February 19, 2024
Of all the world’s countries, just one faces an endless public battle over its “right to exist”: Israel. Even countries that have committed genocides with victims numbering in the millions—Turkey, Germany, Russia, China—face no such challenge. And countries whose foundings caused the uprooting and exile of millions more—like Pakistan and modern India—also face no such challenge.
So why Israel, and only Israel? The true answer is a tsunami of false propaganda produced by Israel’s detractors and circulated by biased commentators. This includes a torrent of human rights activists and journalists publicly accusing Israel of ruthlessly occupying and oppressing people in Gaza and the West Bank and, now, of committing genocide in Gaza.
Such indictments ignore a mountain of confounding facts.
At least nine times in the past century, both Israel and its pre-state leaders sought or conducted negotiations with Arab leaders to establish “two states for two peoples”—in 1937, 1948, 1967, 1979, 1993, 2000, 2001, 2008, and 2019. At least six such overtures involved explicit offers for a state alongside Israel. Leaders in Gaza and the West Bank not only rejected all those statehood offers but each time commenced or resumed terror campaigns to destroy Israel.
When the U.N. recognized the nation Israel in 1948—and offered Arabs in the British mandate their own state alongside Israel—the Arab leaders instead launched a war to kill every last Jew in the region, as five Arab countries invaded Israel. Israel’s leaders urged the Arabs within its assigned borders to remain, with the guarantee that they would have equal rights. Instead, Arab leaders successfully urged the Arabs within the new nation’s borders to flee in order to clear the field for their intended mass slaughter of the Jews.
Since 1948, all Arab leaders—including both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas—have indoctrinated the people in their control to have genocidal hatred for Jews and Israel while glorifying mass killers of Jews as their greatest of heroes. The daily drumbeat of such propaganda throughout their schools, media, mosques, and civic ceremonies has created the world’s most powerful ideological ecosystem for the mass production of terrorists.
And despite not having had a single day of complete peace since 1948, when one of Britain’s top military leaders, Col. Richard Kempt, thoroughly scrutinized the Israel Defense Force, he concluded it was “the world’s most moral army.” Col. Kemp’s assessment emphasized Israel’s extraordinary efforts, unprecedented in the history of warfare, to protect civilians from harm. This has been manifested yet again in Israel’s response to Hamas’s genocidal attacks of October 7.
Against Genocidal Enemies, Israel Seeks Peace And Fights Fairly
By Henry KopelOf all the world’s countries, just one faces an endless public battle over its “right to exist”: Israel. Even countries that have committed genocides with victims numbering in the millions—Turkey, Germany, Russia, China—face no such challenge. And countries whose foundings caused the uprooting and exile of millions more—like Pakistan and modern India—also face no such challenge.
So why Israel, and only Israel? The true answer is a tsunami of false propaganda produced by Israel’s detractors and circulated by biased commentators. This includes a torrent of human rights activists and journalists publicly accusing Israel of ruthlessly occupying and oppressing people in Gaza and the West Bank and, now, of committing genocide in Gaza.
Such indictments ignore a mountain of confounding facts.
At least nine times in the past century, both Israel and its pre-state leaders sought or conducted negotiations with Arab leaders to establish “two states for two peoples”—in 1937, 1948, 1967, 1979, 1993, 2000, 2001, 2008, and 2019. At least six such overtures involved explicit offers for a state alongside Israel. Leaders in Gaza and the West Bank not only rejected all those statehood offers but each time commenced or resumed terror campaigns to destroy Israel.
When the U.N. recognized the nation Israel in 1948—and offered Arabs in the British mandate their own state alongside Israel—the Arab leaders instead launched a war to kill every last Jew in the region, as five Arab countries invaded Israel. Israel’s leaders urged the Arabs within its assigned borders to remain, with the guarantee that they would have equal rights. Instead, Arab leaders successfully urged the Arabs within the new nation’s borders to flee in order to clear the field for their intended mass slaughter of the Jews.
Since 1948, all Arab leaders—including both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas—have indoctrinated the people in their control to have genocidal hatred for Jews and Israel while glorifying mass killers of Jews as their greatest of heroes. The daily drumbeat of such propaganda throughout their schools, media, mosques, and civic ceremonies has created the world’s most powerful ideological ecosystem for the mass production of terrorists.
And despite not having had a single day of complete peace since 1948, when one of Britain’s top military leaders, Col. Richard Kempt, thoroughly scrutinized the Israel Defense Force, he concluded it was “the world’s most moral army.” Col. Kemp’s assessment emphasized Israel’s extraordinary efforts, unprecedented in the history of warfare, to protect civilians from harm. This has been manifested yet again in Israel’s response to Hamas’s genocidal attacks of October 7.
