Scales from eyes are falling
MY WIFE divides comment columns into two types — obvious and rubbish. My highest ambition is to be obvious. This week, I am confident I have achieved it. I am going to make a point that is naively simple, one I am almost embarrassed to make because so many readers already agree with it. But, as obvious things sometimes are, it is still worth saying. Because I believe we have come to a crucial moment in the argument about Israel and I don’t want us to miss it.
Essentially, since 9/11, supporters of Israel have been on the back foot. Somehow, the entirely false idea took hold that, for the West, the road to peace with the Arab world ran through Jerusalem. I even saw this point made directly on the BBC News.
If only the Israelis could be forced to see reason, ran the argument, the Muslim world would stop being so angry. No anger, no more 9/11s.
The campaign against Israel, already quite strong, gathered momentum, with liberals linking arms with fundamentalists to portray “Zionism” as the evil doctrine disturbing an otherwise peaceful world. Opposition to Israel became a standard part of left thinking.
The White House seized hold of the idea that settlement policy (which, for clarity, I should say I disagree with) was the main barrier to hope for Arab people and for good relations with the Muslim world.
How preposterous, how detached from reality this view is has now been clearly revealed. And it is important that supporters of Israel do not allow this revelation to be overlooked.
The best way of putting it is to start with a point that is very familiar to every supporter of Israel. If the Palestinians create a state, which country in the Middle East would the West most like it to resemble? Libya? Iran? Saudi Arabia? Syria? Iraq? Egypt? For years, we have tried making the point that these states are repressive and illiberal. What’s new is that they have now descended into a confused and civil war, between states, within states, between fundamentalists and governments, between one kind of fundamentalist and another.
It is now obvious that peace between the Palestinians and Israel wouldn’t produce peace in the Middle East. It is obvious that the policy of the Israeli Government isn’t the primary cause of Arab and Muslim rage. It is obvious that a Palestinian state could be repressive and dangerous whatever the policy of its neighbour.
In other words, points we have been trying to communicate for years are now unarguably shown to be true.
That Israel is not the great oppressor is painfully apparent
I also believe that receptiveness will be higher. After the Arab Spring, after Syria, after Isis, many in the West have lost confidence in their understanding of what is going on. Last week, I read a leading foreign policy expert describe Isis as a franchise of Al Qaeda. The next piece I read was by another foreign policy expert describing Isis as a rival of Al Qaeda.
The main reason why the House of Commons opposed action on Syria is that no one seemed to be clear whose side we were supposed to be on. The same thing is now happening in Iraq, which is widely seen as a Sunni versus Shia civil war in which the West has no stake.
There is an unfulfilled desire for a clear agenda, for something to say, for things to do.
In this atmosphere, it is easier to argue that if the West hasn’t the will to do complicated things, it should at least do the simple things — protect its own borders, use special forces and drones against fundamentalist war leaders, do what can be done to help refugees and innocent victims. And support and protect its allies. Like the Kurds — and Israel.
This is the reason why this is an important moment in the argument. It is the time to reassert the most compelling part of Israel’s case — that it is a land established so that an oppressed people will always have somewhere to live and practise their own religion.
That it is not the great oppressor of the region is painfully apparent from all that is going on.
See. I told you it was obvious.
daniel.finkelstein@thetimes.co.uk