It is important that the current government take heed of this criticism and remain wary of provoking too much anger at Israel. This is not because Israel’s critics are fair or correct. They are not. Israel’s critics often have a disproportionate hatred of Israel. They are fueled by extreme pro-Palestinian activists, sometimes backed by actual Palestinian and Islamic terrorist groups in the West that exploit the conflict to push antisemitic attacks on Jews.
The progressive or “woke” trend that builds on “intersectional” politics has also attempted to portray Israel as a “settler-colonial state” and part of “white supremacy.” None of this is fair or just – or true. Israel is a diverse country, as exemplified by the extraordinary diversity of the new government. Supported by the Ra’am party and with Arab members of the government, this Knesset and government is also unprecedented in the role of women and minorities in power.
Despite this reality, Israel must contend with hostile agendas abroad, manifested in how the airstrike on Gaza on Tuesday evening – in response to arson balloons – received widespread coverage.
Previous Israeli airstrikes went largely unnoticed, because they did not cause casualties. For instance when former chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot told the New York Times in January 2019 that Israel had carried out thousands of attacks on Iranian targets in Syria, his comments were greeted with interest, but not controversy. Apparently very few people were killed in those airstrikes – there were no grieving Syrian families with children lost in the attacks, and no media rushed to report Israel’s use of “disproportionate” force against warehouses allegedly holding Iranian weapons in Syria.
Now that reality may be changing. The years of chaos that began with the Arab Spring illustrated how the Israel-Palestinian conflict was not central to the region. Israel has been saying this for years, but the Palestinians succeeded in putting themselves on the international agenda, displacing many other minority groups that sought justice, such as the Kurds. Beginning with the outbreak of civil war in Syria, Libya, Yemen and other countries, as well as the rise of ISIS in 2014, Israel was not a focus of attention.
During the Trump years, the world’s focus was on what Trump would do next. With him gone, many human rights groups, such as B’Tselem and Human Rights Watch, have sensed that now is the time to re-focus energies on Israel, describing the country as practicing apartheid across all the areas it controls, from the West Bank to Jerusalem and inside the Green Line. These groups disingenuously claim Israel “occupies” Gaza when in fact Gaza is illegally occupied by Hamas, and the Palestinian Authority has been ejected from the enclave.
However, this new focus on Israel and allegations that Israel “occupies” Gaza means that Hamas bares almost no criticism for the recent attacks. Indeed, UN statements and reports don’t even mention Hamas’s role. Israel faces an uphill battle in bringing the world’s attention to Hamas crimes, such as its use of disproportionate rocket fire, its recruitment of children soldiers, and the terrorizing of civilians.
With this in mind, it is important that the new government set the right tone. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid’s comments condemning some of the racism displayed at the flag march this week is a welcome change in tone and messaging from Jerusalem. Israel’s government wants to be a light unto the nations in line with the hopes and dreams of Israelis, Zionists and the Jewish people since time immemorial. We can be this light, but we must be cognizant of the agendas seeking to cloud our actions that focus only on the negative.