WHY DO YOU HATE ISRAEL?

~

AND MORE AWKWARD QUESTIONS

H

Hereford Books

Copyright 2022

The right of the author to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published in Great Britain by Hereford Books.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

ISBN  9798839453715

WHY THIS BOOK?

This book didn't start life as a book, it started as a personal project to help me to understand something. In my novel, “An Angel from Auschwitz”, the heroine faces the SS officer (who has now been captured) who killed her husband, and she asks him this question:

'You may think of this as a war-crimes trial in the field. Except that I am going to be the judge, the jury and the executioner. Yes, that's right, you are going to die. I want you to think about that. Your victims had time to think about it, didn't they, before you shot them in the back of the neck.'

He winced and listened for the cocking of a weapon, to feel the cold steel against his skin, but it didn't happen.

'Oh no, it's not that easy. First I want to ask you a question. No, two questions.'

Suddenly, she realised there was something else she had a burning desire to know, that there would probably never be another chance to ask, of him or any other German.

'Why?'

'Why? Why what?'

'Why do you and your kind hate us?'

It was a frighteningly simple question. The other men in the room pricked up their ears. They hadn't expected the question, but they all wanted to know the answer as much as she did.

Stängl wasn't sure of the answer himself. Hating Jews was just something he had always done. Well, not always. He couldn't remember when he first found out he hated them, but the National Socialists had helped him to realise it and he had never looked back.

'Well …'

'Yes? We're waiting.'

'Look, it's not that simple.'

'Not that simple? No, I don't suppose it is. Warsaw, Lublin, Krakow, Lodz, I could go on. A lot of people, Stängl, and there has to be a reason doesn't there? I would like you to think hard and give me some kind of answer.'

'Will you let me go if I tell you?'

'No.'

'Then why should I tell you?'

He had a point. This wasn't the time. It was the only time, but still it wasn't the time. The question would never be answered. Perhaps there was no answer, not one that a sane human being could make sense of or articulate.

~

This is fiction, but the question it asks is one that is so fundamental to the Jewish relationship with the non-Jewish world I wonder why it is not asked more often. I daresay it is asked in academic books and research papers, but I, and probably you, do not read those.

So I decided to undertake to ask the people who hate Jews why they hate Jews, in their own words. That project developed, perhaps inevitably, into a second question, which was 'Why do you hate Israel?'. That then became the main question, and things sort of grew from there, so that was followed by 'Please explain what you think apartheid is', because inevitably the word came up in the response of some people when telling me why they hate Israel. And this, as you will see, was followed by some questions that, well, just followed naturally.

And the point of all this? Don't we already know why they hate us? Well, we might or might not, but if you will bear with me there was a motive for asking the questions that might never have occurred to you, and which might surprise you.

If I could get people to articulate why they hate (and that was not easy, as most of them are not articulate), then could I, perhaps, do something about it? Fair enough, the idea of stopping people hating is a fanciful one, but please bear with me yet again, because there was method to my madness.

You would be quite right to say it is impossible to stop people hating, but was this after all a fool's errand? No, nothing I do or say is going to stop people hating, but exploring the process of hatred was, and remains, a valid project in itself.

I am an extremely rational person, and when I say extremely do not imagine I am exaggerating. I am rational to the point of absurdity, verging on the autistic. I am quite unable to comprehend irrationality. I just don't understand why people believe the unbelievable. It is, I am afraid, why I don't do religion, but I won't go there.

People say things that make no sense, which you already know, but I am going to break my train of thought to give you some examples of things people say (quite unconnected with my subject here) that make absolutely no sense. And when I say people I mean everyone, not just a few who don't think, I mean everyone. The first is, 'He's a personal friend.' If you haven't said it yourself you must at least have heard it more than once, because it is so common, and given it no thought. My point here is, what is a friend if not personal? Is there such a thing as a friend who is not a personal friend? You see what I mean? Everyone says it, even though it is entirely irrational. And my second example is, 'past history', as in, 'The two of them had past history'. Well, what kind of history is there that is not in the past? It's nonsense, but that doesn't stop people saying it. And what about, 'take those wet things off, you'll catch cold'? No, you cannot catch a cold from wet clothes. The common cold is a virus. You catch it from someone who has a cold, not from wet clothes, which may cause other problems but they can't give you a virus. I'm on a roll now, so here's another one. Everyone in the world knows there is something called an electronic cigarette. The manufacturers call it that, as do doctors, the media and users. But you might be interested to know there is no such thing as an electronic cigarette. The product they are all talking about is an electric cigarette. You see? Complete nonsense, but that doesn't stop anyone saying it.

My point is not to boast that I am a more rational thinker than anyone else, but simply to demonstrate that billions of people are expressing irrational thoughts all the time, so irrationality is, seemingly, part of the human condition. I never tell people what to think. I only challenge what they think, and ask them to consider the possibility that what they think could be adjusted. In non-fiction, it's what I do, culminating in the previous book to this one, relating to my day job, Our National Health, Are We Taking the Right Medicine?

My further point is that if people hear something often enough, like 'Israel is an apartheid state', whether that statement is irrational or not is irrelevant. What you hear, often, becomes what you think. Every propagandist knows this, of course, and here it is worth pointing out that Israel's war with the Palestinians is not so much a fighting war as a propaganda war. It is, I am afraid, a war that Israel is losing, but that is outwith the scope of my book.

Now you probably think a bloke who can't understand why people are irrational might not be well placed to analyse people's irrational ideas, like hating a country or an entire race. On the contrary, I have found that what has been a disability my entire life has stood me in good stead in this project. It has enabled me to look at the questions, and more importantly the answers, dispassionately, without the burden of wondering why people say the strange things they say. I'm afraid I am so used to people saying things I don't understand that I have found it rather easier than you might expect to read people's answers to my questions without necessarily judging them. I say necessarily, because despite the foregoing caveat I am after all human, and I do have feelings and concerns. I would not have undertaken this project otherwise.

So what it comes down to is asking people who hate Israel and/or Jews the simple question, why, and measuring their answers against what I believe to be a scale of rationality. I completely accept that I am not the arbiter of what is rational. I could only do that measurement against my own benchmark of rationality, but I present the results not for you to blindly accept, but for you to make your own judgment rather than accepting mine.

So, coming back to the notion, foolish perhaps, that if I could understand why people hate us I might be able to come up with some grand idea that would stop them hating us. Well, no of course not, and that is actually the point of this book. My starting point was, if people could explain why they hate Jews could we Jews perhaps change in some way that might make them hate us less, or even quite like us? If people could explain why they hate Israel could I come up with some suggestions for the government of Israel that might go some way to them formulating policies that would help people to hate Israel less, or even quite like it?

No, of course not. This book is not going to make a scrap of difference to anyone who hates us, and neither is it going to inspire anyone to change (even assuming they need to). That, though, would not have been a reason not to write it, would it? I think the project has been worth the effort, and I hope I have presented the results in a way that you enjoy reading, because ultimately I write to entertain. If you have any thoughts or comments, do feel free to let me know. My personal email address is at the back.

And now, might the questions I have been asking of the people who hate make them pause to think? Might they ask themselves the same question, ask themselves if their hatred is rational? Might asking the questions actually do some good?

No, a nice thought but pretty unlikely. And that, I am afraid, is the nature of irrationality. It is not open to consideration and change. In my long and sorry existence, if I have learned anything it is that once people know something they know it for ever. It is why people tend to vote for the same political party all their life. It is why some people believe one thing and others believe the opposite. That in itself is a massive subject, and one, I am quite sure, that has been explored by people, academics I shouldn't wonder, far better equipped to do so than me.

In my particular corner of the world, though, there is of course a reason for people believing the things they believe, about Jews and about the Jewish national home. Here I am going to make an observation about the responses I got from people online to my questions. I can't know for sure, but it's a pretty good guess that almost all the respondents live in the Middle East, Europe or north America. They do not live in China or India, for example. Why is this relevant? Well, let's get this in the open before we go any further. Hating Jews started with the birth of Christianity. It has been adopted by Muslim supremacists (which sort of covers my respondents in the Middle East), but that has nothing to do with religion, it is purely for political purposes. It is, in other words, opportunistic. The reason those Muslim supremacists feel safe adopting Jew-hatred is that they know the people who rule the world are in the West, which means north America and Europe, and what those continents have in common, but Asia does not, is that the Catholic Church, the one that preached hatred, condemnation and vilification of Jews until really quite recently, was dominant  there. Chinese people, for example, have very little interest in Jews or Israel, because no-one taught them to hate either. They might very well hate, perhaps, the United States, not because the US is an ally of Israel but because the US is an opponent of China's global ambitions.

So, no Church no anti-Semitism and therefore no anti-Zionism. Yes, I really did just conflate those two isms, because I will state categorically that hating the national home of the Jews is very closely tied in with hating the Jews. Asking the question, does Israel have the right to exist, a question that people don't seem to find ridiculous even though it is asked of no other country in the world, is at the bottom of hatred of Israel, says that we Jews are the only nation that should not have self-determination, and is therefore inherently racist.

Now, inevitably, and you are certain to notice this as you read people's responses to my questions, hatred of Israel breeds hatred of Jews. What you will also notice, but you already knew, is that anti-Semitism did not start with the birth of the State of Israel. That hardly needs saying. But hatred of Jews feeds hatred of Israel too. Many of the comments I quote express hatred of Israel in blatantly racist terms. Does this mean that people hate Israel because it is a Jewish state? Well, some people do express the idea that a state should not be ethnocentric, which I find irrational because first of all Israel is not entirely Jewish and secondly many countries, throughout the world, are dominated by a single ethnicity, Scandinavian countries being obvious examples, but many African countries too, and of course Muslim countries like Iran.

But people hate Israel for other reasons too. Palestinian propaganda is pervasive and intense. Its starting point is that Israel is the reason there is no state of Palestine, which is nonsense of course. Israel can no more prevent the Palestinians from declaring their state than the UK could prevent Ian Smith from his Rhodesian Unilateral Declaration of Independence. You will see, from many of the comments (which you knew already) that Israel is constantly blamed for denying the Palestinians their state, and that is therefore a perfectly valid reason to hate Israel. The problem with this, of course, is that since Israel has never prevented a Palestinian state, indeed has tried to encourage it, hating Israel for this reason is irrational.

Now I do not deny that people hate Israel because there is no Palestinian state, and that therefore for them hating Israel is rational, but since none of it is true their rationale falls apart. Coming back to the issue of Palestinian propaganda, what we see, from many of the comments, is that people genuinely believe their hatred of Israel is completely rational because Israel is responsible for their woes.

Coming back to something I touched on earlier, what could Israel do to resolve the problem for the Palestinians? Could it give them land? Well, that was tried in Gaza and produced no resolution. Indeed, surprisingly few of the comments in this book relate to Gaza. It seems that since that is now a de facto state of Palestine the Palestinians have decided it is not part of the equation. They seem to be saying, Israel is still occupying Palestine, so Israel is the aggressor. Well, my question now is how much land would the Palestinians like Israel to cede in order for them to stop hating Israel?

Let us imagine that Israel ceded the whole of the west bank of the Jordan. Would the Palestinians love Israel, or would they say Israel is guilty of splitting Palestine into two parts (let's call them East and West Palestine) and that is unacceptable and so we will continue to hate Israel? I am afraid there is only one possible solution to that problem, and that would be to cede the entire land to Palestine, which is of course precisely what Hamas is fighting for. In other words, the question, can Israel do something that would stop people hating it has only one answer. No. The problem is not the existence of any of the issues quoted ad infinitum online, but the existence of Israel.

Let us go back to 1948, when the Palestinian Jews, having accepted UN Resolution 181, established their state, and the Palestinian Arabs, having rejected it, did not. The only possible thing on their minds at that time is that there should be no Israeli state, but sadly for them they failed to make that happen. So they hate Israel not because there is no Palestinian state but because there is an Israeli one.

The people who answered my questions online who are westerners, living in say the UK or the US, genuinely believe their beef with Israel is because there is no Palestine, but their hatred is irrational, because Israel is not responsible for that. They have been sold a lie, and they hate Israel for entirely the wrong reason. They don't know that, of course, and as much as Jews post the facts online these people are not listening. They know what they know and they are not going to let facts get in the way. If they understood that they hate Israel for something Israel has not done, they would surely be embarrassed and apologise, but they are never going to know that.

This is why I asked them the question, why do you hate Israel. I knew the answer before I asked the question, but I wanted them, if you like, to condemn themselves out of their own mouths. Whether there has been a point to the exercise is debatable, but I do believe there is something to learn from their replies. I'm not sure yet what that might be, mind you. If the end result is an acceptance that there is nothing Israel can do to stop people hating it, that is sad. The other question, why do you hate Jews, is of course far more complicated. Yes, lots of people hate Jews irrationally because of the perceived sins of the Jewish state, but lots of people hated Jews for two thousand years before that, so it would seem there really is nothing that we can do about it.

Which brings me, possibly, to my final point. At present, Israel is faced with the seemingly intractable problem that the world has turned against it. That may or may not change in time, but what is never going to change is the irrational hatred of Jews. That cancer is so deeply embedded in Western culture it is, I'm afraid, unchangeable. The problem now, and perhaps it is after all the reason why I started this project, is for us to understand the deep connection between the two hatreds, of Jews and of Israel, that one is easy because of the other. That it is easy to hate Israel because the people who do that have a two thousand year history of hating Jews. That any other small nation fighting for its existence would garner sympathy and help, but the Jews are not entitled to either of those things.

Which I am afraid means I haven't finished what I wanted to say. Do the people in Europe and north America who campaign for the Palestinians do that because they love the Palestinians or because they hate the Jews? I am quite certain they would claim the former and deny the latter, but I have to say I would question their belief. Their belief in the mythology of Palestinian victimhood and equally their belief in Israeli culpability and aggression is of course based on complete ignorance of the reality. How many of those people, for example, know that the reason there is no Palestinian state is simply because the Palestinian Arabs refused to have one?

