(Daily Telegraph-UK) Allister Heath - We have just been subjected to a grotesque masterclass in misinformation, moral inversion, anti-Semitic hate-mongering and hypocrisy. Within minutes of Hamas claiming, with zero proof, that Israel had bombed a hospital, the world erupted into instant, unequivocal condemnation of the Jewish state. The utter certainty with which the allegations were repeated on the broadcast media, the uncritical acceptance of the vilest propaganda from terrorists, the willingness to attribute the worst possible motives to a tiny democracy fighting for its survival: it was a chilling spectacle - the successful whipping-up of a global lynch-mob. Millions of people in Britain, Europe, America and the Middle East knew - they just knew - that Israel must have bombed the hospital, that Hamas' claims must be true. The extreme, irrational demonization of Israel is the new blood libel of our times. This allergic reaction to Israel is so acute it can only be explained as the current iteration of the world's oldest hatred - antisemitism. The same people who spent days claiming that the massacre and incineration of babies by Hamas was "unverified," who conveniently ignored the fact the murderers had live-streamed their atrocities - these very same people all immediately jumped to judgment. Hamas' word was enough. No proof was needed. The bias, the lack of objectivity, point to an abhorrent, endemic culture of anti-Semitism among swathes of the West's cultural elites. Anybody who understands anything about Israel, about the Israel Defense Forces' legal apparatus, about the values of its people, knows that it is more committed to a clean war than almost any other democracy, let alone all the tyrants and fanatics that surround it. There is such a thing as a just war, one conducted for the purposes of self-defense, even one that requires invading another country and fighting street by street until total victory is assured. It is what happened in the Second World War, when the Allies liberated Europe, and in myriad other conflicts, though Israel would be far more restrained than most Western armies ever were. The writer is editor of the Sunday Telegraph.
2023-10-19 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive