Should the West Be Supporting Israel?

 

I hear some complain that we seem to care too much about the death of Israeli civilians in the October 6 assault. Would we have been so supportive if the same thing had happened in, say, Armenia or Azerbaijan? Why do we care so much more about the Jews?

Subtext: surely it is all about rich Jews in America controlling US foreign policy behind the curtain, right?

I believe the opposite: at the best of times, I see antisemitism always just below the surface, if not openly expressed.

There no doubt is a Jewish lobby in the West. But there also is, and always has been, a powerful Arab lobby, with money, votes, oil, and geopolitical importance.

If a similar attack had occurred in Azerbaijan or Armenia, it is true, the public and government reaction in the West would probably not have been as dramatic. But this is for practical reasons: Azerbaijan and Armenia are in the Russian sphere of influence. We would expect Russia to handle the matter, we would have little logistical ability to help, and doing so would probably provoke Russia.

But Israel is an ally. They have a right to expect support.

There is an obvious comparison: 9/11. When a roughly proportionate terrorist attack hit the US, not only did the rest of the West support the US’s invasion of Afghanistan to hunt down the perpetrators, NATO invoked section 5 of their treaty, and everyone sent in troops in support. 

Compare, more recently, Ukraine. Not a NATO member, not a traditional ally, but all of NATO has been sending support.

Compare Kosovo, or Bosnia. Again, the West mobilized to end the perceived genocide.

When Saddam invaded Kuwait, and there were claims of atrocities, the US mobilized a coalition of the West to intervene.

So, in this case, the expected reaction should be for the other nations of the “Free World” to give Israel full diplomatic support, and supply any help Israel needs to eliminate the threat—up to and including sending their own troops.

Western support for Israel falls short of that. 

Gaza

 

“Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why then doth every one of us despise his brother, violating the covenant of our fathers?”

Malachi 1: 10; from today’s Mass reading.

I am wimping out if I do not take a clear stand on the current mess in Gaza. In most conflicts, contrary to the common cowardly and self-interested nostrum, one side is essentially right and the other wrong.

The Palestinians under Hamas began the present conflict, in particularly heinous and unprovoked fashion. Right is on the side of Israel.

One might protest that Israel is a “colonial settler state.” The Palestinian Arabs have a longstanding grievance: that their ancestral lands were taken over by Jews, largely coming from other countries.

I ask myself: How would I feel if I felt myself obliged to move because some other group had made my hometown inhospitable to me?

And I answer, I have had that experience. It causes me grief. I grew up partly in Montreal as an Anglophone. My family had roots there. Over time, Quebec has become inhospitable to Anglophones, and many have felt obliged to leave. It became hard for Anglophones to find a job. It would be difficult to get schooling in English for my children. 

Yet it does not seem to me to justify war or random murder. One picks up stakes and moves on; as have so many immigrants who come to Canada.

I also had to leave Gananoque, my second home town. I did not want to. But I could not complete my education there, and could not get a job.

Most people are used to having to pull up stakes and move on. And that is really all that is being asked of the Arabs. 

The Arabs—a culture actually founded on mobility.

And Palestinian Arabs have many opportunities near to hand; they are not some distinct ethnic group. Lands in which their own language is spoken and their religion established. Moving on to Cairo or the Persian Gulf for opportunities would seem natural in other circumstances. I myself moved to the Persian Gulf for opportunities.

So, other than antisemitism, I do not see the problem.