Uphill battles
Israel’s fight against Islamic terror is being fought on two main fronts.
Michael Kuttner
As well as physical battles in the field, another much tougher contest is taking place in the battle for people’s minds and hearts. Jews have been waging this war for several millennia, and while there have been occasional successes, they tend to be fleeting.
It would be safe to say that for at least the last two thousand years, there has been a marked lack of sympathy and empathy for Jews wherever they may have been domiciled. Some countries at some stage provided beneficent sanctuary and tolerance but this was swiftly replaced after a short interval with expulsions, pogroms and persecution.
Uncomfortable as it may be for some to admit, even during tolerable bursts of friendship, the seething cauldron of enmity was always there below the surface. Occasionally, it erupted with lethal consequences, but even during those times when all seemed quiet, Jews still lived on the edge of a smouldering volcano.
It is an unfortunate and tragic part of Jewish history that far too many Jews have been and continue to be seduced by false visions whereby they believe that tolerance and understanding have become the norm. For some, a complete estrangement from the Jewish People was and continues to be their default position. This takes the form of a divorce from Judaism and a severance from collective togetherness. This leads to a complete rejection of those things that unite Jews and explains why these people can be seen throwing in their lot with the mindless mobs demonstrating against Israel. Rejection of the idea of a reborn Jewish national sovereignty is the hallmark of those who think that by ingratiating themselves with the anti-Israel masses, they will somehow gain their unconditional love.
This has never worked in the past and certainly is a spectacular failure today, as feminist progressives have discovered, to their shock and horror.
The same goes for “Queers for Palestine”, who would be the first victims of any Hamas or Islamic victory.
Many lament the fact that Israel faces such an uphill struggle to gain sympathy and support. Some put it all down to incompetent public relations and diplomacy, while others blame it on Israelis’ perceived aggressive determination to defend themselves.
One needs to recognize that there is nothing new under the sun and that yesterday’s Jew hate has now morphed into Israel hate of the most virulent variety. The old strain of poisonous libels and slanders is still there and has been updated and modernized. Current events conclusively prove it.
The revelation that the situation is rotten has come as a searing shock to those who had lulled themselves into believing that times had changed for the better. American Jews celebrating Thanksgiving and carving up their turkeys must be wondering what has struck them. It was, therefore, with some small measure of amazement that I read an item in the JP that purported to offer advice on “how to alter the narrative and win hearts.”
Asserting that “Israel was on the losing end of the PR battle,” an American political and communications consultant and pollster offered advice. His winning formula for reversing this situation reads like an exercise in consultancy confusion detached from realities on the ground. Here are a few samples that in his opinion, would miraculously reverse the negativity against Israel currently evident not only in the USA but elsewhere in democratic countries.
Israel is at war with Hamas not the Palestinians. If he bothered to read and listen to the daily Palestinian Arab outpouring of hate for Jews and Israel and their support for Hamas, he would realize that the virulent virus against which Israel is fighting is alive and well among all so-called Palestinian groups. It’s not just Hamas that’s the problem it’s all those infected with Islamic rejection of Jewish sovereignty.
The October 7 massacre was an attack on Israelis, not Israel. His rationale that concentrating on individuals rather than the country will elicit more sympathy ignores the malevolent motivations that cause individuals and groups to hate anything to do with Israel. Despite horrendous personal narratives, those who hate the Jewish State will continue to hate its victims.
Instead of calling Hamas terrorists, call them an army of terror. The reasoning behind this piece of advice, according to this expert, is that Americans are frightened of the word terrorists. If this is indeed the case, it explains why avoiding inconvenient facts will never succeed in eradicating terror.
Focus on the mission of destroying Hamas, liberating Gaza and finding a peaceful alternative. Unsurprisingly, this agenda seems too stark for all those demonstrating and vandalizing. Pie in the sky demands about Abbas and his corrupt PA replacing Hamas and being part of a “two state solution” are fatally flawed.
Gazans living under Hamas rule are deeply suffering. They elected Hamas and cheered their 7 October pogrom. As far as the mindless university demonstrators and others are concerned, those causing suffering are Israelis. No amount of evidence to the contrary seems to sway set minds.
Use graphic descriptions: women raped, children beheaded and infant hostages. Despite these facts already being presented via videos and personal testimonies, international progressive women’s groups and others have been significantly silent. The Jordanian Queen questioned the veracity of such evidence. Hostage families have travelled to many countries and met legislators.
The bottom line is that after an initial burst of sympathy, the rest of the world quickly reverted to its traditional stance. The Red Cross is impotent when it comes to Jews and Israel.
President Macron has stated that it will take at least ten years to destroy Hamas. The subtext of his assertion is that we may as well throw in the towel now because it’s not worth the effort. Vichy France did that with the Nazis and French police and railway workers co-operated in arresting and transporting Jews to their death. The French Ambassador to Israel has now offered up some more Gallic expertise. While supporting the goal of getting rid of Hamas, he trotted out the current UN mantra that Israel was killing too many civilians. Somehow, eliminating Hamas, which is deliberately embedded among its civilian population, can be achieved only by issuing pious pontifications.
Meanwhile, the French Ambassador to Israel echoed his master’s thoughts by declaring that he doubted all of Israel’s military goals are reachable. He went on to advise that “once war broke out, one of Israel’s highest goals should have been to discredit Hamas and to convince everybody that Hamas cannot be taken into account anymore as a respectable political player.” He went on to lament that instead, the opposite has happened and Hamas has strengthened its legitimacy in the Arab world.
Think about this for a moment.
The fact that Hamas has been embraced and championed by much of the Arab and, indeed, Islamic world is a failure of Israeli actions. It obviously has nothing to do with the warped and poisonous Islamic ideology driving Jihad and its ambition of cleansing Israel of Jews from the river to the sea. His solution, which mirrors current international delusions, is the creation of yet another terror country on territory historically Jewish and legally approved for Jewish settlement.
There are some optimistic souls who believe that the advent of the incoming New Zealand Government will inject a breath of fresh thinking into the hitherto fatally flawed policies of the country as far as Israel is concerned. I previously warned such individuals not to hold their breath. It, therefore came as no surprise when the NZ Prime Minister last week observed that “there was no will on either side for a ceasefire or peace process. This contortionist effort to equally blame both the terror group Hamas and Israel’s Government for a lack of peace demonstrates that nothing has changed in Wellington. Would Mr. Luxon have offered up the same senseless stupidity in the midst of the war to defeat Nazi terror? Of course not, because in those days, the Government knew that only by totally defeating the terrorists controlling Germany could any meaningful peace be established.
It is symbolic of the idiocy now gripping otherwise sane democracies that Israel is admonished to leave the job half done and, as in the past, buy temporary and ultimately illusory quiet.
Instead of dealing with Iran and its supporting teams of Russia, China and North Korea, the democracies prefer to take the easy way out. These shades of past appeasement policies will come back to haunt those who think that they will be safe if they offer up Israel on a platter instead.
The only trouble is that most sane Israelis are no longer willing to be fed to the marauding crocodiles.
Chanukah is the perfect time to remember how past attempts to detach Jews from their faith and homeland were thwarted. It may be an uphill struggle, but we will prevail.
Michael Kuttner is a Jewish New Zealander who for many years was actively involved with various communal organisations connected to Judaism and Israel. He now lives in Israel and is J-Wire’s correspondent in the region.
