In a very real sense Fulford's views bring the thesis of a recent book, Israel Is Real: An Obsessive Quest For The Jewish Nation And Its History, by journalist Richard Cohen, into a sharp focus. Cohen's work is predicated on the idea that the creation of Israel has made Jews far less safe than they have been throughout the centuries of the diaspora. There is much to commend this counter-intuitive understanding as Fulford's rendition of the growth of Israel-bashing as an industry in much of the West--including the US--demonstrates.
Fifty and more years ago in the Geek's teenage years, there was a sense of universal approbation for Israel within the American public, particularly the American elite, the chattering class, the academics, the opinion molders. The Israelis were applauded almost without exception for their industry, their battlefield valor, their willingness to sacrifice, their ability to "make the desert bloom." The Sabras, the kibbutz, and the kibbutzniks were held up as examples worthy of emulation by the kids of suburban Chicago (and, presumably, elsewhere.)
Even the Suez War of 1956, which was both opposed and brought to an end by the efforts of President Eisenhower, was not particularly disapproved of by We the People. The mere fact that the effort of France, the UK, and Israel to topple Nasser, regain the Suez Canal for "civilization," and seize the Sinai constituted a criminal conspiracy eluded American opinion including that possessed by individuals well sited to know the reality.
Israel's star remained on the ascendant though the Sixties. The increased use of terror attacks by the "Palestinian resistance" led by Fatah brought increased sympathy toward and support of Israel among the elites of Western Europe and the US. The Six Day War of 1967 brought universal acclaim within the US--and most of Europe.
Jokes concerning the back-up lights on Egyptian tanks flew across TV. Invidious comparisons between the success of the IDF and the (perceived) failure of American forces in South Vietnam were commonplace both here and in Europe. Once again no one seemed aware of the calculated way in which Israel both planned and executed the war so that an act of real estate acquisition could be plausibly disguised as a "defensive" effort against a coalition of forces which greatly outnumbered and outgunned poor, little Israel.
The Arab response of terror, more terror, and even more terror could not have been better planned to secure support for Israel had that been the goal of Arafat and his ilk. Airline hijackings, aircraft bombings, suicide attacks on soft, civilian targets and, ultimately, the attack on the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, all worked to Israel's advantage in the collective mind of the West, of the US.
Arafat's swaggering bluster and pistol wearing at the UN General Assembly worked to Israel's advantage as well. To put it simply and bluntly, the Arabs were not, are not and probably never will be, masters of public relations. Certainly the war for the approbation and approval of the West was won by Israel through the Sixties and Seventies.
When the Egyptians staged their surprising breakthrough of the Bar Lev Line at the outset of the Yom Kippur War of 1973, it rocked the American and European elites and publics alike. The Nixon administration rushed assistance to Israel with the full support of We the People. The American people cheered almost as lustily as the Israelis when the IDF crossed the Suez Canal cutting off the majority of the Egyptian Army.
The Arab oil embargo orchestrated and led by Saudi Arabia in the wake of the IDF triumph did more than anything to assure a firm support for Israel among We the People. Far more even than the awesome capacities of the Israel Lobby, the oil embargo and the all-too-obvious intransigence of the Arabs generally made certain that We the People would keep firmly in the Israeli camp.
The Arabs, their culture and religion particularly, became their own worst enemies in the battle for understanding and support in the West generally and the US in particular. From its foundation in the late Forties through the late Seventies, Israel was rooted culturally in the Western tradition. The Arabs were not at all Western in norms, values, belief systems, or institutions of society and polity. They were the "other" in all essential respects while the Israelis were one of us.
Unnoticed in the US until the Eighties was the demographic shift in the Israeli population. As the decades had rolled by, the originally European tint of Israel had been slowly replaced by the increased and increasingly obvious hue of Mideast origin Jews who had flooded Israel as they were pogromed out of their home countries in the region. In tandem the Orthodox Jews had become an ever more important political and social force in Israel, which further diminished the somewhat secularist orientation of the socialist, European founders of the country.