Their hatred of Israel is therefore irrational. Their underlying hatred of Jews is by definition irrational, because hating an entire race can have no rational basis. And this is where I started, isn't it? The point of this exercise has been not to establish facts but to look at the rationality of what people believe those facts to be. We now live in a post-truth world where words mean whatever you want them to mean, where the truth is what you say it is.

Amnesty International can state publicly, for everyone to listen, that Israel is an apartheid state. That this is an irrational statement is utterly irrelevant. Whether Amnesty people actually believe what they say or they are just useful idiots, I cannot know. Realistically, I imagine some of each, the more educated people there know exactly what they are doing, the less intelligent just accept what they are told. That is how propaganda works, how the masses are told what to think.

Sadly, for the Palestinians and for Israel, the people who campaign against Israel miss a vital point. They are so full of hatred, they miss it completely. Attacking Israel in the media, in universities, on the streets is I imagine very satisfying for them, but they fail to understand something terribly fundamental, just as a parent who shouts at a child who has no idea why they are being shouted at misses the point. Being angry, shouting, telling everyone how much you hate something, it's all very satisfying. It makes you feel better that you have expressed your hatred. What it does not do, what it cannot do, is have the slightest effect on the object of your hatred, in this case Israel. People have hated Jews for two thousand years, and it has not made us change what we do or who we are one iota. This is because they hate us but we don't hate ourselves. Their hatred is their problem, not ours.

Hating Israel is the anti-Zionists' problem, not Israel's. Their screaming and shouting is not going to make the slightest difference to what Israel does or what it thinks about itself. More importantly, the people who actually suffer from this shouting and screaming having no effect are the very people the shouting and screaming are supposed to be about – the Palestinians. They are being fought over, but meanwhile, year after year, decade after decade, they remain imprisoned in their own myth of victimhood, by people who claim to be fighting for them but who have been immersed in hatred for so long they have actually forgotten why. They can't see that their hatred is achieving nothing. They convince themselves it is, that some universities are promoting their message of hate, that the Democratic Party and the Labour Party publicly share their hatred, but in the grand scheme life just rumbles on, because rumbling on has always been what life does. I have said more than once that Israeli politicians don't seem to understand the propaganda war they are fighting, and that sounds like I think the future looks very bleak for Israel. I might be wrong about that. I am frequently wrong about much. I hope I am about this.

Apart from the mad mullahs in Iran, probably few people leading the campaign against Israel are inspired by pure religious fervour. Even the Catholic Church is moving to a grudging acceptance it might have been fallible when it taught people to hate Jews. You might reasonably wonder if we Jews have a reason to hate the Catholic Church for creating anti-Semitism, but interestingly we don't seem to. I don't, and I don't know anyone who does. To do so would be rational, because it would be based on truth, on something the Church is responsible for, something it did. We, on the other hand, didn't do anything to make people hate us. And yet here we are, not really hating anyone, even those who hate us, just wanting people to accept us.

This, by the way, is why I am opposed to more Holocaust museums and memorials. I don't want people to be reminded of what they have done to us.

I just want them to leave us alone.

WHY DO YOU HATE ISRAEL?

I asked this question of people who expressed hate on social media, YouTube and on Jerusalem Post online.

This part gives their responses, and my analysis of their responses.

All the responses are reproduced in exactly their original form. Many responders are not native English speakers, so I make no comment on their use of the language. Some are, and their inability to express themselves in good English, let alone in a manner that justifies any kind of respect for their thoughts, is noted. Some make a play of using a cognomen that satisfies their desire to express their hate, which is our first clue to their inability to express ideas in a normal manner. Does a low intellectual level necessarily bar them from their views being taken seriously? Well, actually, yes.

Something that is noteworthy about the to and fro of arguments online, between supporters and opponents / haters, is that the former tend to present reasonable arguments and facts, whereas the latter tend to do the opposite, filling their comments with emotion, often very badly expressed, but pretty well always avoiding either addressing any of  the supporter's arguments or presenting any reasonable arguments themselves. They are almost always devoid of facts, or at least devoid of facts that can be demonstrated. They also sometimes give their rationale based on something they have read elsewhere, something published by, say, the UNHRC or Amnesty International, believing, understandably, that those are reliable sources, which of course they are far from. In other words, people who hate Israel are quite good at telling me they hate Israel but a lot less good at explaining why. They depend on other people's rationale to justify and explain their own, which rather suggests they know very little themselves and have also thought about the issues very little. This might not seem important but surely it is, surely that is the point of the exercise.

There is a mixture of responses from my three online sources, Twitter, YouTube and Jerusalem Post online. The last is an especially good source of hatred, as there are people who go to the site every day to tell us how they feel.

It will be seen that in the great majority of cases no reply has been given to my question: Why do you hate Israel? It's as if they are saying it doesn't matter why they hate, they just do. Again, I am afraid I have to conclude that hatred of Israel is especially virulent among the uneducated.

The cognomen of each respondent is shown, because there can be no privacy issue as they are by definition in the public domain.

Just a reminder of what the point of this is. Could I elicit some issue from my respondents to which I could say, well, maybe that is something that could be changed, maybe you have a point, maybe this is something we could discuss? All that would take is a rational comment to which I could respond with at least an olive branch. We Zionists are not unreasonable people, but more importantly, and I speak only for myself and perhaps my Israeli children and grandchildren but not for all Israelis or the Israeli government, we do not want this conflict. That is a really important point, one that Palestinians do not seem to be able to grasp. Israeli parents, surely, do not want their sons and daughters to go to war, generation after generation. The day Israel was founded that olive branch was handed by the Palestinian Jews to the Palestinian Arabs, and I don't think many people would say I am wrong to believe that offer, of peaceful co-existence, is always possible. Over the years of rejection by absolutist Palestinian demands, naturally some Jewish Israelis have become hardened to conflict, which is very sad, but I have never had to fight so I am not in a position to judge.

My point here, in the following pages, is to look at whether, in the words of the politicians, there is a partner for peace, and in my own words, if there is any possibility of getting through the thick skulls of Palestinians that Israel is never going to become Palestine, that like it or not the only way forward for them is compromise. From the comments in this chapter, we shall see whether compromise is something the Palestinian in the street, or on the Web, is open to. As long as their response to a very normal question is simply to iterate that indeed they do hate Israel, that seems unlikely.

And the further question this all raises is whether their hatred is the result of what Israel has done, or continues to do, or whether it is the result of what they have been taught Israel has done, or continues to do. In other words, do they hate Israel for the wrong reasons, and are they being manipulated to ensure that there is never a resolution to the conflict by people who reject all offers of a resolution from the Israeli side, because those people have no interest in a Palestinian state, their only interest is the destruction of the Israeli state?

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Why do you hate Israel?

Solly Ngwenya wrote:

Why does Israel hate Palestinians

[It is not hard to understand that people who believe they are victims will believe they are hated. Palestinians are brought up immersed in the belief that they are the victims of Israel, so they believe they are hated by Israel. Neither, of course, is true.]

Why do you hate Israel?

Mahluk @extreminimalist wrote:

Considering that videos show the settlers marching on her occupied land while chanting death to her race on top of insulting her religion, I wouldn't say the settlers didn't start it.

[Two words here are based on assumption: 'occupied' and 'settlers'. If Mahluk assumes these words to be valid, no-one who understands they are invalid is going to accept anything he says.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

namecannotbeblank wrote:

No-one hates Israel, they hate the injustices enacted by Zionists.

[I find deconstructing this especially interesting. The respondent seems to believe in some disconnect between Israel and Zionists, which doesn't work at all. And 'no-one hates Israel' is a quite extraordinary statement. I can only think what they are trying to say is that they don't personally have a problem with Israel, just Zionists, but again that makes no sense. It seems to in their mind, but it's one I haven't come across before. And, yet again, they decline to specify the 'injustices', even though that might at least go some way to answering my question.]

Why do you hate Israel?

Carolos Vela @Carl0s-Vela wrote:

So because Israel is the only democracy in the galaxy, that makes it okay that they ethically cleanse Palestinians from 1948 til this day. I see

[His statement that Israel ethnically cleanses Palestinians makes me wonder where from and where to. I am not aware there is any population transfer going on, but he offers no information on this.]

Why do you hate Israel?

Mahluk wrote:

Is there anyone in this world who likes robbers?

[His hatred is based on his sincere belief that Israelis are robbers. What he doesn't go into is what they have robbed, or from whom.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Carey C wrote:

What this article fails to acknowledge is that Palestinians have a right to resist  the illegal occupation of their lands by an apartheid state.

['… their lands ...' is an interesting concept, because Carey C does not explain in what sense lands are theirs. Does she mean the Palestinian Arabs as a whole, or land belonging to individuals? I suspect she doesn't actually know herself. And she throws in 'apartheid state', not because it would have any connection to the first part of her comment but to tell us she doesn't like Israel. We already knew that. The 'apartheid' word is now commonly used by people who don't know what it means or where it might apply, but who know it's A Bad Thing.]

Why do you hate Israel?

HeySabeena @heysabinna wrote:

Perfectly clear for a normal person maybe try to avoid the truth? Answer Coming from a supporter of killers and colonisers who can killed a child by burning him alive is “funny” You prefere killing people without defense? Yeah this is what I thought from cowards as u!

[This typifies the kind of comment that makes extreme allegations to avoid answering a question. In fact, as will be seen, very few people answer the question. It raises a question about whether they really know the answer themselves. How does one start a conversation about resolving differences with someone who believes Israel burns children alive?]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Umar Isa @ceohelios wrote:

They hate it coz it's an apartheid Zionist murders.

[Obviously, it's harder to deconstruct a comment written in pidgin English, but what interests me here is not so much the 'apartheid' word again, or even 'murders', but 'Zionist'. This would appear to be used in a pejorative sense. Many anti-Zionists believe that calling someone a Zionist is an insult, which of course it is far from.]

Why do you hate Israel?

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Mahluk @extreminimalist wrote:

Genocidal settlers don't get to whine about getting killed by resistance.

[Mahluk throws in the words 'Genocidal settlers', not because he gives us any justification for the use of these words, but because it's his way of telling us he doesn't like Israel, which we already knew. Naturally, if you believed there are genocidal settlers you would feel 'resistance' is appropriate, but compare this with, say, the French resistance in World War Two. Germany had invaded their sovereign state. That is very different from arguing over disputed territory. And genocide, I'm afraid, does presuppose the target population is being, or has been, largely destroyed, whereas the Palestinian population is growing, rapidly.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Eduardo (Edu) @edutuario wrote:

Israel is committing apartheid though. As someone that admires jewish culture and is a friend of jewish people I wish that it would be different but the abuses are clear for everyone to see.

[I like this attempt to say “some of my best friends are Jewish but ...” He doesn't detail the abuses or who the everyone is, but it's a good attempt to sound reasonable.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Khalil @khalil9215917 wrote:

Yeah euro Zionism has been the scourge of all people of the region

[The more interesting part of this is 'euro Zionism'. This perhaps refers to the common accusation that Europeans have no right to be in the Middle East. Khalil may be ignorant of the fact that the majority of immigrants to Israel were in fact the dispossessed Jews from Arab lands. This is a subject I have found entirely missing from anti-Zionist discourse, for some reason. As for 'all people of the region', does Khalil mean the Middle East? Why would the Jews of Israel affect anyone outside Israel, let alone be a 'scourge'? It would be good to know what he means.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Johan Smythe @smythe_johan wrote

Except Israel expected European countries to sanction the NGO's based on nothing but its vile #HasbaraLies Fortunately, sanity prevailed and the world told Israel what it could do with its lies.

[I really don't know what point this  person is trying to make, but I have included it because of the word 'hasbara'. The people who hate have decided that hasbara is A Bad Thing, like the Arabic word taqqiya, perhaps. Unlike taqqiya, which I understand means religiously sanctioned lies if they further the Muslim war against non-Muslims, hasbara is the Hebrew for explanation. The haters seem to think it means propaganda. Mind you, we live in a world where words now mean whatever you want them to mean. 'The world told Israel what it could do with its lies'? In Johan Smythe's mind this is true, but I am unaware of that as a general idea.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

StruthSydney  @StruthSydney wrote:

Calling out Israel's treatment of Palestinians, their expansion of illegal settlements on Palestinian territory, & other human rights violation is not hatred. Past horrific actions against Jews is not a reason to keep silent over Israel's current actions.

[A bit easier to deconstruct as it is written in English. 'Israel's treatment of Palestinians' is not defined, and so is not an answer to 'Why do you hate Israel?'. 'Illegal settlements on Palestinian territory' is of course not correct because apart from any debate about Judea and Samaria Israeli house-building takes place in Area C, agreed by the Palestinian side in Oslo as being part of Israel, not 'Palestinian territory'. What this tells us is that StruthSydney actually does not know about the Oslo Accords, and is thus accusing Israel of something that even Palestinians have agreed to. By any measure, building in Area C cannot be 'illegal', assuming of course that the word 'illegal' actually has any meaning in this context. Which law is StruthSydney referring to? Thus this respondent's hatred of Israel looks rational but is far from.]

Game Boy said:

A Thug Nation preparing all that for a “parade” is proof of its weakness and illegitimacy.

[This was a reference to the gay pride parade in Tel Aviv. We cannot know why he put 'parade' in quotes, which suggests it was some kind of pseudo-parade. Neither can we know why he felt it was proof of either weakness or illegitimacy. Indeed, it is hard to see a connection between weakness and illegitimacy.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Shau Sumar @sikialangu wrote:

The Balfour Declaration and its effects, the creation of a settler colonialist apartheid state, are established historical facts. The world can see what Israel has done and is doing. You can deny it. That's Your choice.

[Shau Sumar clearly has no idea what the Balfour Declaration said, which my research shown elsewhere in this book shows to be almost universal. In the Palestinian mind, the declaration was the cause of all their woes, which of course it was not, which they would know if they knew what it actually said. As an aside, the Balfour Declaration was British, so would that not be a reason to hate Britain rather than Israel?]

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Why do you hate Israel?

(Unknown respondent)  wrote:

I don't … I hate apartheid, racism and the oppression of innocent people. Unfortunately, all three seem to be ever-present in Israel today.

