THOUGHT OF THE DAY: ISRAEL’S DILEMMA BY SYDNEY WILLIAMS
In Hamlet, (Act 1, Scene 4) Marcellus, after seeing the ghost of the murdered king, says: “Something is
rotten in the state of Denmark.” In my opinion, something is rotten among Western nations – theoretically
enlightened individuals and governments – in their attitude toward Israel, a country, a democracy, that is
trying to survive almost continuous threats from state-sponsored terrorists and authoritarian governments.
It is now involved in, as Lauren Smith wrote last week in The European Conservative, “…a war between
the West and barbarism. It is a battle of truly civilizational proportions.”
This condemnation and abandonment by most Western democracies and the United Nations represents, in
my opinion, the world’s biggest threat to Western liberal ideals and precepts. Israel stands accused of
genocide in Gaza and then starving those they did not kill. That is wrong. Israel has done more to warn the
citizens of Gaza of impending attacks than any other country in time of war. Unlike other nations involved
in war they have helped their enemies’ civilian populations by attempting to bring in food and aid.
Israel – a Country of less than 10 million that sits amidst almost 500 million Middle Easterners – is engaged
in an existential war, battling for its very existence. In perfect double-speak, the UN recently condemned
the October 7 (2023) massacre: “We condemn the attacks committed by Hamas against civilians on the 7th
of October.” But then the document went on: “We also condemn the attacks by Israel against civilians in
Gaza and civilian infrastructure, siege and starvation, which have resulted in a devastating humanitarian
catastrophe and protection crisis.”
“Any man’s death diminishes me,” wrote John Donne in 1624. The death of innocent civilians during war
is a tragedy. It would be nice if war played out on assigned fields, with the only victims being combatants.
However, that is not the way wars are fought. During three months in 1940 over 23,000 Londoners were
killed in the Battle of Britain. A like number of Germans were killed in the February 1945 fire-bombing of
Dresden. And more than 200,000 Japanese were killed in the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August
1945. It is estimated that total civilian deaths in World War II were over 50 million, almost two-thirds of
the total. It is estimated that Korea saw about two million civilian deaths and Vietnam around 600,000. In
both cases, civilian deaths exceeded military deaths. Unlike past more conventional wars, Hamas is using
schools, temples and apartments to hide combatants, terrorists, weapons and hostages. And unlike the Allies
(or the Axis) in World War II, or the combatants in Korea and Vietnam, Israel warns civilians of their intent.
Too many in the West – political leaders and the media – simply accept Hamas’ reports of civilian casualties
in Gaza. Responsibility for those casualties lies with Hamas, not Israel.
For the most part, the post-World War II order held through the collapse of the Soviet Union in December
1991. Walter Russell Mead wrote in the September 16 issue of The Wall Street Journal that the subsequent
decade saw “the muddled thinking of a generation of policy elites, who foolishly supposed that geopolitical
conflict had ended forever.” That thinking prompted Francis Fukuyama to write The End of History and the
Last Man. What these globalists failed to understand was the nature of man and nations – that men seek
power and power corrupts. While Western governments reduced defense spending over the past thirty-five
years, China and Russia have grown stronger, absolutely and relatively. That naivete should have ended on
9/11 when 19 Islamic terrorists flew two planes into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon, and a
fourth into a field in Pennsylvania, killing 2,976.
But it did not. The lessons of World War I and World War II – the Armistice that ceased hostilities during
the First World and the unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan that ended the Second World War –
seem lost on much of Western leadership. Armistices and ceasefires do not work against those intent on
global domination, as we saw in the two decades following the first World War, with the rise of Mussolini
and Hitler. On the other hand, the unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan in 1945 allowed for the
re-building of those defeated countries via the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. By 1960, a mere
fifteen years after surrender, West Germany and Japan, respectively, were their region’s largest economies.
One does not have to be a fan of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to appreciate what the abandonment
of Israel by so many in the West means. Unlike its neighbors, Israel is a democracy. Its leadership changes
according to popular elections. Since its founding in 1948, fourteen individuals have served as Prime
Minister (the same as the number of U.S. Presidents who served during that same time). As well, Israel is
more inclusive than its neighbors. About 20% of Israel’s population is Arab, while ten of the 120-person
Knesset are Arab. Can one say the same about Qatar, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, or Saudi Arabia?
Hamas, which has with the blessing of the Palestinian Authority governed Gaza since Israel withdrew in
2005, is intent on eliminating Israel. As Fred Fleitz, vice chair of the America First Policy Institute in the
Center for American Security, wrote on americangreatness.com last Friday: “…the Palestinian leadership
rejected statehood offers in 1947, 2000, 2008, and 2009.” Their goal is the eradication of Israel, and the
establishment of a Palestinian state, “from the river (Jordan) to the sea (Mediterranean).”
Yet, the truth is that the Palestinian people will only survive and thrive if the terrorists who now lead them,
in Gaza and the West bank, are eliminated. In a victory for Hamas and other terrorist organizations, twenty-
three European states will have recognized Palestine as a state (a concept, not a physical place) by the end
of September. That marks a defeat for Israel and, importantly, a defeat for the Palestinian people. For the
West, it marks a big step in the wrong direction – another rung down the ladder that leads up to liberalism.
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