A city upon a hill

There was a time when Israel was admired in the world - with the exception of the Arab world, where it was feared - but now, how are the mighty fallen.

It is still feared among Arab nations, no longer so much for its military might as for its propensity to act as a loose cannon, mounting precision targeted strikes and assassination hits on its neighbours, without warning or any apparent regard to collateral damage. Its recent strike against a group of Hamas leaders in Qatar, a neutral country attempting to use its good offices to broker a ceasefire deal, was a particularly outrageous example.

Benjamin Netanyahu clearly doesn't care what the world, including Donald Trump, thinks of his actions. For him it is a matter of staying out of jail. But while, from his perspective, that may be understandable, what is much less so is why that sizeable portion of the Israeli population not actively supporting him, doesn't seem willing or able to stop him. Meanwhile, Netanyahu sows the wind, careless of who reaps the whirlwind - so long as it isn't him.

As a result, Israel has lost the moral high ground it once claimed and risks becoming a pariah state. It has long flouted international law with its military actions and territorial annexations but has largely been indulged by the rest of the world through its skillful playing of its Jewish victimhood. Of course, Palestinians are victims too but guilt for the European Holocaust entirely eclipsed concerns about the Nakba, the catastrophic loss of Palestinian land and freedom following the 1948 foundation of Israel - under the British Mandate, I should add. As the world soon discovered, however, two wrongs do not make a right and the poisonous legacy of the creation of the state of Israel has been some eighty years of bitter recrimination and bloody regional conflict.

By way of excuse, it used to be claimed, pragmatically, that Israel was the only functioning democracy and friend of the West in the region. As a result, a blind eye was turned to Israel's flagrantly anti-democratic and downright illegal actions. Forbearance was deemed a price worth paying for the creation of a Jewish homeland, with all the advantages for trade, defence deals and intelligence-sharing which that implied. It has proved to be a double-edged sword, one whose blade Israel hones to razor-sharpness.

The mood, though, is changing. The world seems to be moving from mild irritation with Israel to open condemnation of its intransigence - amongst populations at least if not their politicians, though even some of those have decided to recognise Palestine at the United Nations, including France and the UK. Unfortunately, though, the UK government's recent ill-advised proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation has led to huge protests around the country, and especially in London. Some 1500 arrests of peaceful demonstrators have been carried out under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, around fifty per cent of whom were over the age of sixty. This draconian response has risked overwhelming police forces, courts and prisons.

Yesterday (Sunday 15th) huge nationwide demonstrations took place in Spain against an Israeli team's participation in the Vuelta a España cycle race through the country. In Madrid this resulted in a total blockade of the race, leading to clashes with riot police and its eventual abandonment. We are now witnessing a growing trend for nations to pull out of the Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna next May if an Israeli contestant is permitted to compete. Ireland, a seven-time winner of the contest, called Israel's participation "unconscionable".

And that's the thing: it's a matter of conscience. Those of us who have supported Israel's right to exist, held no truck with antisemitism and clung to the forlorn hope of an eventual two-state solution - long reduced from a practical proposition to a pious orthodoxy - now find ourselves placed in an invidious position by Netanyahu's obduracy. It simply cannot be a case of Israel right or wrong. Where it (or its government) has perpetrated atrocities in the Gaza Strip and West Bank since October 7th, its critical friends throughout the world must be prepared to denounce it unreservedly.

The time for fudging the matter is long over.