[And yet again, we have a rationale for hatred ('apartheid, racism and the oppression of innocent people') that has no rationality. I am particularly interested in the end of the sentence - ' … ever-present in Israel today'. What they are saying is that those three things are present in Israel, not the disputed territories, which they would surely refer to as 'Palestine'. I should love to ask this respondent where these are present in Israel, but I have made no attempt to do so, because the reader knows as well as I do that asking for clarification on social media just gets one tangled in more knots and achieves nothing.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

(Unknown respondent) wrote:

Do you love injustice, forced disposessions of land and resources, ethnic cleansingcreation of a racist supremacists state on land that was home to others, killing, maiming destroying and brutal suppression and humiliation of people wanting their rights?

[Like all respondents, this one clearly believes everything they have said, but that is not the point, which is to consider how rational their points are, whether they have thought these things themselves or they are simply repeating what they have been taught. And that is the point, isn't it? None of these things he accuses Israel of have any basis in fact. They are the usual mishmash of accusations that comprise hatred of Israel for something it hasn't actually done. This one nicely demonstrates that the people who hate Israel are very far removed from actually finding out for themselves what the facts are. They find it so easy to repeat the accusations that actually, when you think about it, why would they want to learn any truth? This is very similar to how the National Socialists took an entire nation to war against the Jews. They started off with a little historical casual anti-Semitism, wrapped it up in a bundle of semi-believable myths ('the Jews are responsible for Germany's troubles'), and let the public take it where they would, in a pre-computer age version of social media.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

True blue wrote:

Thugs on patrol armed by the poor US taxpayer.

[It is a common theme that the US funds all that is bad about Israel. I imagine this is in the hope that American taxpayers start to object. Of course, much of the money Israel gets from the US goes straight back in spending on American arms. True blue does not seem to have a problem with US funding for other countries, such as Egypt, or the vastly greater amount the US has spent on wars around the world. And I should add a reminder here that weapons supplied to Israel are for defensive purposes.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

grand rebbetzen wrote:

With her killing Israel is no longer a civilized nation and lost its credibility

[This respondent is not minded to define, quantify or qualify the 'killing'. On most days, more people are killed in mass shootings in America than are killed by the IDF. Apart from when Israel is at war with Hamas, the death toll of Palestinians killed by the IDF is lower than the number of homicides in the UK. If the Palestinians would make peace with Israel none would be killed. As for 'civilized nation', the respondent declines to compare Israel with, for example, China, which imprisons a million Muslims for the crime of being Muslim.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Chris Williamson @ChrisDerbyW said:

Wow, the Zionist trolls are coming out of the woodwork after I welcomed Iraq's decision to outlaw normalising relations with the brutal apartheid Israeli regime. These extremists claim that I support the death penalty even though I have called for its worldwide abolition.

[I am pleased to be able to include this and other comments by this disgraced former Labour politician. It demonstrates very nicely what Labour politicians actually think when they are let off the leash of normal political discourse. As he has nothing to lose, Chris Williamson feels free to be completely open about his hatred for Israel. Inevitably, one must assume that other, current, Labour politicians harbour the same irrational hatred but feel constrained by their desire to retain their positions of power, such as it is, in the Opposition party.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

CoolSocialistGrandad election was fixed JC4PM wrote:

If I were to kill some of your family and move into your home, kicking you out in the process. Would I be made welcome by the neighbours? It's not a mystery to most people with any sense of logic

[For the benefit of readers outside the UK, JC4PM does not refer to Jesus Christ but Jeremy Corbyn, although the latter is seen as not dissimilar by his apostles. This cognomen is used to proclaim the respondent's desire to see Corbyn, who was crucified by the Labour Party, resurrected. Rather than attempt to deconstruct this response, suffice it to say that JC4PM is one of the many supporters whose hatred of Israel is visceral and all-consuming, outweighing any rational ideas of how his saviour might actually himself be saved.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

ThunderDogs97 wrote:

I boycott anything and everything Israeli and no law will stop me showing my disapproval of the human rights abuses of that horrible theocracy. Free Palestine and Free the Palestinian People.

[ThunderDogs97 does not tell us why he thinks there might be a law about which countries he can boycott if he chooses. Neither does he elaborate on 'human rights abuses', expecting, I suppose, that they are a given if Israel is concerned. His 'horrible theocracy' is interesting. Even among the most fervent and inane haters of Israel I have not come across anyone who thinks it is a theocracy. The actual theocracies of Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other, to be blunt, Muslim states, do not perhaps trouble him. I am also interested in the concept of freeing Palestine. It would be interesting to ask what Palestine means, and why it is not free, compared, for example, with Tibet which is not free, having been annexed by the People's Republic of China. Finally, I should be surprised if ThunderDogs97 finds many Israeli products to boycott, unless he boycotts all those products that cannot work without Israeli technology, which I am guessing he doesn't mind using.]

Why do you hate Israel?

Morpheus @MistyConscience wrote:

I don't hate “Israel”

I hate it's zionist, terrorist apartheid regime

Hope that answers my question?

[This is quite a rich vein of information for a short response. Why is Israel in quotes? It suggests the respondent does not believe there is such a place, which defies logic. He may of course wish there were not. He hates its Zionist regime, which suggests he is unaware what Zionist means. In his mind, it seems it is some kind of insult, as if he is saying Israel would be alright if it were not Zionist. 'Terrorist' is simply saying he doesn't like the country. 'Apartheid' is, of course, a word he likes to use but probably could not define. He has heard it said about Israel, and it seems like a good insult. So it seems he would like Israel if it were not Zionist, terrorist or an apartheid regime. This is pretty much the same as most people who hate Israel who hate it because they have been taught it is guilty of all these things, including, oddly, being Zionist.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Ibrahim said:

its not a conflict its a clonization

[I have to assume Ibrahim is not suggesting Israel has been cloned, although you never know. My dictionary defines 'colony' as: 'settlement or settlers in new country forming community fully or partly subject to mother State'. Now I accept that Ibrahim is not a native English speaker, so he was probably using the word in a general sense rather than according to the dictionary definition. This, though, is problematic. What we have is a word being used to mean what the user wants it to mean, as opposed to its true meaning. In fact colonisation is not necessarily a bad thing. No-one, for example, would say that a group colonising an uninhabited island and building a successful community there is a bad thing. I imagine what Ibrahim was thinking was that Jews came from somewhere outside Mandate Palestine and colonised land that belonged to other people. The truth is that many Jews did come from elsewhere, but the land they settled on was land they purchased. It is this fact that escapes Ibrahim and so many Palestinians and their camp followers. The Jewish immigrants who built up Palestine were not colonisers of other people's land, they were colonisers of their own land. Ibrahim is apparently unaware of this, which makes his hatred of Israel irrational.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Ayoub Feddaoui wrote:

Subpar video at best, you left out so many details making this seems like a normal Israelis resettling in their previous lands while it is actually the biggest forceful, unnatural and unjust land grab in the history of man kind.

[I don't know the specifics but would have to assume this respondent is referring to the entirety of the creation of the State of Israel when he talks of 'the biggest forceful, unnatural and unjust land grab in the history of man kind.'. The concept of a 'land grab' is, to be honest, not one I know how to respond to, because I cannot know what he means by it. Does he think Israel grabbed Palestinian land, does he mean individual Israelis grabbed Palestinian land? What does he mean? We shall never know. What we do know is that he feels a grievance for something he thinks happened that did not. His hatred of Israel is therefore based on an incorrect belief, in which case if he understood the truth would he hate Israel? I have to assume not. What this tells me is that people hating Israel is all a horrible mistake.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

(Unknown respondent)  wrote:

I hate the Zionists who think they have a claim to what for hundreds of years was and is Palestinian land. The people who steal other people's land are intolerant and hate others who do not support their cause, then there's the unwarranted terror that IDF bring upon Palestinians.

[This respondent has the same problem as many people who hate Israel. He believes that the land was Palestinian. The land was Turkish, then it was British, and particular bits of land belonged to whoever owned them. Like most haters, he is confused about how Israelis came to own land. As Jewish Palestinians they bought it, and then when the combined Arab armies launched their invasion of the new State of Israel in May 1948, as Israelis they defended it, in the process capturing quite a lot of land that belonged to Arab Palestinians. That land was indeed absorbed into Israel, but had the Arabs not attacked that would not have happened. As for the 'unwarranted terror', had he told us what that means I could have discussed it, but I imagine it doesn't actually mean anything.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Artorias @ArchonAvalon wrote:

The occupation of palestine by zionism and the occupation of Kashmir by India arr 2 very brutal occupations.

[I'm not that knowledgeable about the Kashmir situation but I'm pretty sure the part of the region India controls is inhabited by Indians, so I don't know why Artotias reckons it's a brutal occupation, unless he just means he doesn't approve of India's claim to the territory and the best way to express that is to call it a brutal occupation. An actual brutal occupation is more like, for example, Nazi Germany putting French men, women and children into the village church and setting fire to it, or the mass rape of Chinese women by Japanese soldiers. I am not aware that this kind of thing is happening in Kashmir, but if you know better do tell me.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

HeySabeena @heysabinnah wrote:

Maybe tou can ask to Israel to stop stealing and killing Palestinian maybe they will loved by everyone? Maybe just an idea … we can try it no?

[Without knowing what this respondent believes Israel is stealing, and from whom, it is difficult to know what to think. And, like all respondents, she seems unaware that the Palestinians and Israel are in a de facto state of war, and in wars people get killed. Since Israel did not start that war, it is difficult to know what it can do to make everyone love it.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

D @dindin1966 wrote:

Try hard 2 stand in shoes u live on your land 4 centuries these European refugees land on your shores start ethnically cleansing u claiming being there  2000 years ago the world racist place 4 Jews feels guilty partitions it as if it's settling a sweets squabble between kids.

[Notwithstanding the difficulty of untangling what D is trying to say, certain things become clear, and instructive. What he seems to think is that Europeans, out of a sense of guilt for their treatment of Jews, allowed them to take over someone else's country. This ignores the simple fact that Palestine, as it came to be called, was part of the Ottoman Empire, and therefore not a country, let alone did it belong to the people who lived there. So his belief that the Jews were given someone else's land is invalid, because if it was anyone's land it was the Turks, not the Arabs who lived there as subjects of the Turks. Those Arabs then became subjects of the British, as, of course, did the Palestinian Jews there. Now let's look at 'ethnically cleansing'. This has become a weaponised expression put into the mouths of people who don't know what it means by people who do know what it means. It means, for example, what Turkey did when it invaded northern Cyprus in 1974. D also refers to 2000 years ago, I think referring to Jews living in the land in biblical times, suggesting, I think, that that does not give them claim to the land now. I would not argue with that, because it is irrelevant. Some religious Jews might make this claim, but the claim has nothing to do with modern geopolitics. The United Nations divided rump Palestine into a state for the Jewish Palestinians and a state for the Arab Palestinians. That has nothing to do with the Bible. It is modern geopolitics. What D fails to do, which every Israel-hater fails to do, is talk about this one issue. Israel was created not by Jews but by the United Nations. The haters love to blame the Jews, but the Jews simply took what was offered to them by the UN. Why would they not? That the Arabs refused to take their state is not the fault of the Palestinian Jews who did. D is therefore angry about the wrong thing. He should be angry at his ancestors.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Eamonn @eamoncgbfast wrote

Because they are an unaccountable apartheid rogue state. They continue to violate international law and have displaced 100s of thousands of people through an aggressive expansionist policy and remain unchecked Internationally because of USA backing.

[The word 'unaccountable' is thrown in here because Eamonn presumably thinks it's A Bad Thing, but unaccountable to whom? 'rogue state' is much the same, but he is equating Israel with, say, North Korea or Iran, which is interesting. The aggressive expansionist policy he talks about is presumably the land Israel found itself occupying as a result of defeating the countries which were trying to occupy it. I'm not sure why he thinks this policy is unchecked internationally, or what that means, or indeed why US backing would allow Israel to do this, but I expect it all made sense to him when he wrote it.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

D @dindin1966 wrote:

Only with right of return for Palestinians compensation and one state solution with equal rights for all can this terrible wing be right.

[Assuming by 'wing' D actually meant 'wrong', let's look at what he is saying. He makes no bones about it; the only solution to Israel is the abolition of Israel, to go back to where Palestine was at the end of the British Mandate, when Arab and Jewish Palestinians were in a state of virtual civil war. Presumably, he imagines that in that situation the Arabs would win. I don't know why he thinks that, because given Israel's overwhelming military power what chance would the Arabs have of achieving in a single state what they have been unable to achieve in the past seventy years? Anyway, it's all nonsense, of course, because he might dream of the end of Israel but the chance of Israel abolishing itself is, let's be realistic, fairly slight.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Adama wrote:

Why do people hate cancer?

[This is not really the kind of information I was looking for, when I asked Adama why she hates Israel. As political discourse goes, it has limitations. It covers the hate part but not the why part.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Unidentified respondent wrote:

what about Israel? They invaded Palestine, but they are terrorists and Ukraine's people are heroes lol.

['They invaded Palestine'? Where do you even start with this? What matters is that it is this respondent's sincerely-held belief that 'Israel' invaded 'Palestine'. How do you argue with someone who thinks that? Obviously, you can't, just as you can't argue with most of the things the haters believe. It is only possible to debate with someone who has an ability to debate rationally. There is nothing to talk to people about if they believe the unbelievable. This, if you will forgive me saying so, is why any discussion about the existence of gods is quite pointless. Religious people have something called faith. Palestinians have faith in their treasured beliefs. Faith is enough in itself. It does not require proof. Indeed, it rejects proof.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Martha Lauren wrote:

I think people hate it when women and children are being slaughtered while their homes are stolen from them and they are kicked off their own land. I despise it as the Russian army carries it out now in Ukraine, and as the Isreali army carries it out now in Palestine.

