2. The concerted international campaign by various groups in the West against Israel damages it and helps the Palestinians.Again, this should be obviously true but it is quite the opposite. To date, despite all the noise, Israeli interests – including businesses – have suffered little damage. On the contrary, the attacks encourage support, including increased buying of Israeli products and energetic loyalty by Israel’s supporters abroad.But all of these endless demonstrations, teach-ins, books, articles, documentaries, boycott, disinvestment and sanction labors do absolutely zero to help the Palestinians.On one level, they do nothing politically to advance their cause in a real sense. On another level, they contribute nothing to their welfare.Moreover, by convincing the Palestinian leadership that they can eliminate Israel completely, that Western support is swinging toward them, and that they don’t need to change their own policies or strategies, all of this behavior leads them charging down a dead-end street. The end result is the battering of their heads against a stone wall.Imagine – as the activists in these movements have never done once! – that all of this energy went into buying Palestinian products, donating to improve Palestinian schools and hospitals, resettling refugees and providing them with productive jobs and housing. That would be truly pro-Palestinian. And even if the intention was to use this progress as a base for destroying Israel some day it would be more effective than what they are doing now.Of course, since most of the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has been engaged in stealing aid money and funneling it into their private bank accounts, admittedly these activists don’t have a very good role model to follow. And since the leadership’s goal is to keep its people poor and living in refugee camps in order to use them as revolutionary fodder and an object of sympathy these activists don’t have much incentive to do real good.3. Israel is the main cause of instability in the Middle East.On one level, of course, the Arab-Israeli conflict has been a basis for instability that has often been exaggerated. People ignorant of all the other issues in the region have only heard of that one controversy.Beyond that, though, consider what would be different if Israel didn’t exist.Implicitly, this is thought by most Arabs and Muslims to be the basis for a united utopian society stretching from Morocco through Afghanistan. But that’s precisely the point. What kind of society would that be? Who – what leader, country and ideology, would lead it? Who gets to be the caliph? In other words, if Israel didn’t exist, the level of internal conflict and bloodshed would be even higher. There would be nothing – including the territorial separation that Israel provides – to stop these leaders, movements, countries and ideologies from being at each other’s throats. Tremendous wars between countries would spill oceans of blood. Decades-long Sunni-Shia conflicts would engulf the lands. Endless internal strife would bring civil wars that would dwarf what we’ve seen in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.Even with Israel, instability of this kind is bad enough, though it is far less noticed than it would be otherwise. The same applies, by the way, to the Arab-Israeli conflict, whose end – which will not come anytime soon – would have the same effect.One final point: because much of the thought and political action on the Middle East is in the wrong direction, running against the realities, the main effect is to confuse those watching and engaging in them. Yet, disregarding all of this noise, what actually exists marches forward. Or to use an Arab proverb, the dogs bark; the caravan moves on.
The three myths that distort every discussion of Israel
‘It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ –William Shakespeare, ‘Macbeth’
2. The concerted international campaign by various groups in the West against Israel damages it and helps the Palestinians.Again, this should be obviously true but it is quite the opposite. To date, despite all the noise, Israeli interests – including businesses – have suffered little damage. On the contrary, the attacks encourage support, including increased buying of Israeli products and energetic loyalty by Israel’s supporters abroad.But all of these endless demonstrations, teach-ins, books, articles, documentaries, boycott, disinvestment and sanction labors do absolutely zero to help the Palestinians.On one level, they do nothing politically to advance their cause in a real sense. On another level, they contribute nothing to their welfare.Moreover, by convincing the Palestinian leadership that they can eliminate Israel completely, that Western support is swinging toward them, and that they don’t need to change their own policies or strategies, all of this behavior leads them charging down a dead-end street. The end result is the battering of their heads against a stone wall.Imagine – as the activists in these movements have never done once! – that all of this energy went into buying Palestinian products, donating to improve Palestinian schools and hospitals, resettling refugees and providing them with productive jobs and housing. That would be truly pro-Palestinian. And even if the intention was to use this progress as a base for destroying Israel some day it would be more effective than what they are doing now.Of course, since most of the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has been engaged in stealing aid money and funneling it into their private bank accounts, admittedly these activists don’t have a very good role model to follow. And since the leadership’s goal is to keep its people poor and living in refugee camps in order to use them as revolutionary fodder and an object of sympathy these activists don’t have much incentive to do real good.3. Israel is the main cause of instability in the Middle East.On one level, of course, the Arab-Israeli conflict has been a basis for instability that has often been exaggerated. People ignorant of all the other issues in the region have only heard of that one controversy.Beyond that, though, consider what would be different if Israel didn’t exist.Implicitly, this is thought by most Arabs and Muslims to be the basis for a united utopian society stretching from Morocco through Afghanistan. But that’s precisely the point. What kind of society would that be? Who – what leader, country and ideology, would lead it? Who gets to be the caliph? In other words, if Israel didn’t exist, the level of internal conflict and bloodshed would be even higher. There would be nothing – including the territorial separation that Israel provides – to stop these leaders, movements, countries and ideologies from being at each other’s throats. Tremendous wars between countries would spill oceans of blood. Decades-long Sunni-Shia conflicts would engulf the lands. Endless internal strife would bring civil wars that would dwarf what we’ve seen in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.Even with Israel, instability of this kind is bad enough, though it is far less noticed than it would be otherwise. The same applies, by the way, to the Arab-Israeli conflict, whose end – which will not come anytime soon – would have the same effect.One final point: because much of the thought and political action on the Middle East is in the wrong direction, running against the realities, the main effect is to confuse those watching and engaging in them. Yet, disregarding all of this noise, what actually exists marches forward. Or to use an Arab proverb, the dogs bark; the caravan moves on.