The paradigm shifts away from Israel

Yoram Hazony explains why whatever Israel does, she is openly pilloried in the international media and on university campuses …for some alleged violation of human rights, real or imagined. Israel is often seen not as a democracy doing its duty to defend its people and its freedom, but as some kind of a scourge… Along with this is a rising anti-Semitic tide, which has returned after its post-World War II hiatus.

The Left says that to prevent this anti-Israel crusade, Israel must withdraw from the "occupied territories" and enable the creation of "Palestine". The Right says Israel needs better public relations to explain her geopolitical position. Yet, when Israel does either of these, she is still perceived as the bad guy.

For example, withdrawals from both South Lebanon and Gaza, did nothing to stem the tide of hatred and vilification being poured on Israel's head internationally. Whatever it is that is driving the trend toward the progressive delegitimization of Israel, it is a trend operating more or less without reference to any particular Israeli policy on any given issue.

He says the underlying cause is that the West's paradigm, its framework of interrelated concepts, has shifted since the late 1940s. In 1947, the UN voted…for establishment of a 'Jewish State' in Palestine, after which dozens of other national states in the Third World were formed. Yet since then, with the creation of the EU, European nations have a new paradigm in which the sovereign nation-state is no longer seen as holding the key to the well-being of humanity. In fact, independent nations are viewed by many of Europe's intellectuals and political figures as a source of incalculable evil, while the multinational empire is viewed as a model for a post-national humanity… This is an ideal situation for the prophesied Anti-Christ to use globalism to rule over much of the world.

In the West, this shift has impacted a generation of young people that, for the first time in 350 years, [do] not recognize the nation-state as the foundation of our freedoms.

Of course, this affects how many see Israel, which is thankful to be a nation-state for the Jewish people. Hazony sees Auschwitz as key, as most Jews believe that the only thing that has really changed since millions of our people perished - the only thing that stands as a bulwark against the repetition of this…is Israel.

Auschwitz is also an important political symbol for others. Europeans see the death camp as the heart of the lesson of WW II. But the conclusions they draw are precisely the opposite of those drawn by Jews, viewing it as the ultimate expression of that barbarism, that brutal debasement of humanity, which is national particularism. To prevent such evil from reoccurring, Europe's nations must be dismantled, their peoples tied together under a single government. Thus this viewpoint says, it is not Israel that is the answer to Auschwitz, but the EU…

There are two competing paradigms. Israel: Auschwitz represents the unspeakable horror of Jewish women and men standing empty-handed and naked, watching their children die for want of a rifle with which to protect them.

EU: Auschwitz represents the unspeakable horror of German soldiers using force against others, backed by nothing but their own government's views as to their national rights and interests.

Hazony sees these two as almost perfectly irreconcilable. In one, the agency of the murderers is seen as the source of evil; in the other, the powerlessness of the victims - a seemingly subtle difference in perspective that opens up into a chasm when we, view Israel through these rival paradigms.

Israel: Israel represents Jewish women and men standing rifle in hand, watching over their own children and all other Jewish children and protecting them. Israel is the opposite of Auschwitz.

EU: Israel represents the unspeakable horror of Jewish soldiers using force against others, backed by nothing but their own government's views as to their national rights and interests. Israel is Auschwitz… Thus there is an increased acceptance in the West of comparing Israel and its soldiers to the Nazis.

So the global disgust or hatred for Israel is…driven by the rapid advance of a new paradigm that understands Israel, and especially the independent Israeli use of force to defend itself, as illegitimate down to its foundations…

On the battlefield of ideas, the state of Israel is today in danger as never before…You can only fight a paradigm with a competing paradigm. And the paradigm that gave birth to Israel and which held it firm, both domestically and internationally, is today in tatters… (Israel Through European Eyes," Y. Haznoy, Jerusalem Letters, 14 July, 2009)