[This respondent clearly believes there is a slaughter going on, especially of women and children, despite the fact that the Palestinians are effectively at war with Israel, and yet in any given day or even week the number of women or children killed in that war is zero. She hates Israel, therefore, for a slaughter that just isn't happening, a slaughter that she is told by Palestinians is happening, but is not. Her hatred, therefore, is irrational.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Serene Halasa @serene1968 wrote:

Or because it's an apartheid state that kills Palestinians unashamedly, confiscates their land, tears down their homes, treats them like second class citizens, jails them without due process, invades other neighbouring countries, then cries antisemitism when criticised.

[Rather than repeating what I have said elsewhere, I shall focus on the most interesting part of this, which is, “... treats them like second class citizens”. How is she suggesting Israel treats Palestinians like second class citizens? They are not citizens of Israel. This is important, because this respondent, I think like many people who hate Israel, believes something that demonstrably cannot be true. This is an excellent example of hating Israel for something it not only does not do but that it could not be doing. I wish she had told me what neighbouring countries she thinks Israel is invading. Perhaps she is getting confused, and she is referring to the neighbouring countries that invaded Israel.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Paula Muth wrote:

They will lose their legal right of return to their land and property if they lose their refugee status. The question is why are they denied what is theirs by the apartheid occupation of Palestine.

[I find this one interesting. What Paula Muth has done is conflate 'apartheid' and 'occupation', alongside, of course, something called 'Palestine'. She may not know what apartheid and occupation are, but she knows they are  Bad Things, so she seems, by putting them in the same sentence, to be saying Israel is truly bad. And what she thinks this 'legal right' is, I am unable to imagine.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Jackie wrote:

I hate Israel because it is a cruel, colonial apartheid regime that imprisons children, humiliates women, forces men to demolish their own homes, bombs hospitals, blocks school access, encourages hate speech rallies and build illegal colonies in Palestinian land.

[I confess, I would also hate a country that did all these things. I shall attempt to deconstruct at least some of this. Does Israel imprison children? So does the UK, and I imagine most countries do. Does it humiliate women? Well, perhaps, although I'm not sure that humiliating women is a crime. Forcing men to demolish their own homes is a really interesting one, and how I should like to ask Jackie what it means. The same goes for blocking school access. As for encouraging hate speech rallies, I suspect there are far more of those in the Arab and Muslim world, for example where people burn US and Israeli flags, than in Israel, where I don't recall seeing anyone burn Palestinian flags. As for illegal colonies, I would hesitate to get into an argument about international law with anyone who uses the word 'illegal' to mean something they hate.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

D @dindin1966 wrote:

we know the world is boycotting Russia because it's occupying Ukraine so the world should boycott Israel or the settlements at leastI don't think those perished in the Holocaust would be proud of Apartheid Israel.

[I cannot resist the temptation to respond to D's last comment. I have no doubt whatever that were those who died in the Holocaust able to see the State of Israel they would weep tears of disbelief and joy. Can you imagine being able to tell them that from their ashes would arise the first Jewish national home in two millennia, but that like Nazi Germany the world would conspire to kill Jews even in their national home, but that those Jews would be both proud and strong, and would not submit, either to murderers, or those who excuse and abet them?]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Cereal killer wrote:

I hate it because of the women and children they're murdering.

[I have included this short comment because the word 'murdering' interests me. In law, murder has a very specific meaning, one that varies from one country to another. Here in the UK, for example, murder and manslaughter are different crimes with different penalties. And as does the USA and every country in the world, we pay men to go out and kill other people. They are called soldiers. The Palestinians are in a de facto state of war with Israel, which is why when they attack Israelis they face soldiers, not police officers. So all three of this respondent's words, 'women', children' and 'murdering' are actually emotive words used to express hate, which is fair enough because I did ask why do you hate Israel, but other than that they don't actually mean anything. Why, for example, women and children but not men? Could it be because those words arouse more emotion? This respondent is eager to express their hatred, but less keen to explain why.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

J Mickhael wrote:

May Allah protect Palestine from the daily aggression and tyrany of the isreili occupation who systematically target and kill Palestinian children? ? Full support and everlasting love to Palestine?

[Here is what I picture the systematic targeting and killing of children would look like. At regular intervals, whether that would be daily, weekly or monthly, soldiers would enter a school, load a given number of children onto a lorry and take them to a killing site, where they would be killed either by a bullet in the back of the head or some other effective method. Given that in any given week or month, let alone day as J Mickhael suggests, no Palestinian children are killed, and those who are killed are killed because they attack Israeli soldiers, as opposed, say, to being picked at random for killing, this does not appear systematic. And I should not need to say it but I shall, if a parent allows their child to attack a soldier with a stone or even a knife, in a civilised country the parent would face criminal charges.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Tomato Legends wrote:

As a Palestinian myself, you got most of the information right. I believe, however, that you should mention the many acts of violence that Israel has done to the Palestinians. You’ve never explicitly mentioned the many, many deaths caused by Israel’s bombings of Gaza, the apartheid system in place and the ethnic cleansing and the killing and imprisoning of children.

[I cover most of the silliness in this elsewhere, so I shall focus on Israel's bombings of Gaza. Let's keep in mind the question Tomato Legends is answering, why do you hate Israel. The function of Hamas attacks on Israel is to make Israel retaliate with overwhelming military force, which it obligingly does every time. If I could bang heads together to make the Israeli government do one single thing it would be to not fall for this. They know exactly what Hamas is doing, and every time they oblige. I just do not understand the thinking. The primary strategy for the IDF should be, never attack Gaza. Do whatever you have to do to defend Israelis, but do not give Hamas what it wants, which is to goad the IDF into killing Palestinians, especially, if Hamas gets lucky, Palestinian children. To understand how Hamas could do this one must stop thinking like a westerner, coming from a culture that reveres life and protects children above all. Hamas is a death-fixated cult that sacrifices children just as easily as the Aztecs did. The result is what Tomato Legends is saying, repeated not just throughout the disputed territories but throughout the world. What this person, and everyone else, should be doing is hating Hamas, not Israel. I have said it before and here it comes again. If Hamas wants to make peace, it will find Israel eager to listen. If Hamas wants to protect Gazans it will not attack Israel. Hamas does not want to protect Gazans because it considers them expendable cannon fodder in its obsessive war against Israel. So, if Israel wants to neutralise the Hamas threat it is going to have to understand that when Hamas launches missiles at Israel it is not the missiles Hamas is firing, it is propaganda.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Game Boy wrote:

What Must Go is the 55-Years of Israeli Occupation, Colonization, and Racisms. If the Jews were given a homeland in Palestine as a reparation for the Holocaust; then the European must pay for it, NOT the Palestinian. The Palestinian People are under No Obligation to cooperate with their Occupiers. The Palestinian People have the Legal, Historical, and Moral right to engage in resistance and Self-Defence against their occupiers by ALL means possible.

[Game Boy is under a number of misconceptions. Israel has not occupied anything. Israel exists on land allocated to it by UN Resolution 181. Additionally, it exists on land taken from the illegal Jordanian occupier in war. The concept of 'occupation' is an interesting one. I do not claim to be an expert in international law, but one thing I do know. For Israel to be 'occupying' land, that land has to have been someone's sovereign territory. That makes not only legal sense but it is surely common sense. The myth Israel faces is that the west bank was Palestine, and that therefore it was sovereign territory and that therefore it is under occupation. The slightest familiarity with history would acquaint Game Boy with an understanding that not only has the west bank never been anyone's sovereign territory but neither has anywhere that Israel exists, unless you choose to go back to biblical times, which I don't. Prior to Israel, the land was under a League of Nations mandate, and prior to that it was part of the Ottoman Empire. At no time has there ever been a state of Palestine, and so Israel cannot be 'occupying' anything, let alone Palestinian land, because there is not and there never has been such a thing as Palestinian land. And in case anyone is tempted to say it's land allocated to the Palestinian Arabs by the United Nations in 1947, let us remember that the Arabs rejected that Resolution. Now let's look at his belief that the Jews were given a homeland in Palestine as reparation for the Holocaust. This is of course historical nonsense. The Balfour Declaration was dated 1917.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Ned Kelly wrote:

Israhell regime must be prosecited for crimes against humanity much the same way Nazis were. The sooner the Israhell blood thirsty persecution of Palestinian ends the sooner we will have peace. We all must stand up for justice for Palestine?

[Leaving aside the tone of this comment, what can we learn from it? Ned doesn't define 'crimes against humanity', but if he is comparing Israel with the Nazis he is presumably making a connection between killing millions of people in gas chambers and Israel building houses in disputed territory, and I have to say I find such a connection hard to accept, which I think any normal person would.

As for having peace when the 'blood thirsty' etc etc ends, well let's keep in mind that it was the Palestinian Arabs and their allies who went to war against the new State of Israel, so hating Israel for something the Palestinians did does seem disingenuous to me.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Sarah Kalsoom wrote:

Israel robbing land and killing children is called wanting a two state solution, is it?

[I think I have covered the robbing land and killing children thing sufficiently, so I shall just focus on the two-state solution thing.

The Palestinian Arabs could have had a state, alongside Israel, in 1948 and ever since. They could have it now. I see no evidence that Israeli governments have declined to discuss this, when they could find someone to discuss it with who was ready to talk constructively. If Israeli governments have hardened their attitude to a two-state solution, I think that is an unsurprising result of Palestinian intransigence and violence. So Sarah seems to have this the wrong way round, in which case her hatred is misplaced. It is not Israel that is the problem here.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Andrew Chebuhar wrote:

due to the books I've read by Norm Finkelstein.

[This is a reference to Norman Finkelstein, who is at the bizarre end of the spectrum of Jews who hate Israel. He comes up with very rational and reasonable arguments why Israel is the villain of the piece, and if you were completely ignorant of the reality you would find him quite plausible and persuasive. Andrew clearly falls into this group.]

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Why do you hate Israel?

Cllr Alison Gilliland  @ AllisonGilliland wrote:

The house key is such a powerful symbol reminding us of homes lost and the desire to return. Families have been living in these internal refugee camps supported by UN for decades.

[Cllr Gilliland is a Labour Party politician in Ireland. If the Irish Labour Party is anything like the UK Labour Party, her starting point will be that the conflict is entirely because  Israel colonised a country called Palestine. Add in the Irish hatred of Britain, and the subsequent belief that the Palestinians are freedom fighters, like the IRA, and any feelings she has about Israel will be completely devoid of any intellectual content.

It is interesting that she thinks the reason Palestinians are living in refugee camps is something to do with Israel. Of course, had UNRWA not been established specifically to keep the refugees in camps, unlike any other refugees in the history of warfare, as a weapon against Israel, these people could be very comfortably living in proper homes in any number of Arab states. So is she ignorant or bigoted? Or both?]

WHY DO JEWS HATE ISRAEL?

What pretty well all of the people I quote in this book have in common is their ignorance. I mean that in a literal way, not a pejorative one. They are almost universally ignorant of the reality of Jews or of Israel (or the Palestinians, come to that), but their ignorance doesn't stop them hating, which is what this book is about.

But there is another group of people who hate Israel, and they would not normally be thought of as ignorant, in the general sense, because they are well-known thinkers and writers. I am referring to the high-profile Jews who campaign against the Jewish national home.

I want to take the opportunity this book presents to explore why they do this, why they not only misunderstand Israel and Israel's enemies, but why they feel it is important to publicly campaign against their own people. Are they actually just stupid? Well, given their professions, that is hard to believe. So what has gone wrong in their minds? Why would people, many of them academics, display such irrationality? How have they turned reality on its head, and why is it so important to them to hurt Israel?

For Israel's enemies, everyone who hates Israel is a soldier in their war, but the highest prize of all is a self-hating Jew. If they can hold up a well-known Jew and say to the world, look, even Jews hate Israel, that is a massive propaganda coup. Israel's enemies prize nothing more than a Jew who campaigns against the Jewish national home.

And in keeping with my theme throughout this book I am going to be testing the thoughts of these Jews for rationality. Who am I to subject the likes of Noam Chomsky to a rationality test? Well, excuse me, but I have no qualms whatever about that. Being a well-known academic, I am afraid, does not impress me. Well, maybe it would, but if you use your fame to talk nonsense you have lost any respect I might have had otherwise. And yes, I reserve the right to say you are talking nonsense. Being clever in one field of study does not give you a free pass to claim cleverness in an unrelated area.

Apart from Chomsky, I expect you know who I am talking about. Miko Peled, Tony Greenstein, Norman Finkelstein and Ilan Pappe primarily, but also Jonathan Freedland, who if you are in north America you might not be familiar with. He is quite bright, and the Jewish Chronicle here in the UK often gives him a whole page to tell us what he thinks. What he thinks is that the Palestinians are the victims of a rapacious Israel that denies them their rights. Now, I respect any newspaper that gives space to controversial ideas, because that is how they remain impartial, but by giving this man quite so much space the JC does worry me. Freedland's hatred for Israel is far more subtle than Chomsky's. His starting point is, look, like you I am Jewish and I love Israel, but …, so that the reader thinks, you know, he's not a hater, I'm going to read what he has to say. For this reason I fear him more than I fear Chomsky, who is at the barmy end of the Israel-hating spectrum.

(By the way, note to Noam Chomsky: if you want to sue me for this, please, make my day and help me to sell lots of books to raise money for Israeli charities.)

Here is an example from the Jewish Chronicle of Freedland's subtle undermining of the support of British Jews for Israel:

Something similar is underway with the case of Masafer Yatta, a cluster of Palestinian villages in the West Bank that are to be emptied of their inhabitants and destroyed, to make way for an Israeli army firing zone, even as Jewish settlers in the same area are to be allowed to stay in their homes. The long-running battle to beat back the BDS movement, or the effort to rebut those human rights organisations that say Israel is guilty of apartheid, have somehow sapped too many diaspora Jews of the ability to see a straightforward case of unjust discrimination when it is right in front of them.  So used to defending ourselves, we have become unable or unwilling to see wrong when it is committed by “our side”.

He could not have caused more damage if he was being paid to write this kind of thing by al-Jazeera. I get the JC's editorial stance on publishing dissenting opinions, but did they actually read this before printing it? Allow me to deconstruct what he is saying:

1.  Masafer Yatta is in Area C, by agreement with the Palestinian Authority under the full control of Israel. There is therefore absolutely no reason why Israel should not do whatever it needs to do there. If Palestinians opt to live in Israeli territory, this is what they must expect. If they want to be Palestinian, there is nothing to stop them relocating to PA territory, or what we are told is 'Palestine'.

