Will the world admit it was wrong?

by Phyllis Chesler

I hate to repeat the obvious, but one must tell the truth when the most lethal lies against Jews and Israel are repeated 24/7, in every language on earth, day after day, year after year.

Hamas’s war against Israel is unprecedented. Not only have these demons purposely attacked civilians and kidnapped precious souls whom they are still torturing daily in tunnels and private homes, but they and other Iranian proxy armies have forced the internal displacement of more than 200,000 Israeli citizens and killed 645 soldiers and security officers. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have wounded more than 3,000 Israeli soldiers.

As if this were not horrifying enough, almost the entire world—including the media, the mobs, government leaders and international organizations—have been supporting what is, essentially, an Islamic religious war against the Jews. This is not about territory or “occupation.” This war is about exterminating the Jewish people in the name of jihad. Moreover, the jihadists don’t confine their violence to Israel. They intend to conquer the West and ultimately convert or murder all “infidels” everywhere.

This is breathtakingly clear, yet too many Westerners refuse to believe it.

All this compounds Israel’s trauma. How can Israelis feel safe when their own military and intelligence services failed to protect them on Oct. 7? When Israeli government decisions dating back decades appeased Hamas and Iran just as American presidents have done?

How can Israelis feel safe now that the American administration has forced Israel to withdraw most of its forces from Gaza before the IDF could destroy Hamas? An administration that has been far less concerned with the Israeli hostages—who include American citizens—than with empowering Hamas? Has President Joe Biden even noticed that Hamas still refuses to return any hostages or agree to a phased ceasefire? Why should it? Global propaganda, along with American and United Nations actions, have further empowered and legitimized it.

Those of us who care about Israel and the West must realize that Israel is both a seriously traumatized country and an amazingly resilient one. Who but Israelis would have so swiftly organized trauma units for the returned and tortured captives and the surviving eyewitnesses? Who but Israel would give battle-weary soldiers 10 days of rest accompanied by psychiatrists and psychologists?

Who but Israel would allow anti-government activists to so freely (and dangerously) demonstrate against their own leaders during a time of war? Who but Israel would have engaged in such pinpoint targeting of Hamas terrorists, avoiding civilians in a way that no other army has ever done?

The dense fog of war will clear after Israel has finally destroyed every last Hamas tunnel loaded with weaponry and the fact-based truth about Hamas and Iran’s war against Israel becomes transparent. When that happens, I wonder about those people who believe that Israel deserved Oct. 7 because they have swallowed the lie that Israel is not only an “oppressor, apartheid entity” but a nation that thirsted for “revenge” and allegedly went on to deliberately target women and children, cause famine and commit a “genocide”? Will they finally admit they were wrong?

I doubt it. They are unlikely to accept that the crimes attributed to Israel are Hamas and Iran’s crimes. Nor that diabolic paranoids and indoctrinated haters are essentially confessing their own crimes when they project them onto their victims.

People may always refuse to understand that accidents happen in war and most other countries—Muslim armies, American armies, British armies, Russian and Chinese armies—have caused far more civilian deaths in a single war than Israel has caused over 80 years of war.

In Hitler’s era, it was only the Nazis, the preexisting Jew-haters in Europe and Muslim lands, who brayed for the death of the Jews or minimized and denied what was happening to the Jews.

Now almost the entire world has spewed that bloodthirsty cry. Mobs are in the streets everywhere, cheering Hamas’s barbarism. Never has Israel been in such danger before.

What will the world say, if it says anything, when its allegations have been proven completely false? Will they still insist that they did not know, that no one told them?

Many, of course, will claim that they were right all along. Like Holocaust deniers, they will assert that whatever facts Israel presents are lies and disinformation.

Once again, Israel stands almost alone, accused of crimes it never committed. At this point, no matter how much Israel tries to do the right thing, it will never be credited for it. Thus, Israel must do whatever it takes to survive against the most fiendish odds.

First published in JNS.