Opinion

French terror attacks contribute to Israeli’s isolation

There are two big opposing political memes touching on Zionism in the wake of the Paris terror attacks. One is that Europe is unsafe for Jews. This idea is the very basis of Zionism. Our site will be chronicling the upsurge in this belief because it is an important news story: more and more Zionists are expressing it. (Abe Foxman: “if France doesn’t heal itself, ultimately, the Jews will leave.”  Commentary: Muslims pose the threat of another Holocaust: “Jews in France—and, given certain trends, elsewhere in Europe, from Great Britain to Scandinavia—have to consider their literal survival.”)

The other meme is a bit quieter, but it’s out there: Israel is losing legitimacy in the eyes of the world because it discriminates on a religious basis and occupies Palestine and is causing problems for the west. The country’s claim to be a Jewish democracy is an anachronism in our age, and one that sticks out like a sore thumb in the wake of Gaza. The people who express fears about the Jewish place in Europe tend to deny that Israel’s actions have anything to do with European or Muslim attitudes about Jews. But even these advocates are painfully aware of Israel’s delegitimization.

Here are a few reports reflecting that trend. First, “Israel faces worsening isolation,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry says in a new classified report, published by Ynet:

Israel’s worsening position on the world stage is expected to decline further in 2015, claims a Foreign Ministry report, which warns that more sanctions could be on the way.

The classified document, sent by the Foreign Ministry to Israeli missions worldwide, warns of possible diplomatic damage to Israel due to “moves to mark settlement products, stop the supply of replacement parts; debates on sanctions against Israel; demands for compensation for damage caused by Israel to European projects in the Palestinian territories; European activity in Area C, under Israeli rule; and more.”

French independence of Israel is an important part of the trend, Ynet says, as BDS gains traction in Europe:

The document lists a series of economic sanctions and boycotts imposed as a result of the freeze in peace talks with the Palestinians, which are expected to seriously hurt Israel.

“The Europeans are creating a clear connection between diplomatic relations and economic ones (and) in this context, it is important to note that Europe is Israel’s main trading partner,” the document states.

This deterioration is reflected, among other things, “in independent French activity, including at the UN Security Council, and in the heightening of negative signals sent to Israel.”

And even the relationship with the U.S. is at stake!

The academic boycott against Israel could also escalate. Universities in Europe and the United States are expected to push for a halt in cooperation with Israeli academic institutes.

The classified document further warns that “American influence is successful, at present, in delaying practical decisions until after the elections in Israel. But in the wake of the systematic Palestinian policy to move the conflict to the UN arena, there’s no guarantee the US will continue using its veto rights after elections.”

These changes represent a legitimization crisis for Israel. When Netanyahu marched in Paris for political freedom last week, a Liberal Democrat British politician tweeted that the sight made him sick and, “Je Suis Palestinian.” Just tweets, you’d think. But Daniel Taub, Israel’s ambassador to Britain, sent a defensive letter to the head of the politician’s party condemning the comments:

“At a time when leaders were united in condemnation of extremist atrocities, Mr [David] Ward’s statement is a disgraceful attempt to politicise suffering, delegitimise Israel, and justify acts of terror.”

Ward and other liberal European politicians are concerned that Israel is hurting European security. As the New York Times reports, one French mosque leader says that young Muslims are drawn to extremist groups because Israel is killing Palestinian babies.

Andrew Levine at Counterpunch says that Gaza changed everything, and people are quietly running for the exits. In “The Delegitimization of Israel.” Levine says that the U.S. will abandon Israel ultimately, as liberal Zionists are forced to admit that the project was always about ethnic supremacy:

There is little doubt that, despite the best efforts of the entire corporate media system, Gaza had an impact on American public opinion. All indications are that it has had a far greater impact on public opinion in Europe. It has certainly affected the attitudes of European governments.

Something like this was bound to happen eventually. Israel has been exhausting moral capital from the moment of its inception, and there is a limit to how long a country can get by on empty.

Congress will be the last to bolt, with the White House close behind.   But bolt they will – someday…

liberal Zionists are coming to the realization that the only way Israel can survive as a Jewish state in the long run is by suppressing the political and national rights of the majority of people living within the borders it craves. It can be, as they say, Jewish or democratic, but not both.

It could hardly ever have been otherwise. Zionism was a colonial project aimed at establishing the supremacy of ethnic Jews over the land’s indigenous population.

Therefore, from the outset, Israel was an ethnocratic settler state. Liberal Zionists could deny this reality for a while; they could live with the contradiction. But those days are over.

Lastly, Orly Noy at +972 states that Israel is becoming a “pariah” state. In a piece titled, “The real reason why Netanyahu wants French Jews to move to Israel” she makes the connection between the two memes. Israeli persecution of Palestinians exploits and fosters Jewish insecurity in Europe:

On the face of it, Netanyahu’s call [for French Jews to move to Israel] is so baseless that it forces us to look for the real incentive being offered to France’s Jews. …Why move to a country that is being torn apart by internal conflict – one that is seen as a pariah in the eyes of a growing number of countries around the world? Why move to country whose belligerent actions are partially responsible for the growing lack of security among Jewish communities in Europe and other places?