2. It is, I admit, only a guess, but if Israelis are allowed to remain, it is unlikely they are in the same location as the Palestinians, and it is equally unlikely they are going to be in harm's way close to a military firing range. Actual discrimination would be, surely, to move the Israelis to a safe location and allow the Palestinians to stay on the firing range.

3. He refers to the Palestinians living in villages, but the Israelis, apparently, are not in villages, they are 'settlers', a weaponised word.

4. His reference to the BDS movement shows absolutely no negativity, which the casual reader might not notice, but which implies he approves of boycotting Israel.

5. His reference to 'human rights organisations' implies he believes they genuinely are human rights organisations, not anti-Israel organisations.

6. His reference to 'apartheid', without caveats of any kind, tells us he believes the apartheid myth, even if he is smart enough not to say so openly to Jewish readers.

7. What he sees as 'a straightforward case of discrimination' may be straightforward to him, but it is of course far from. The Palestinians were living on Israeli territory. If they feared discrimination, no-one was forcing them to live in Israel.

8. And then he finished with the words “our side”, to remind us he is one of us, except of course he isn't. Anyone who was would not need to use the quotation marks.

~

It is easy to call these people self-hating Jews, but are we guilty of intellectual laziness if we do that? Well, there have always been Jews who have been, shall we say, embarrassed by what they are, but was this their fault or the fault of nations and societies that rejected them so they learned to deny what they were? The most egregious example I can think of is Benjamin Disraeli, who for me is something of an enigma. You could hardly have a more obviously Jewish name, and his appearance was a caricature of Jewishness, and yet he went around saying, oh no, despite appearances I'm not Jewish at all. Come on, he didn't even shave off his Jewish goatee, so who did he think he was kidding?

For hundreds of years high-profile Jews had been trying to hide what they were, blend in, assimilate, be accepted by their Christian neighbours, and I do mean Christian. Jews in non-Christian countries didn't have a problem.

Now one of the other arguments anti-Zionists like to use, and it appears very reasonable, is that in Theodore Hertzl's time many high-profile Jews and Jewish organisations in Europe were themselves anti-Zionist, and indeed this is true. But an understanding of their position soon demolishes their usefulness to modern anti-Zionists. They lived in countries where Jewish identity was a bar to social and economic progress. So why would they want to make a noise about Jews being so different they should have a national home? Why would they want to remind everyone in the countries they had been trying to blend into that in fact they were a race apart, the very thing they had always been accused of and had tried to overcome? No, I don't think holding up their opposition to the awakening of Jewish national identity as meaning even Jews opposed Zionism holds water. A more valid question would be, if those fin-de-siecle high-profile Jews and Jewish organisations could see the fantastic success the State of Israel has become, would they oppose it now? That is hardly believable.

The Jews of the Enlightenment and later had a strong case against the Jewish religion, which they considered obscurantist and backward, militating against rationality and scientific thought and development. They saw a connection to Judaism as a bar to progress, especially among their contemporaries who were throwing off the shackles of all religious obscurantism.

Which brings me back to modern Jewish anti-Zionists. Are they doing nothing more than what those Jews over a hundred years ago were doing, saying to the non-Jewish world 'don't look at me'? Are they afraid of what they are? Do they feel a need to campaign against their own people to avoid anti-Semitism?

Or are they coming from an anti-religious perspective, one that says, we have thrown off the foolishness of religion so we must stop being different from anyone else?

Yes, I think that is all true. I think they are cowards, and that they have a powerful need to deny what they are, even to the extent of trying to hurt their own people to protect themselves. Well, the assimilated Jews of twentieth-century Germany did that, and look where it got them.

The only alternative to that view is to believe they are simply stupid, but as I have said I don't think they are stupid, and in any case stupidity might be an excuse for not supporting Israel and supporting its enemies instead, but I cannot think it would be a reason to campaign quite so vindictively on behalf of Israel's enemies.

I have no personal acquaintance with any high-profile Jews. I don't move in those circles. So coming back to the people who campaign, as Jews, against Israel online, I have no explanation, apart from the obvious thought that these people are not actually Jews at all. How easy it is, when no-one can prove otherwise, to claim online to be a Jew who supports Israel's enemies. How useful that cover is, to be able to say, look, even we Jews don't support the blah blah state of Israel.  So do these online comments even belong in this chapter? Well, I couldn't think where else to put them, and in any case I think there is a rationale for connecting people who pretend to be Jews with people who pretend not to be.

Now let's move on to some more people who campaign against Israel: organisations like Breaking the Silence and B'Tselem (The Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories), and ultra-orthodox Jewish groups.

Before I do that, a word about Jewish Voice for Peace here in the UK. This group is not actually Jewish, although there may be some Jewish members. It was established to support the failed Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, in his campaigns against Israel. By adopting a name that suggests they are Jews who oppose Israel, they have probably done some harm, although Jews themselves understand it is not actually a Jewish group. The closest analogy I can think of is if Northern Ireland Protestants set up a group called Catholics Against the Vatican. I am sure it would get some support, even though its membership would be entirely Protestant, but it would have the effect of making some people think, wow, even Catholics don't like Catholicism. Whilst some Catholics might be opposed to some Vatican policies, I think they are Catholics so by definition they approve of Catholicism. By definition, Jews approve of Israel, even if those don't always approve of Israeli policy. I am British, and I approve of the UK, even though I oppose almost all British government policy. And the word 'Peace' is another neat trick. By claiming to be campaigning for peace, this group neatly sidesteps any actual issues in the conflict. They are saying, they just want Israelis and Palestinians to love each other, but by the way those Israelis will have to stop murdering Palestinian children for that to happen. Something like that.

Organisations like B'Tselem call themselves human rights groups, but their concern for human rights does not seem to extend beyond those of Palestinians. So why does a group ostensibly Jewish in nature campaign against Israel with such aggression? Well, we first need to ask if they are genuinely a Jewish or Israeli group. Like JVP, it is very easy to give yourself a Jewish label, because this instantly says, hey, we're not here to support the Palestinians but as Israelis we feel it is our duty to alert the world to Israel's abuses/inhumanity/ barbarity/brutality and so on. I can think of no more potent weapon for people who hate Israel than Jews who hate Israel, unless it is Israelis who hate Israel. As for whether B'tselem is actually an Israeli organisation, well it has a Hebrew name, but then it would, wouldn't it? Why would you set up a group purporting to be Israelis hating Israel and not give it the perfect cover of a Hebrew name?

I'm not saying B'Tselem and Breaking the Silence have no Israelis in them, but my guess is that they started as groups of Israelis who were disaffected by having to serve in the IDF and thought it would be a good idea to voice an opinion about the situation. It would hardly be surprising if then non-Israelis didn't jump on the bandwagon, thinking, you know, we've got Israelis here who don't approve of Israeli policy. We can develop that. How easy it would be to take a few disaffected people and create very vocal groups of 'anti-Zionist Israelis'.

Notwithstanding this caveat, the question has to be asked, why do some Israelis feel the need to attack Israel? I think one answer is to ask ourselves why do some Americans hate America, and why do some Britons hate the UK? Well, of course part of the answer is that there are people everywhere of limited intelligence who can't find rational answers or solutions to their feelings and so they direct their opprobrium at the most visible target. American society is massively conflicted, especially between the left and right. I'm not American, but it seems to me that much of the vitriol in the US is aimed at people who support a different political party. Views about much of life, in America, seem to be framed in a political, left/right context.

We don't do that so much in the UK. Nevertheless, like the US we have an enormous number of people who feel strong antipathy to their country and/or just other people. One example we have seen just as I am writing this is Muslim Britons who go out on the streets to express their anger at and hatred for their country.

So, in short, would it be surprising if some Israelis express dislike of Israel? And would it therefore be surprising if, under pressure of global media that are supposed to be controlled by Jews but paradoxically are largely very hostile to Jews and the Jewish national home, those people did not find a comfortable home in a group that supports their way of thinking, in a display of confirmation bias? How nice to come home to a group that says, no, you are not a traitor to your own people, we agree with you. Whether those groups might be manipulated by Israel's enemies would not even occur to them.

Here is a quote from someone online claiming to be Jewish. I have no way of knowing if they are just another non-Jewish person who has figured out it's a good wheeze to claim to be an anti-Zionist Jew, or they really are a Jewish person who has lost their way in life.

As a Jewish American, I support the BDS movement and have the right to participate in it. In addition to the Israeli Defense Force's many blatant human rights violations, such as blowing up water wells and bulldozing Palestinians' houses, the IDF ALSO RAN OVER RACHEL CORRIE - a fellow American - WITH A BULLDOZER just for trying to protect some of those Palestinians' homes. And until her parents get justice and the Israeli government makes more of an effort to be better global citizens to their immediate neighbors, then I will continue to avoid products made in Israel.

This is too silly to deconstruct.

WHY DOES NOAM CHOMSKY HATE ISRAEL?

Some people are still listening to Chomsky, so I include some quotes from him here. I leave it to you to decide what his problem is.

One group is the indigenous population, or what’s left of it — a lot of it’s been expelled or driven out or fled. The other group is the Jewish settlers who came in, originally from Europe, later from other parts of the Middle East and some other places. So there are two groups, the indigenous population and the immigrants and their descendants

~

The Palestinians are not human, they do not deserve the rights that we accord automatically to the settlers who displaced them. That’s the basis of articulate American discussion: pure, unadulterated racism.

~

I described the Holocaust years ago as the most fantastic outburst of insanity in human history, so much so that if we even agree to discuss the matter we demean ourselves. Those statements and numerous others like them are in print, but they’re basically irrelevant because you have to understand that this is part of a Stalinist-style technique to silence critics of the holy state and therefore the truth is entirely irrelevant, you just tell as many lies as you can and hope that some of the mud will stick. It’s a standard technique used by the Stalinist parties, by the Nazis and by these guys.

Chomsky has a pathological hatred of the Jewish national home. I don't know why; perhaps his mother dropped him on his head when he was a baby. Either way, the stuff he comes out with is quite hysterical. Like all Israel-haters, he believes the Palestinian Arabs were the indigenous population, but what especially interests me is later from other parts of the Middle East. Is he unaware that those people came to Israel because they were ethnically cleansed from their homelands in the Arab world? I cannot believe he is that ignorant, which means it is a deliberate lie. A man who is prepared to lie about that is not a man any normal person would listen to.

If he is going to say that articulate Americans don't consider Palestinians to be human, I should have liked him to tell us if this is all articulate Americans, or just some.

In his final quote, this Jewish man actually appears to be calling Israelis Nazis. I don't know how sick a Jew would have to be to say that, but he appears to have crossed that threshold.

WHY DOES ILAN PAPPE HATE ISRAEL?

Ilan Pappé is an Israeli historian, but he seems to have come from some kind of alternative world where I cannot recognise any connection between his version of history and reality.

Indeed, the story of Palestine has been told before: European settlers coming to a foreign land, settling there, and either committing genocide against or expelling the indigenous people. The Zionists have not invented anything new in this respect.

~

…. the whole of Palestine is an area that was and is colonised and occupied, in one way or another by Israel, and in that area Palestinians are subject to various legal and oppressive regimes emanating from the same ideological source: Zionism.

~

…. the Oslo process … ignored the fate of the Palestinian refugees and the Palestinian minority in Israel and did not relate to either the racist nature of the Jewish state or its role in the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Europeans landed in South America and displaced the indigenous people there, and he seems to believe that that is what happened in Palestine, that it was a land where people called Palestinians lived and then Europeans came and did what they did in South America. It is, surely, common knowledge that there has never been a time when Jews did not live in the land, and yet he believes that does not mean they were indigenous. I am unable to imagine why he thinks the Arabs were but the Jews were not. Then he thinks the Jews not only came uninvited to the land of Palestine but committed genocide. Perhaps he doesn't know what genocide means. Perhaps he thinks it means displacement. I couldn't say. If it had been genocide there would be no Palestinian Arabs now, they would be dead. I do think there is a strong sense of dead in genocide, as opposed say, to population explosion, which is actually what happened to them. But I'm not an historian, so what do I know?

The whole of Palestine that he believes was colonised and occupied by Israel was in fact colonised and occupied by Turkey. Maybe that is a period in history he has not studied. As for what he means by the whole of Palestine, I don't know. What is his take on the Arab Palestinian Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, where, as far as I am aware, there are no Jews? In his world, is this Jew-free Palestinian state secretly colonised and occupied by Jews, even if no-one can actually see them?

He refers to the Palestinian minority in Israel. I have never seen a Palestinian in Israel, and to the best of my knowledge while they are allowed in to work they are not citizens so I don't see how they can be called a minority.

The racist nature of the Jewish state? I wish he had expanded on this, but since I don't know what that means I can't comment.

Finally, in the Ilan Pappé version of history Palestine was ethnically cleansed in 1948. Don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure that what actually happened was seven Arab armies invaded the new state of Israel with the express intention of ethnically cleansing it of Jews. Yes, perhaps he was getting confused. Perhaps that was what he meant. I'm going to go with that. He currently is the director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter, the UK's leading university for revisionist history and demonisation of Israel.

WHY DOES KENNETH ROTH HATE ISRAEL?

To avoid tiring you with yet more quotes, I am going to focus on Roth's tenure at Human Rights Watch, and in particular HRWs report, “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution”.

Note, first, the subtext of the title. It doesn't say “the suspected crimes”, or use any formula that, say, a responsible newspaper would use, not only to be fair but to avoid litigation. It states without equivocation that Israel is guilty of the crimes. Clearly, anyone with an analytical mind would assume the document was going to set out what exactly those 'crimes' are, as opposed to a discussion of whether Israel might be guilty of them.

