Kiwis for Balanced Reporting on the Middle East

Kiwis for Balanced Reporting On The Mideast New Zealand Media bias

August 30, 2010

Israel Legitimacy article printed in The Northern Advocate, 28th August 2010

HATRED OF ISRAEL DENIES TRUTH OF DEMOCRACY

So many people just can't contain their rage against Israel.
A mere mention of Israel and they're out of the starting gate in record time with another tirade accusing it, and its defenders, of every conceivable evil in the world — from Nazism to Apartheid, from blood libel to mass murder.
Their narratives are pre-cooked, airtight and impervious to reason. They are filled with a hatred of Israel that eludes logical explanation, a blindness that shuts out any contrary evidence. As they say ‘my mind is made up — don't bother me with the facts’.
For many, Israel can do no right other than to close up shop and call it quits, while the Palestinians, hallowed victims on a pedestal, can do no wrong.
Strikingly, all this is done in the name of democracy, legitimacy and an end to occupation.
Israel is a democracy. It's a fact.
Israel has free and fair elections, smooth transfers of power and an independent judiciary. It has a wide array of political parties, a freewheeling parliament, and a feisty press. It has a well-developed civil society and countless human and civil-rights groups. It protects freedom of worship for all. It has strong labour unions. And minority communities enjoy legal protections.
No, Israel may not be perfect — but, then again, what democracy is, especially one so young and subjected to so many challenges to its very existence?

Now take a look at Israel's neighbourhood.
People are concerned about defending democracy — or freedom or human dignity — so why are they so mute?
Could it be that their real ideal is a Hamas-run society, with its all-enveloping political and religious suffocation, relegation of women to the status of virtual male property, intimidation of the tiny Christian community, unadulterated anti-Semitism and a reverence for the cult of violence?
People talk about legitimacy, accusing Israel of being an ‘illegitimate’ state.
Israel is an entirely legitimate state.
From the Balfour Declaration to the League of Nations Mandate, from the recommendation of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine to the overwhelming vote of the UN General Assembly, Israel's foundation is rock-solid. In fact, it's far stronger than that of most other countries.
And here we're not even invoking the Jewish people's ancient history and literature, and the findings of archaeology to support it, relevant though they are.
But if cynics are truly seized by questions of legitimacy, why not examine some of Israel's neighbours?

There are a few uncomfortable truths.
Their historical legitimacy is questionable, the result either of conquest or European leaders drawing borders at will. And then there is the ‘end to occupation.’
Since the 1967 war, Israel, unlike many nations victorious in battles of self-defence, has withdrawn from lands it seized.
It gave back to Egypt the vast Sinai region, with its oil fields and strategic depth, withdrew from Gaza and yielded to Jordan on border issues. It has also pulled all its troops out of southern Lebanon and dramatically lowered its profile in much of the West Bank.. And it has repeatedly declared its readiness to embrace a far-reaching two-state solution with the Palestinians that would entail further territorial sacrifices.
Israel, so small that it's barely a speck on world maps, has one overriding preoccupation — security. Until the Palestinians finally get their act together and pursue peace seriously and credibly, Israel has every right to act against groups operating in Gaza and the West Bank that stockpile weapons and plot terrorist attacks.

Any other nation defending itself would act similarly — or, perhaps, more ruthlessly and with less regard for the well-being of civilians cynically used by enemies as human shields.
Many critics of Israel blithely ignore Israel's withdrawals to date and repeated offers of peace, instead, robotically hammering away at the ‘evils of occupation’ — by which presumably mean Israel's very existence, irrespective of its borders.

Winston Churchill once said: “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”