I can think of one incentive alone: the privilege of formally being placed above the Muslim other. To have the right to live in a country that prefers you simply because you are Jewish. And even if you have never set foot here, this state will grant you privileges over its non-Jewish residents who have lived here for generations. Netanyahu is actually saying: in France you are a weak Jew – vulnerable and under attack. The Israeli experience will provide you with a uniform and a flag, in whose name you can rule as masters.

 

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Strangely enough the Arab peace plan of 2002 based on the 67 borders and an agreed formula for a limited right of return would have been the basis for a majority of people of Jewish origin to govern Israel for the foreseeable future, probably on something like approx 75%-25%. This together with the prospect of peace with all its Arab neighbors and the entire Islamic world was summarily rejected by the Israeli government. They want all the ‘Land of Israel’ and they are prepared to fight and kill in order to get it, their prospects are not good, 1/The demographics are against them, many people think there is already a majority of Palestinians between the Jordan and Mediterranean, 2/The world will not put up with an Apartheid regime, 3/ The technological and military developments of their enemies grow by the day, Hezbollah have 150,000 rockets aimed at Israels vitals, Iran has an even more destructive capacity, http://www.almanar.com.lb/english/adetails.php?eid=190749&cid=23&fromval=1&frid=23&seccatid=18&s1=1

A collection of great insights here. Thank you.

You close with Orly Noy’s connection between Israel’s self-delegitimization and its perception of rising Anti-Semitism, beneath a surface in which Israel denies such connections: “The Israeli experience will provide you with a uniform and a flag, in whose name you can rule as masters.”

For me this triggers further reflections on the Lucifer Effect, or how ordinary people can become monsters when the social structure requires or supports it in them, especially in the context of prison guards, or masters over slaves. [See the Stanford Prison Experiment].

This is Likud’s Lucifer Effect, as Netanyahu, the LIkudniks and the Neocons, captives of their own haywire group-think, keep doubling down on the disastrous policies they have been following for over 15 years.

“Turns out we look a lot better fighting a religious war than we do running an occupation.”

Ordinarily, one looks at an occupation as destroying the character of the soldier required to enforce it, but for Netanyahu and his allies, it is a deliberate policy to continue to become more the occupier, more the dominator in a cruel relationship, more the world leader instigating a century-long war of civilizations pitting Israel and the West against Islam.

The extent to which he will go to fan those flames is astounding, and requires an international “timeout,” a very international condemnation of Israeli excesses, enough to require a change in leadership in Israel. More of the same will continue to lead in the same direction, with leaders inciting their populace to cruel excess, then competing with each other to run out ahead of the mob with further incitement.

I don`t accept the thesis here. In fact there was a great desire in Europe to distance itself from Israel problems and even when Jews were assaulted there it was addressed as an internal Jewish/Israeli–Palestinian/Arab/Muslim conflict that they are not a part of. Sometime they even went further than that in “understanding the anger” among Arabs there in view of the “plight” of their Palestinian brethren (albeit the disturbing side of that in having directing that “anger” against their Jewish compatriots). It is that separation which is probably now over and paradoxically the parallel acts in this terror assault of in a French magazine and a Jewish store have accentuated the linkage – that is, Israel and Europe are really in the same boat here.

Israel feels the European heat and is preparing…JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday a wave of anti-Semitism and what he called “Islamisation” in Western Europe are factors in a Jewish state push to expand trade with Asia.

Europe is Israel’s biggest trading partner, but deepening diplomatic disputes over policy toward the Palestinians and anti-Jewish incidents such as a Jan. 9 attack by an Islamist gunman on a Paris kosher deli have triggered Israeli worries.

Netanyahu, who is also finance minister and a free-market champion, cast his courting of China, India and Japan over the past two years as a partial response to European developments.

He was due to host a Japanese government and business delegation led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday.

“I put emphasis on markets to the East not because we want to give up on other markets. But we definitely want to reduce our dependence on certain markets in western Europe,” Netanyahu told his cabinet in remarks at which reporters were present, without naming specific countries.

“Western Europe is undergoing a wave of Islamisation, of anti-Semitism, and of anti-Zionism. It is awash in such waves, and we want to ensure that for years to come the State of Israel will have diverse markets all over the world.”

Netanyahu, who is stressing his security credentials ahead of a March 17 election in Israel, said his government was also working to facilitate Jewish immigration. The Paris attack has stoked French Jewish interest in the option of moving to Israel.

According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, Europe accounted for 45.8 percent of imports and 35.8 percent of exports in the first 11 months of 2014. Asia accounted for 22.5 percent of Israeli imports and 25.4 percent of Israeli exports.

Israel’s parliamentary TV channel aired the results of a poll in which respondents were asked “Can Israel do without exports to Europe and pursue policy that is liable to bring about an economic embargo?” Sixty-two percent of Israelis said no, 32 percent said yes.

“Israel and Europe are really in the same boat here.”

That’s completely ridiculous, ivri. The only “same boat” that they are in is the same boat of aggression, colonialism, etc. The rest of the Anglosphere has the same problem.

This is a super article Phil~ many thanks.