Now, you might wonder in what way HRW, and its Director Kenneth Roth, were qualified not only to lay the charge against Israel but to be judge, jury, and even executioner as well. Roth had a distinguished career as a human rights lawyer, so fair enough, you might assume he knew what he was talking about, and inevitably those people who campaign against Israel would give him the benefit of the doubt.

Where it falls apart is if, having read the above document, you go on the read NGO Monitor's document, 'A Threshold Crossed: Documenting HRW's “Apartheid” Fabrications'. To save you the effort of reading all 166 pages, here is a precis.

It's all nonsense. I can only hold Roth responsible for this appalling travesty. His hatred of Israel is so intense that he apparently decided to invent  meanings for 'apartheid' and 'persecution' that have no basis in law, morality or logic, and this enabled him easily to demonstrate that Israel is guilty of them. As far as he was concerned, QED.

Which leaves the question, how does a Jew come to hate Israel so much that he will knowingly publish lies about it to aid its enemies? It is, sadly, a question I cannot answer.

WHY DOES THE POLITICAL LEFT WING HATE ISRAEL?

One of the biggest disappointments in a life filled with many was, as a teenager in nineteen-sixty-something, being taken to be introduced to Golda Meir (it's a long story) and being unable to because her security was too tight. She was in England for an International Labour Organisation meeting.

From its inception, and for many years, Israel was a socialist country, founded on the kibbutz ideology of everyone working for the common good, to establish communities, and a nation, by working together. In those days, socialists throughout the word supported the Israeli dream. Not the USSR, which of course wasn't socialist.

Note that I restrict myself to UK politics. If you live in the US or Canada, the broad principle applies, that the various parties have developed policies on the conflict based more or less on where they are in the left/right divide. It is reasonable to state that parties on the left, in any country, support the Palestinian narrative of victimhood, and the parties of the right don't.

And the further left the politics, the more hostile politicians are to Israel. In the US, the most noteworthy is the Congresswoman for Palestine, Rashida Tlaib, surrounded by a coterie of harpies with an agenda. Here in the UK, the poster boy for anti-Zionism is Jeremy Corbyn. Tlaib and Corbyn actually have different reasons for hating Israel. Tlaib is Palestinian-American, so for her the Palestinian narrative is an article of faith, and her place in US politics is an opportunity to steer America away from its ally, Israel. Corbyn lives in a world where all terrorists are freedom fighters, so as well as the IRA he has friends in Hamas and Hezbollah, but other than that he has no connection with the Middle East.

Labour is the party of the oppressed. Their policy on the Israel-Palestinian conflict is very simple. The Palestinians are oppressed, occupied, subject to apartheid, the victims of a rapacious, racist, expansionist, colonial, genocidal, apartheid (did I say that already?) Zionist state that denies them their rights, occupies their land, ignores UN resolutions, contravenes international law, bombs schools and hospitals and maintains the world's biggest open-air prison (they mean Gaza). I have to say I also would hate a country that did all those things. Who wouldn't? It's not that Labour politicians are caring people that troubles me. Caring is good. What troubles me is that they are catastrophically stupid. Would you not think that if they want to be taken seriously as a political party they would have someone who is at least on nodding terms with history? Someone who might know a smattering of international law? They think that by going on fact-finding missions to 'occupied Palestine' they will get to know the truth. What visiting the Palestinians does is tell them exactly what the Palestinians want them to believe. Their time would be better spent back in the UK reading up on history and international law and looking up 'apartheid' in a dictionary.

To Labour politicians, at least on the hard left, there is only one solution to the conflict. Israel must allow all Palestinians, no matter where they are settled in the world, to have the right of return to what is currently Israel, they must allow the formation of a state of Palestine in the west bank and Gaza, with its capital in Jerusalem, all ethnically cleansed of Jews, and they must compensate generations of Palestinians for the pain they have endured for 70 years. Since this is never going to happen, that leaves me with only one thing to say about Labour demands. If they cannot formulate a policy that has a connection, even a small one, to reality, it is not a policy, and they are not a viable political party.

(The Green Party, which used to concern itself with environmental issues, is broadly socialist, which it should be. Unfortunately, they have decided to focus on gender issues and the plight of the Palestinians, so a lot of people who supported them on the environment will now fade away.)

What all the UK political parties have in common is that they actually know very little about the conflict. They all accept the myth of Palestinian victimhood as a given, even if they see different ways to resolve that. In that, they are no different from the people I have asked to contribute, in person or online, to this book. That everyone is trying to resolve a conflict they don't understand is worrying.

But now I have to ask if politicians really are trying to resolve the conflict, or whether they are using the conflict for their own political ends. Far be it from me to suggest politicians might do anything for personal motives, but you never know.

The wars the Arab nations fought against Israel might look to the casual observer to have been wars to oust the State of Israel and give the Palestinian Arabs the whole of Mandate Palestine, but there are two problems with that idea. The first is that in 1948-9, when Egypt captured and occupied Gaza, and Jordan captured and occupied the west bank and Jerusalem, neither country did what the Palestinians might have been excused for thinking the war had been about, giving them a homeland.

The second is that the two sides in those wars were backed, financially and militarily, by countries involved in a cold war with each other. The US backed Israel, so the Soviet Union backed the Arab states, not because it cared one way or the other about the Arabs or the Palestinians. It was just a cold war thing being fought out on someone else's territory. (The UK backed Jordan, but that was not part of the cold war.)

Now, the US continues to back Israel, but the Soviet Union no longer exists. This leaves it for the left-wing parties, who are ideologically opposed to the US, sometimes fanatically so, to oppose the country the US backs, Israel. Fuzzy words on the left about the plight of the Palestinians shouldn't fool anyone. In the UK, the Labour Party hardliners probably genuinely believe they care about the Palestinians but a lot of that is hatred for Israel, which I seem to remember is the point of this book.

So why does the left wing hate Israel? Look, I don't want to get out of my depth here, so with your permission I'm going to keep it simple, and you might as well know, I am a socialist, with a small s. If you are reading this in America, I want you to put aside the notion that socialism is communism. Here in the UK it simply means believing in social justice, in the good of the whole of society as opposed to the good of those who are able to grab the most. Anyway, enough of that.

All people are hard-wired to support the underdog. It's part of our genetic inheritance. The mistake the Labour Party, for instance, makes is that it thinks the Palestinians are the underdog. In the beginning, when Israel was a plucky little country fighting for its survival, it was the underdog. The mistake Israel made was to survive, and not only to survive but to beat its enemies hollow. Hold on, Labourites, thought, that's not right. Underdogs should stay where they are so we can keep pitying them. Now, with each war the Arabs launched that Israel won, Israel began to look like a military power, and a military power can't be an underdog, so suddenly the Palestinians became the underdog. Labour simply changed sides. And the longer it has gone on, the more the left is able to justify its support for the Palestinians. What they have forgotten, what pretty well everyone has forgotten, is that the Palestinians put themselves in this position, that it was their aggression that caused their downfall. That their pitiable situation is self-inflicted.

Israel is now a rogue, colonialist state, probably white supremacist as well for all I know. It is everything the Labour Party loves to hate. Not one bit of that hatred is rational, but that hardly matters. When the sainted Jeremy was in charge of the party, the proportion of British Muslims in Labour, particularly in local politics, grew enormously. It was the party of empathy and sympathy and underdogism. And so some areas of the country, where there are Muslim-majority communities, developed a hostile foreign policy in microcosm. Bear in mind that there are almost ten times as many Muslims in the UK as Jews, and it's not hard to see why they are a natural fit for the party. The Labour Party, I am sure, sees itself as the party of inclusivity, but what Corbyn actually created was a party of divisiveness.

Anyway, the long and short of it is that, like the cold war, modern party politics, especially here and in the US, are not helping, they are making it worse. By constantly telling the Palestinians they are on their side, the politicians are encouraging them to believe that one day Israel will be beaten and Palestine will replace it. OK, I know what you are thinking. Politicians are not saying that, they are saying they are working towards a peaceful, two state solution, where Israelis and Palestinians will live happily ever after. There is only one problem with that dream. The Palestinians, the people the left is so keen to nurture and support, do not want a two-state solution, they want a one-state solution. Just as the Soviet Union used the Palestinians for its own ends, the Palestinians are using left-wing politicians for their own ends. Manipulating them, in the modern parlance, as useful idiots.

WHY DO THE LEFT-WING MEDIA HATE ISRAEL?

Well, obviously if hating Israel is a left-wing kind of thing, the media on that side of the political spectrum are going to be hostile to Israel too. There are, though, two problems. One is that whatever their political leanings I would hope, naively perhaps, that the media would try to inject some balance into their reporting. The other is simply that news reporters should actually know what they are talking about. The reality now is that reporters do not report, they present opinion.

I am an avid reader of the satirical magazine Private Eye. It really is excellent. Sadly, though, the magazine doesn't employ anyone who knows anything about the Middle East, so Private Eye frames every Israel story as David and Goliath. Does this mean the editor is lazy, or ignorant, or actually believes this stuff? Well, I think the easy route for any journalist is to follow the Zeitgeist. The great majority of readers in the UK expect news of the conflict to reflect Israel as the aggressor, so that is what journalists do. Having said that, journalists are no brighter than anyone else. They are just as susceptible to propaganda as anyone else.

Here is how Private Eye wrote a 'humorous' piece about the death of an al Jazeera journalist killed in a gun battle between Palestinians and the IDF.

ISRAELI DEFENCE FORCE DELIVERS VERDICT ON FAMOUS ASSASSINATIONS IN HISTORY.

JFK – Dallas Nov 1963. “Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the shooting of John Kennedy, but after a computerised study of the crime scene at Dealey Plaza was studied by the IDF, it was found that a crack team of Palestinian snipers, dressed as local policemen …. actually killed the much-missed President.”

MLK – Memphis, April 1968. “James Earl Ray was found guilty of the shooting of the civil rights leader. However, analysis of photographs and footage of the scene by the IDF revealed that a sniper, in the payroll of the Palestinian movement, was behind the murder – framing the innocent Mr Ray by leaving his rifle in a nearby bin,”

LINCOLN - Washington DC, April 1865. “John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln ….. Ultimately, the Confederate cause was blamed, but an examination of the surviving crime scene documentation by the IDF has shown that, as an experienced stage actor, Booth was merely acting out a role as a Confederate sympathiser – when he was in fact a supporter of the Palestinian movement.”

And just in case any reader wanted more, a cartoon was attached showing two IDF soldiers. One says to the other, “Don't blame yourself. How were you to know the woman wearing the blue vest saying Press and a helmet saying Press was Press?”

I daresay Private Eye readers chuckled when they read this. I was appalled. The editor had no evidence whatever that the woman was killed by the IDF, because no-one had, but that ignorance didn't bother him in the slightest. Why spoil a good joke with facts? Give the punters what they want.

The magazine did publish a letter complaining about the cartoon, but declined to publish any, including mine, complaining about the article. In any case, why publish a letter when your readers have already enjoyed the joke? And since this book is about rationality, how rational would it be for the IDF to kill a pro-Palestinian journalist in full view of the world? How stupid would that be? By which I mean how likely is it?

The Guardian never fails to talk about the 'Occupied Palestinian Territories', and publishes extensive personal interest stories about suffering Palestinians at any opportunity. The BBC has found itself in a hole over its biased reporting, but it just keeps digging. I shall leave it at that because by the time you read this the BBC might have ceased to exist. Unlike the State of Israel. Channel 4 news is aggressively hostile to Israel. The channel has a belief that it is an alternative to the real world and is therefore absolved of reporting actual news in a news broadcast. The Independent is simply trash.

WHY DOES THE EU HATE ISRAEL?

The European Union invited Turkey to hold talks about accession, putting aside the slightly inconvenient fact that Turkey had been illegally occupying, and had ethnically cleansed, part of an EU member state since 1974. What EU countries are far more concerned about than the idea of a member state occupying part of another member state is the 'occupation' of Palestine, in a region that is not even in Europe. EU nations fairly consistently vote against Israel at the UN, and as a bloc its public stance is intensely hostile to Israel. (It is, if you are interested, why I voted for the UK to leave.)

The EU provides the funding for UNRWA to give Palestinian children schoolbooks demonising Jews, and showing maps of 'Palestine' where Israel is.

But why is Europe so antagonistic to Israel? Well, I rather think it comes down to the same thing I have mentioned more than once. The myth of Palestinian victimhood has become so pervasive it has replaced any rational discussion. But, you might say, if so many countries believe Israel is occupying Palestine, there surely must be truth in that. Well, you would think so, wouldn't you? My answer to that is just two words. Electronic cigarette.

WHY DOES THE UNITED NATIONS HATE ISRAEL?

It would be hard to imagine any organisation that more blatantly fails to do what it is supposed to do than the United Nations. Its peacekeeping missions are renowned for their ineffectuality, And as if the point needs to be emphasised, what can you say about a global organisation for keeping the peace that does not expel Russia the day Russia invades Ukraine? That is surreal.

The UN, like the League of Nations before it, was doomed to failure the day it was conceived, but if its champion, President Roosevelt, could see what a travesty it has become, he would turn in his grave. The closest silliness I can compare the UN with is the Eurovision Song Contest, a bit of harmless fun that is supposed to be about countries coming together to celebrate pop songs, but in which countries actually vote for their friends regardless of what they think of the songs. It is a superb example of people's inability to avoid partisanship. The biggest single voting bloc in the UN General Assembly is the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation. The very name strikes fear into the heart. With its 57 members, plus the non-aligned states that are bullied and blackmailed by the OIC thanks to its oil power, it can outvote any state or group of states. The UN is second only to the Eurovision Song Contest as an example of an organisation not doing what it is supposed to do.

And the most ridiculous agency of the UN (if one leaves aside UNRWA) is the soi-disant UN Human Rights Council. The council includes some of the world's worst human rights abusers, but there is one country it focuses on to the exclusion of almost all others – Israel. The UNHRC is a parody, an agency that so blatantly has nothing whatever to do with human rights it can only be described as a weapon. It's like a school which is being plagued by bullying, and the head teacher puts the bullies in charge of dealing with bullying.

