably, West laying siege to Israel

Two months ago, after receiving a complaint about anti-Semitism, the editors of the student newspaper at McGill University clarified their policy on Israel with an unusually forthright announcement:

“The McGill Daily maintains an editorial line of not publishing pieces which promote a Zionist world view, or any other ideology which we consider to be oppressive.” In other words, McGill student journalists can comment on Israeli affairs only if what they write is negative.

An American commentator remarked that “This blunt statement is a reminder that hatred of the Jewish state is rapidly becoming the default position on many college campuses.” The BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement hasn’t managed to cripple the Israeli economy, despite years of effort, but it continues to spread poisonous propaganda through the universities of North America and Europe, enhancing the belief of many that the state of Israel lacks legitimate standing. Students interested in political activism choose this organization above all others. Apparently it’s the only foreign policy that engages them, the moral failures of other countries being of no interest.

This is part of a gathering storm surrounding Israel in the opinion centres of the West. Prominent MPs in the Labour Party of the U.K. are often found among Israel’s harsh critics. The NDP in Canada toys with anti-Israel opinion. Across Europe, and especially France, similar opinions multiply. And all of these forces have been encouraged by the recently passed United Nations resolution 2334.

The UN, with its large caucus of Islamic members, has often expressed hostility to Israel. But this latest resolution got through the Security Council because the United States abstained from the vote rather than vetoing it, as Washington has usually done with antiIsrael measures in recent times. Resolution 2334 sets the boundaries of Israel and Palestine in terms that would shrink Israel. And it orders Israel to cease moving Jewish settlements onto land captured in 1967.

Logically, people in the West should give Israel the benefit of the doubt in a controversy, as many do and always have.

It was Harry S. Truman who was the first leader to recognize Israel’s statehood and most U.S. presidents since have followed his example, as well as most leaders in the West. Aside from short-term political reasons, it’s the closest thing to a Western-style democracy in the Middle East. It has flaws, like all countries, but its freedoms (speech, trade, elections, independent judges) make it unique in the region.

It appeals to Americans and to those who believe their own system should one day cover the Earth. No other Middle Eastern state goes farther than hinting at a special kind of freedom that might appear in the future. The Arab Spring, so called, turned out to be a sour disappointment, a riot in search of a future.

But in justifying the UN’s anti-settler resolution, John Kerry has appealed to the same Western tradition that has encouraged support of Israel since 1948. As retiring secretary of state, he claims that the Obama administration has been “true to our own values” in letting the UN resolution go through. Far from betraying the Truman tradition, Barack Obama (Kerry says) has headed the Middle East toward a lasting peace. Because, in Kerry’s view, Israel’s settlements are the principal reason standing in the way of an enduring peace.

Certainly Israel’s least admired policy is moving Jewish settlers onto land that Palestinians claim as their own (following, of course, the system of Americans and Canadians in the 19th century). Kerry seems to think that if the settlements are ended, the result will be peaceful negotiations leading to a two-state solution.

Certainly the end of settlements will improve the mood of many people in the world who in other ways think kindly of Israel. Certainly it would make numberless dinner parties more pleasant. But are the settlements the decisive element that Kerry considers them?

One can argue that they are not. The settlements, after all, are on land captured by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967. Yet in 1964, when the Palestine Liberation Organization was founded, its aims was to eliminate Israel through armed struggle — before the settlements existed. The truth is that Palestinians, judged by their words and actions, want the Jews gone from the whole place. Jewish Israelis, if they sometimes express anxiety about future relations with the Palestinians, have good reasons.

If the West has recently shown a greater willingness to criticize Israel it may reflect a seismic change in global opinion. We are living in a period when traditional values and established ideals are being called into question.

On the left and on the right, in Europe and North America, among students and professors and the rest of us, long cherished principles are being replaced. Donald Trump’s bizarre popularity and Britain’s rejection of the European Union may be the result of the same impulse. Has Israel fallen on the wrong side of the current moral equation?

THE NDP IN CANADA TOYS WITH ANTI-ISRAEL OPINION.