A REPLY TO THOMAS SOWELL’S “ON THE RISE OF ANTI-SEMITISM“.

Above: A Palestinian baby, victim of Israeli airstrikes. Israel has announced it will NOT avoid killing children and civilians in Gaza.

Mr. Sowell, your brief presentation on the rise of anti-semitism in the world appears to be a bit simplistic. Yes, it addresses historical reasons for anti-semitism. But your narrative here appears to be dated, nor does it discuss the current Hamas-Israeli War and the surprising, international show of support for the people of Gaza, from whom Hamas draws its recruits. That college students could express support for the Palestinians in this conflict, is easily explained: Israel is no longer seen as the oppressed, but rather as the oppressor.

College students have traditionally had a heart for the underdog. Gaza is a city of abject poverty, because the Israelis have made it so with their blockade. And Israel has always intended to keep it that way, to force the Gazans out. But the Gazans would not leave, even in the face of such bitter economic oppression. So the Israeli government needed to resort to military force to evict them, yet could not, without a casus belli. And so, it appears that the Israeli government stood down its military along the border with Gaza, practically inviting Hamas to come in and massacre Jews. With that, Netanyahu believes the October 7th slaughter, gives him carte blanche to exterminate millions.

The outrage at Israeli oppression of Gazans and Palestinians, which you claim is out of all proportion, really is not, if you think about it: without fail, Israel claims to be a victim – but how is a nation with a nuclear arsenal and a state of the art military, equipped with high-performance aircraft and the latest in tank and infantry weapons, the victim? How is Gaza, a territory of 2.7 million people that is almost defenseless against Israel, the ogre? Are we expected to believe that David was the Phillistine giant, who wore armor and bore a mighty sword, and that is was Goliath, who showed up for battle as a naked shepherd, armed only with a sling and a few stones? No. But today, we are expected to be blind to what we do see: the all-powerful Israeli Defense Force plays the Phillistine, while the impoverished Arab is the poor shepherd.

Israel often invokes the Holocaust narrative, as sufficient justification for its perceived acts of self-defense, for example, destroying Iraqi nuclear reactors in 1981, with an air strike. I suspect that most people in the West had little or no difficulty in accepting that act. However, using the slogan “Never Again” to justify an air strike against a military target, is far different from invoking the Holocaust, to justify the genocide of 2.7 million people. All the more so, when Israelis claim celebrity victimhood, for World War 2’s holocaust and moreover, hold themselves up to the world as a Chosen People, who exemplify morality and virtue. So international outrage is only in proportion to Israel’s claim of being God’s Chosen, while choosing the most ungodly means to arrogate power and territory to itself.

The Holocaust is not a license for murder.

Blog Editor Patrick Cloutier is the author of Mussolini’s War in the East 1941-1943

The modern State of Israel has won nearly every war it has fought since 1948. This is partly explained by the fact that Israelis had nowhere to run to: their backs were against the Mediterranean Sea. This truth fueled their desperate gambles to survive against formidable odds. Highly motivated Israeli fighters took many daring and calculated risks and emerged victorious.

Since the year 2000, however, Israel has found it more difficult to secure victory. The 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War in particular ended in a stalemate, with neither the Israeli Defense Force, nor Hezbollah able to conclusively defeat the other. Nevertheless, Hezbollah was a clear winner, in the sense that it had fought Israel to a standstill and retained its control over southern Lebanon.

Israel was also losing the traditional sympathy it had enjoyed in world opinion, as it went from being the perceived underdog, to the perceived bully, especially given the Israeli military’s complete disregard for the fatalities it inflicts on Palestinian civilians, and the equally reprehensible conduct of Israeli settlers towards both Muslim and Christian Arabs alike, in Gaza and the West Bank.

Then on 7 October 2023, Israel found itself in yet one more conflict, when Hamas, a Muslim paramilitary organization that operates in the Gaza Strip, carried out an apparent surprise attack against Israeli military personnel and civilians, slaughtering thousands. At the time of this writing, prominent Israeli voices have vengefully called for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and some have even called for the genocide of its poor, impoverished Arab inhabitants. Israeli tanks and infantry are arrayed against the Gaza Strip, but have yet to enter, perhaps in anticipation of frightfully high casualties. Meanwhile, the Israeli Air Force has been bombing targets in Gaza, in hopes of easing the path of a ground invasion. Most fatalities of Israeli bombing are Arab civilians, including many children. In turn, Israeli callousness has left Hamas and Hezbollah with no shortage of recruits.

Above: the Jewish State of Israel, surrounded by real and potential enemies, in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. Israeli citizens fight tenaciously, knowing their backs are to the sea. Now, however, the Jewish State has lent this same advantage of desperation to the residents of Gaza, whose fight is fueled by the knowledge that they have nowhere to go. Below: the Gaza Strip, blockaded by Israel, by land to the east and northeast, by sea to the west; complicit Egypt blockades the southwest.

Under a scenario in which the Arab world was united, Israel’s situation might very broadly be compared to that of Caesar at Alesia (52 B.C.): there he had trapped a Gallic Army under Vercingetorix, but in turn was himself surrounded by a vast army of Gauls, temporarily united against Rome. Caesar, a daring and resourceful Roman commander, prevailed against the Gauls. Likewise, Israel has Gaza surrounded, but in turn is surrounded by other Arab states. As yet, Israel does not face a united Arab World, but nor, as yet, has a Julius Caesar come forth from among the Jews.

Blog Editor Patrick Cloutier is the author of Mussolini’s War in the East 1941-1943