Why Israel remains in the UN or any of its agencies I don't know. There is an argument that it needs to be in to effect change, but that doesn't work for me. Hatred is like a cancer in the UN and its various agencies. How else to explain UNESCO's decision that Jerusalem, the ancient Jewish capital, has no historical connection to Judaism? That is the lunatics running the asylum. The BBC headlined an article about the Arab-sponsored resolution, “UNESCO passes contentious Jerusalem resolution”. Contentious? Why would anyone describe that as contentious? It doesn't look contentious at all to me, it looks like someone has just stated officially that black is white and white is black. Would the BBC call that contentious?

The United Nations does not hate Israel, for the simple reason that there is nothing united about the UN. It is a gathering of normal countries and rogue states, in which everyone is given a loaded gun and invited to point it at another member. The OIC and its acolytes hate Israel, a number of countries (like the UK) might hate Israel but don't like to say so publicly so they habitually abstain in Israel-related votes.

Israel stays in the UN, I suppose, because it hopes that one day the UN will love it. The UN is never going to love Israel, unless and until every Israeli walks into the Mediterranean Sea. There is nothing Israel can do. It gave the Palestinians Gaza, and that had absolutely no effect, unless you count making the UN hate Israel more.

WHY DO YOU HATE JEWS?

This was a harder question to ask, because whilst there is no shortage of people expressing hatred of Israel, far fewer people express online a hatred for Jews.

Whether this is because far fewer people hate Jews, or they are just shy, I cannot say.

I have experienced almost no anti-Semitism in my life. However, I was shocked to have this said to me once: “You Jews must have done something for everyone to hate you.” I will now confess it was said by a Catholic woman I was married to (for reasons that escape me now), and it suddenly dawned on me that I had made a catastrophic error.

Back to my respondents. What is immediately noticeable, as with almost all the people in this book, is that they express themselves in violent, hate-filled language. What I looked for, naively you might say, is some rationality, something even slightly resembling a valid argument. That the people who hate Jews are unable to say why they hate Jews, but only use language that says HOW MUCH they hate Jews, is actually, I think, quite instructive. Does it mean these people have a low intellectual level? Yes, of course.

What it doesn't explain is why people who are better educated, who could express rational arguments, don't seem to do so. Does that mean more intelligent people don't hate Jews? Does it mean hating Jews is unintelligent? Does it mean hating an entire race of people is unintelligent? Does it mean that hating people you know nothing about is unintelligent? Does it mean that absorbing hatred from other people and infecting more people with it is unintelligent?

If by unintelligent we mean not only not clever but also not a good idea, then the answer to all these questions can only be yes.

Does that mean you can now throw this book away because all it does is state what we already know? Well, I leave that to you to decide. After all, you paid for it.

Swejkcuf2 wrote:

Another proof that Judaism terrorism is clear and present danger to the occupied indigenous Philistines. Nothing less than the total removal ofcancerousJudaism and those who came from afar after manufacturing theholohoax shall be acceptable

~

Kathy 2.0 wrote:

Jews will never know peace.. A situation of their own making.

~

Willy Eckaslike wrote:

exatly .. the J owns all the meedeea

~

Willy Eckaslike wrote:

hahahaha...shows us msm books on the Hall of Cost...all book publishing companies are owned by THEM and anything that doesnt comply with the narrative is removed from sale on Amazon and every other bookshop...I think i will change his name to Simple Simon because he seems utterly naive

~

SomeRandomBloke wrote:

wow … Simon's obsession with the tribe rolls on  .. shalom rabbi webbstein ...shalom

~

James Schofield wrote:

very, VERY dangerous channel, this one.. make everyone hate another.. APART FROM THE SPECIAL CHOSEN ONES, we must all love and protect them. same old shills.. same old tricks.. so glad that most people can see through this shit in recent times.

~

Rabbi Nosenberg wrote:

To learn who rules over us simply find out whom we're not allowed to criticise !! Remember kiddos the truth is anti semitic … that's chutzpah !!

~

Sky Panther @DY1/1 wrote:

No, they hated you because you guys are the worst kind of people on earth. In every country there's a war or a problem happend because of you “YOU ARE THE REAL NAZIS”. And now cry with your only word “antisemitism”.

[This hardly warrants deconstruction. It is simply an expression of hatred at its most basic level. Just a comment about the last sentence, though. Complaining about Jews complaining about anti-Semitism is now a common weapon in use by people who hate Jews. Their rationale, if it can be called that, seems to be that Jews complain about anti-Semitism but they have no right to because it isn't a thing. I'm not sure how anyone can get more anti-Semitic than that.]

~

I want here to address the vexed question of the self-hating Jew. These people more often than not express their self-hatred as hatred of Israel, but often they do that in terms that can only be described as anti-Semitic. So, while I address the issue of Jews who hate Israel in the earlier chapter, here I want to give some thought to why some Jews hate their own race.

I imagine there are many academic theories on this matter, so if you will indulge me, a non-academic, I should like to give my opinion.

A child who is beaten by his father for being 'bad' will surely come to believe he IS bad, and I imagine that child will grow up with extremely low self esteem. A woman who is abused by her husband, who tells her she is a hopeless wife and a useless woman will surely come to believe she is both of those things, and consequently she will have very low self esteem. It is likely, if she escapes that relationship, that she will get into another abusive relationship, because she thinks that is all she is worth.

There is no Jew in the world who has not received the message that Jews are bad people. Even if they have not been subjected to racial abuse themselves they could not possibly be unaware that the Jews are a despised race. Would it therefore be surprising if some Jews, particularly those with low self-esteem, did not take this message at face value and believe the Jews are indeed a bad lot? If they did not think, well, if so many people hate us there must be a reason. It must be something inherent in the Jewish character that is not good. Would it be surprising if some Jews don't internalise anti-Semitism?

So while the anti-Semitic Jew sounds like a contradiction in terms, perhaps it isn't. Perhaps the rationale is as simple as that. We are an intelligent race of people, but does that very intelligence make us vulnerable to self-doubt, and by extension to self-hate? Looking back on those Jews who converted to Christianity in an age, in Europe, when that was desirable in order to be accepted and progress in a continent ruled by Christians, was it easy for them to convert because they absorbed antipathy to Jews from the societies they lived in? Poor, uneducated Jews in the shtetl didn't convert. The converts were thinkers, intellectuals, business people, writers and composers. People who mixed with anti-Semites and probably absorbed, if not exactly hatred then at least antipathy to themselves.

Inevitably, then, some self-hating Jews will go on to rationalise that if the Jews are a bad people the Jewish national home must be a bad thing. The paradox is that it was the resurgence of the Jewish nation culminating in the re-establishment of the Jewish nation in a physical place, Israel, that in the twentieth century created a new phenomenon, the proud Jew.

I think for most Jews, myself included, anti-Semitism has the effect of making us more fiercely loyal to our own people. We do not internalise hatred. If they hate us, that is their problem, not ours. Some Jews, though, the Chomskys and Finkelsteins of this world, are not able to do that. That makes them uniquely unfortunate, but it also makes them uniquely dangerous.

WHY DO CHRISTIANS AND MUSLIMS HATE JEWS?

The answer to this question is that they don't, meaning all Christians and all Muslims don't hate all Jews. Well, that is the simple answer, but wouldn't you know it, there is a much more complicated answer.

Hatred of people you don't know, I mean really know because you have met them and interacted with them and perhaps been hurt by them, has no rational basis, and can only come from propaganda. The Catholic Church taught its adherents to hate Jews, but that was for the specific 'crime' of killing Jesus. That's a pretty crummy pretext for hating a race of people if you ask me, but then you probably shouldn't ask me. Some Jews in biblical times may or may not have asked the Roman occupiers to kill a chap called Jesus, or the whole thing might be a myth, but either way to condemn millions of people to what the Christian world has done to us, based on that story, is undoubtedly the greatest crime in the history of the world. There is a straight line from the Catholic Church to the Crusades to the ethnic cleansing of Jews from European countries to ghettos to blood libels to the Pale of Settlement and pogroms in Russia to the Shoah. In between persecuting Jews the Church killed women for being 'witches', kidnapped babies from unmarried mothers in Ireland, and burned black cats alive. If Jesus was the embodiment of love, peace and forgiveness, his followers, I imagine, would be a big disappointment to him.

I can't say what was in Mohammed's mind when he set out to conquer peoples and convert them to his new religion. I suppose, like Christians, he reckoned his was the one true faith and anyone who didn't get it deserved to die. It's not something Jews find easy to comprehend.

INTERVIEWS TO ASSESS PERCEPTIONS

AND KNOWLEDGE OF THE CONFLICT

I conducted an interview with as many people as were willing to be questioned on a subject they confessed to knowing a limited amount about, and having a limited interest in. For thinking Jews in the diaspora, the Israel-Palestinian conflict is a big issue. For non-Jewish people in

a small market town in rural England it is not.

Nevertheless, I decided it was worth asking the questions, and my curiosity was rewarded with some interesting answers. Even 'don't know' was an interesting answer, because one of my concerns is the number of people in this country, and by extension throughout the western world, who have an opinion about a conflict they know very little about.

INTERVIEW ONE

1. Show me on this map the outline of the British Palestine Mandate.

Can't.

2. What did the Balfour Letter say?

Providing a home for Jewish people in the Middle East

3. In 1947, UN Resolution 181 split Palestine into two states, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs. The Jews declared their state on 14th May 1948, the day the British left. The Arabs did not accept their state. Why do you think that was?

They did not accept a two-state solution.

4. In Mandate Palestine the Arabs were called Palestinians. What were the Jews who lived there called?

Palestinians.

5. From 1948 to 1967, Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip, but did not offer it to the Palestinians as a state. Why do you think that was?

Political diplomacy.

6. From 1948 to 1967, Jordan controlled the west bank of the Jordan River, but did not offer it to the Palestinians as a state. Why do you think that was?

Jordan didn't think there should be a Palestinian state.

7. Do you think Israel is an apartheid state?

Yes     

a. What is apartheid?

Separation of ethnic groupds into discrete areas.

b. Where is it enforced by Israel?

Gaza has no freedom of movement. Jewish towns have to have fences to keep Palestinians out.

8. Do you believe Gaza is occupied by Israel?

Yes, in that it doesn't have self-determination.  

a. Which Israeli military units are there?

None.

b. What Israeli civil administration is there?

None.

c. Where in Gaza do Israelis live?

None.

9. Gaza is subject to an Israeli blockade. What does this mean?

Inhibits freedom of passage for Gaza to Israel.

10. Which other country enforces a blockade of Gaza?

Egypt.

11. What does occupation of Palestine mean?

Settlements and displacement in west bank. Jerusalem should not be the capital of Israel.

12. Under the Oslo Accords, the west bank is divided into three parts. Israel controls one, the Palestinian Authority controls one and a third is under joint control. What are these three parts called?

Don't know.

13. If there is ever a Palestinian state, the Palestinians want to move their capital from Ramallah to Jerusalem. Why do you think that is?

Historically, culturally and religiously Arab.

14. Where is the capital of Israel?

Jerusalem.

15. From time to time, Hamas attacks Israel and Israel responds with overwhelming military force. Why do you think Hamas launches those attacks?

Hamas wants primacy for Arab determination.

16. Have you heard the chant, 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free'?

Yes.

If so, what do you think it means?

The destruction of Israel.

INTERVIEW TWO

1. Show me on this map the outline of the British Palestine Mandate.

Can't do.

2. What did the Balfour Letter say?

Don't know.

3. In 1947, UN Resolution 181 split Palestine into two states, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs. The Jews declared their state on 14th May 1948, the day the British left. The Arabs did not accept their state. Why do you think that was?

Because it didn't have good land or access to the coast.

4. In Mandate Palestine the Arabs were called Palestinians. What were the Jews who lived there called?

Jews.

5. From 1948 to 1967, Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip, but did not offer it to the Palestinians as a state. Why do you  think that was?

Don't know.

6. From 1948 to 1967, Jordan controlled the west bank of the Jordan River, but did not offer it to the Palestinians as a state. Why do you  think that was?

Don't know.

7. Do you think Israel is an apartheid state?

Yes.

a. What is apartheid?

Wanting to rule and keep out others who are not the same.

b. Where is it enforced by Israel?

Don't know.

8. Do you believe Gaza is occupied by Israel?

No 

9. Gaza is subject to an Israeli blockade. What does this mean?

Don't know.

10. Which other country enforces a blockade of Gaza?

Egypt.

11. If you could propose one single resolution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, what would it be?

Agree a split of land.

12. Under the Oslo Accords, the west bank is divided into three parts. Israel controls one, the Palestinian Authority controls one and a third is under joint control. What are these three parts called?

Don't know.

13. If there is ever a Palestinian state, the Palestinians want to move their capital from Ramallah to Jerusalem. Why do you think that is?

It's their holy city.

14. Where is the capital of Israel? Don't know.

15. From time to time, Hamas attacks Israel and Israel responds with overwhelming military force. Why do you think Hamas launches those attacks?

To gain support from allies.

16. Have you heard the chant, 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free'?

No.

INTERVIEW THREE

1. Show me on this map the outline of the British Palestine Mandate.

Outlined Israel, inc. west bank.

2. What did the Balfour Letter say?

It gave permission for Israel to take over Palestine.

3. In 1947, UN Resolution 181 split Palestine into two states, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs. The Jews declared their state on 14th May 1948, the day the British left. The Arabs did not accept their state. Why do you think that was?

Because it was stolen by the British government and Israel.

4. In Mandate Palestine the Arabs were called Palestinians. What were the Jews who lived there called?

Don't know.

5. From 1948 to 1967, Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip, but did not offer it to the Palestinians as a state. Why do you think that was?

Don't know.

6. From 1948 to 1967, Jordan controlled the west bank of the Jordan River, but did not offer it to the Palestinians as a state. Why do you think that was?

Don't know.

7. Do you think Israel is an apartheid state?

No.

8. Do you believe Gaza is occupied by Israel?

Yes.  

a. Which Israeli military units are there?

Don't know.

b. What Israeli civil administration is there?

Don't know.

c. Where in Gaza do Israelis live?

They do.