The combination of Orthodox and Mideast origin Israelis made the expansionist orientation of the country ever more evident. While never absent, the emergence of Likud as the dominant political party assured the new hardline would be unmistakable.
The IDF response to the First Intifada brought to the TV screens of the West a very disturbing picture of the Israeli Goliath mashing the Palestinian David into the mudholes of Gaza and the West Bank. For the first time Israel was liable to criticism--severe criticism. The government and apologists for Israel lashed back with not-so-well veiled descriptions of the criticism as being anti-Semitic diatribes.
The government of Israel and its supporters, particularly in the US were so used to having a free ride in the public opinion department that neither had a clue as to how to respond both properly and effectively to those who saw the IDF and Shin Bet treatment of rock throwing kids as a blotch on the nation's ethical stature. The denunciation of well-founded complaints of Israeli human rights violations as being anti-Semitism was both wrong and ill-advised.
Worse, it was a blunder.
Had the assorted "Palestinian liberation" groups been able to refrain from terrorism they would have won the changed public opinion battleground quickly and definitely. Had Arafat and company been able and willing to exhibit the slightest skill at compromise, at genuine negotiation, at forswearing totalistic goals such as the eradication of Israel, the establishment of a genuine two state solution was within the realm of the doable in the wake of the First Intifada.
With the Likud dominated government of Israel and the Arabs locked in a tie for the title of Most Intransigent, the advantage went to Israel, which possessed not only the formidable capacities of the Israel Lobby but a strong residuum of good will within the American public. While Americans were (and are) likely to hold Israel to higher ethical standards than they do the Arabs, We the People are willing to cut the Israelis some slack given the reprehensible tactics of terror and indiscriminate attacks on civilians.
In short, Israelis have occasional lapses in behavior, but the Arabs always act worse.
Still, within the opinion molding elites of both Europe and the US, the balance had started to shift. The shift continued in the course of the Second Intifada and its aftermath. Increasingly, the government of Israel was perceived as unreasonably wedded to its "facts on the ground" as well as having been entirely too shrewd in how it carved up the territory reserved to the new Palestinian Authority. For the first time it became respectable to doubt, to question the genuineness of any Israeli commitment to a comprehensive peace treaty.
In the wake of 9/11 and ensuing events, the notion that if only Israel would evacuate the (to use the current Israeli term) "disputed territories" the Islamist jihadists would go away and the climate of apprehension as well as the costs of wars would end. This (arguably specious) belief constituted a tipping point. The onus was placed on Israel.
At some point in the past few years the onus placed on Israel to make peace joined insensibly with the ancient horror of genuine anti-Semitism. It became possible, even desirable, for the decrying of Israel as an "apartheid" power, a Jewish form of Nazism to take firm root within the European and North American chattering classes, particularly academia. The bashing of Israel became good form within self-consciously "liberal" constituencies.
In short form, Israel became the "other." Those people just aren't like us, don't you know. And, those people meant, not simply Israelis, but all Jews. Anti-Semitism donned the respectable cloak of opposition to Israeli policies and practices. Fulford makes this point both simply and powerfully.
The shambling golem of anti-Semitism gains strength from its new clothes. It is for this reason that Cohen's thesis has a particular saliency as well as a particular irony.
At the same time the success of the same "liberals" in ruling the use of accurate terms regarding the nature and character of the enemy in the current wars between the US and the rest of the West and the Islamist jihadists as politically incorrect and socially unacceptable has provided a great advantage to the enemy. This is an unintended but real consequence of the multi-cultural demand for "sensitivity."
It must never be forgotten that by ruling words either acceptable or not, the nature--and the outcome--of a debate over policy is determined. The not so subtle shift of recent years has given an unearned advantage to the Islamists, the jihadists, the irredentist Arabs, such as those who recently met at the Fatah congress.
This advantage may well be demonstrated in the widely anticipated "Obama Plan" for peace in the Mideast. It would be both ironic and tragic if Israel, which was in large measure the creation of Western and American guilt feelings in the wake of World War II, would now become a sacrifice on the alter of Western and American guilt over the "plight of the Palestinians."
History is filled with such ironies. And, such tragedies.
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