9. Gaza is subject to an Israeli blockade. What does this mean?

Stopping food entering so Gazans have to build tunnels to bring food in.

10. Which other country enforces a blockade of Gaza?

Don't know.

11. When people talk of the occupation of Palestine by Israel, where do they mean?

There should be no Israel.

12. Under the Oslo Accords, the west bank is divided into three parts. Israel controls one, the Palestinian Authority controls one and a third is under joint control. What are these three parts called?

Don't know anything about the Accords.

13. If there is ever a Palestinian state, the Palestinians want to move their capital from Ramallah to Jerusalem. Why do you think that is?

Religious.

14. Where is the capital of Israel?

Tel Aviv

15. From time to time, Hamas attacks Israel and Israel responds with overwhelming military force. Why do you think Hamas launches those attacks?

Because Israel invaded Palestine.

16. Have you heard the chant, 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free'?

No.

INTERVIEW FOUR

1. Show me on this map the outline of the British Palestine Mandate.

Can't.

2. What did the Balfour Letter say?

Don't know.

3. In 1947, UN Resolution 181 split Palestine into two states, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs. The Jews declared their state on 14th May 1948, the day the British left. The Arabs did not accept their state. Why do you think that was?

Because it was a state imposed without negotiation.

4. In Mandate Palestine the Arabs were called Palestinians. What were the Jews who lived there called?

Didn't think there were Jews.

5. From 1948 to 1967, Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip, but did not offer it to the Palestinians as a state. Why do you think that was?

To keep a military toehold.

6. From 1948 to 1967, Jordan controlled the west bank of the Jordan River, but did not offer it to the Palestinians as a state. Why do you think that was?

It was too useful to Jordan.

7. Do you think Israel is an apartheid state?

Yes.

a. What is apartheid?

Keeping two cultures apart by law.

b. Where is it enforced by Israel?

In Israel and the west bank and anywhere occupied by Israel.

8. Do you believe Gaza is occupied by Israel?

Yes.   

a. Which Israeli military units are there?

There are some.

b. What Israeli civil administration is there?

Israel is completely in control.

c. Where in Gaza do Israelis live?

Everywhere.

9. Gaza is subject to an Israeli blockade. What does this mean?

To control weapons.

10. Which other country enforces a blockade of Gaza?

Egypt.

11. In one sentence,  how would you resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict?

A two-state solution, fairly divided.

12. Under the Oslo Accords, the west bank is divided into three parts. Israel controls one, the Palestinian Authority controls one and a third is under joint control. What are these three parts called?

Don't know.

13. If there is ever a Palestinian state, the Palestinians want to move their capital from Ramallah to Jerusalem. Why do you think that is?

It's a holy city.

14. Where is the capital of Israel?

Tel Aviv.

Why not Jerusalem?

Tel Aviv is a better location.

15. From time to time, Hamas attacks Israel and Israel responds with overwhelming military force. Why do you think Hamas launches those attacks?

To express their anger.

16. Have you heard the chant, 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free'?

Yes.

What do you think it means?

The destruction of Israel.

INTERVIEW FIVE

1. Show me on this map the outline of the British Palestine Mandate.

Can't do.

2. What did the Balfour Letter say?

Don't know.

3. In 1947, UN Resolution 181 split Palestine into two states, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs. The Jews declared their state on 14th May 1948, the day the British left. The Arabs did not accept their state. Why do you think that was?

Because they wanted more.

4. In Mandate Palestine the Arabs were called Palestinians. What were the Jews who lived there called?

Palestinian Jews.

5. From 1948 to 1967, Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip, but did not offer it to the Palestinians as a state. Why do you think that was?

They wanted it for themselves?

6. From 1948 to 1967, Jordan controlled the west bank of the Jordan River, but did not offer it to the Palestinians as a state. Why do you think that was?

They needed it for trade.

7. Do you think Israel is an apartheid state?

Yes .

a. What is apartheid?

Division of races, culture and religion.

b. Where is it enforced by Israel?

Don't know.

8. Do you believe Gaza is occupied by Israel?

Don't know.  

9. Gaza is subject to an Israeli blockade. What does this mean?

Gaza can't trade.

10. Which other country enforces a blockade of Gaza?

Don't know.

11. What does occupation of Palestine mean?

Don't know.

12. Under the Oslo Accords, the west bank is divided into three parts. Israel controls one, the Palestinian Authority controls one and a third is under joint control. What are these three parts called?

Don't know.

13. If there is ever a Palestinian state, the Palestinians want to move their capital from Ramallah to Jerusalem. Why do you think that is?

Religion.

14. Where is the capital of Israel?

Jerusalem.

15. From time to time, Hamas attacks Israel and Israel responds with overwhelming military force. Why do you think Hamas launches those attacks?

To say, 'We're still here, still fighting'.

16. Have you heard the chant, 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free'?

No.

INTERVIEW SIX

1. Show me on this map the outline of the British Palestine Mandate.

Couldn't do.

2. What did the Balfour Letter say?

Don't know.

3. In 1947, UN Resolution 181 split Palestine into two states, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs. The Jews declared their state on 14th May 1948, the day the British left. The Arabs did not accept their state. Why do you think that was?

They didn't like the way it was split.

4. In Mandate Palestine the Arabs were called Palestinians. What were the Jews who lived there called?

Palestinians.

5. From 1948 to 1967, Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip, but did not offer it to the Palestinians as a state. Why do you think that was?

Egyptian interests / oil.

6. From 1948 to 1967, Jordan controlled the west bank of the Jordan River, but did not offer it to the Palestinians as a state. Why do you think that was?

The Palestinians didn't ask.

7. Do you think Israel is an apartheid state?

Don't know.     

8. Do you believe Gaza is occupied by Israel?

Don't know. 

9. Gaza is subject to an Israeli blockade. What does this mean?

Don't know.

10. Which other country enforces a blockade of Gaza?

Egypt.

11. In one sentence, how would you resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict?

Don't know.

12. Under the Oslo Accords, the west bank is divided into three parts. Israel controls one, the Palestinian Authority controls one and a third is under joint control. What are these three parts called?

Don't know.

13. If there is ever a Palestinian state, the Palestinians want to move their capital from Ramallah to Jerusalem. Why do you think that is?

Don't know.

14. Where is the capital of Israel?

Tel Aviv.

Why not not Jerusalem?

Don't know.

15. From time to time, Hamas attacks Israel and Israel responds with overwhelming military force. Why do you think Hamas launches those attacks?

Don't know.

16. Have you heard the chant, 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free'?

No.

INTERVIEW SEVEN

1. Show me on this map the outline of the British Palestine Mandate.

Unable.

2. What did the Balfour Letter say?

That there should be a state of Israel.

3. In 1947, UN Resolution 181 split Palestine into two states, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs. The Jews declared their state on 14th May 1948, the day the British left. The Arabs did not accept their state. Why do you think that was?

Because they wanted all of it.

4. In Mandate Palestine the Arabs were called Palestinians. What were the Jews who lived there called?

Jews.

5. From 1948 to 1967, Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip, but did not offer it to the Palestinians as a state. Why do you think that was?

They didn't want to upset Israel.

6. From 1948 to 1967, Jordan controlled the west bank of the Jordan River, but did not offer it to the Palestinians as a state. Why do you think that was?

They wanted to be neutral.

7. Do you think Israel is an apartheid state?

No.    

8. Do you believe Gaza is occupied by Israel?

Yes.

a. Which Israeli military units are there? 

Not many.

b. What Israeli civil administration is there?

None.

c. Where in Gaza do Israelis live?

A few.

9. Gaza is subject to an Israeli blockade. What does this mean?

To prevent arms smuggling.

10. Which other country enforces a blockade of Gaza?

Egypt.

11. When people talk of the occupation of Palestine by Israel, where do they mean?

Everywhere except Gaza.

12. Under the Oslo Accords, the west bank is divided into three parts. Israel controls one, the Palestinian Authority controls one and a third is under joint control. What are these three parts called?

Have not heard of them.

13. If there is ever a Palestinian state, the Palestinians want to move their capital from Ramallah to Jerusalem. Why do you think that is?

They would feel they had achieved something.

14. Where is the capital of Israel?

Tel Aviv.

Why not Jerusalem?

Don't know.

15. From time to time, Hamas attacks Israel and Israel responds with overwhelming military force. Why do you think Hamas launches those attacks?

They are fighting for a lost cause.

16. Have you heard the chant, 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free'?

Yes.

If so, what do you think it means?

No more Israel.

INTERVIEW EIGHT

1. Show me on this map the outline of the British Palestine Mandate.

Blind – unable to do.

2. What did the Balfour Letter say?

Something to do with the modern state of Israel.

3. In 1947, UN Resolution 181 split Palestine into two states, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs. The Jews declared their state on 14th May 1948, the day the British left. The Arabs did not accept their state. Why do you think that was?

Don't know.

4. In Mandate Palestine the Arabs were called Palestinians. What were the Jews who lived there called?

Israelis.

5. From 1948 to 1967, Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip, but did not offer it to the Palestinians as a state. Why do you think that was?

Don't know.

6. From 1948 to 1967, Jordan controlled the west bank of the Jordan River, but did not offer it to the Palestinians as a state. Why do you think that was?

Don't know.

7. Do you think Israel is an apartheid state?

Don't know.   

8. Do you believe Gaza is occupied by Israel?

Yes .

a. Which Israeli military units are there?

Don't know.

b. What Israeli civil administration is there?

Don't know.

c. Where in Gaza do Israelis live?

Don't know but they do.

9. Gaza is subject to an Israeli blockade. What does this mean?

Preventing arms smuggling.

10. Which other country enforces a blockade of Gaza?

Egypt.

11. In one sentence,  how would you resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict?

Recognition of Palestine by everyone.

12. Under the Oslo Accords, the west bank is divided into three parts. Israel controls one, the Palestinian Authority controls one and a third is under joint control. What are these three parts called?

Don't know.

13. If there is ever a Palestinian state, the Palestinians want to move their capital from Ramallah to Jerusalem. Why do you  think that is?

Religion.

14. Where is the capital of Israel?

Tel Aviv.

Why not Jerusalem?

Don't know.

15. From time to time, Hamas attacks Israel and Israel responds with overwhelming military force. Why do you think Hamas launches those attacks?

They are dedicated to perpetuating the conflict.

16. Have you heard the chant, 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free'?

No

INTERVIEW NINE

1. Show me on this map the outline of the British Palestine Mandate.

Drew line around Israel, including west bank.

2. What did the Balfour Letter say?

Don't know.

3. In 1947, UN Resolution 181 split Palestine into two states, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs. The Jews declared their state on 14th May 1948, the day the British left. The Arabs did not accept their state. Why do you think that was?

Because they had been there for a long time.

4. In Mandate Palestine the Arabs were called Palestinians. What were the Jews who lived there called?

Don't know.

5. From 1948 to 1967, Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip, but did not offer it to the Palestinians as a state. Why do you think that was?

Something to do with US support for Israel?

6. From 1948 to 1967, Jordan controlled the west bank of the Jordan River, but did not offer it to the Palestinians as a state. Why do you  think that was?

Don't know.

7. Do you think Israel is an apartheid state?      

Don't know.

8. Do you believe Gaza is occupied by Israel?

Yes.

a. Which Israeli military units are there?

Don't know.

b. What Israeli civil administration is there?

Don't know.

c. Where in Gaza do Israelis live?

Don't know.

9. Gaza is subject to an Israeli blockade. What does this mean?

They can't cross into Israel.

10. Which other country enforces a blockade of Gaza?

Don't know.

11. When people talk of the occupation of Palestine by Israel, where do they mean?

Wherever there are Palestinians living.

12. Under the Oslo Accords, the west bank is divided into three parts. Israel controls one, the Palestinian Authority controls one and a third is under joint control. What are these three parts called?

Don't know.

13. If there is ever a Palestinian state, the Palestinians want to move their capital from Ramallah to Jerusalem. Why do you think that is?

Because it needs to be somewhere they lived.

14. Where is the capital of Israel?

Jerusalem.

15. From time to time, Hamas attacks Israel and Israel responds with overwhelming military force. Why do you think Hamas launches those attacks?

Retribution.

16. Have you heard the chant, 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free'?

No.  

INTERVIEW TEN

1. Show me on this map the outline of the British Palestine Mandate.

Unable to.

2. What did the Balfour Letter say?

It divided up Palestine and Israel.

3. In 1947, UN Resolution 181 split Palestine into two states, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs. The Jews declared their state on 14th May 1948, the day the British left. The Arabs did not accept their state. Why do you think that was?

They wanted the whole of Palestine.

4. In Mandate Palestine the Arabs were called Palestinians. What were the Jews who lived there called?

Jewish?

5. From 1948 to 1967, Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip, but did not offer it to the Palestinians as a state. Why do you think that was?

Because of Israel and Egypt's relations with the West.

6. From 1948 to 1967, Jordan controlled the west bank of the Jordan River, but did not offer it to the Palestinians as a state. Why do you think that was?

Don't know.

7. Do you think Israel is an apartheid state?

No.   

8. Do you believe Gaza is occupied by Israel?

Not sure.  

a. Which Israeli military units are there?

They have more control than the Palestinians. The US and the UK are in Gaza.

b. What Israeli civil administration is there?

None.

c. Where in Gaza do Israelis live?

Don't know.

9. Gaza is subject to an Israeli blockade. What does this mean?

Not allowing Israelis in.

10. Which other country enforces a blockade of Gaza?

Don't know.

11. When people talk of the occupation of Palestine by Israel, where do they mean?

The Palestinians don't have freedom. Hostile if not Jewish.

12. Under the Oslo Accords, the west bank is divided into three parts. Israel controls one, the Palestinian Authority controls one and a third is under joint control. What are these three parts called?

Don't know.

13. If there is ever a Palestinian state, the Palestinians want to move their capital from Ramallah to Jerusalem. Why do you think that is?

It's a holy place.

14. Where is the capital of Israel?

Tel Aviv.

Why not Jerusalem?

Tel Aviv is the main city.

15. From time to time, Hamas attacks Israel and Israel responds with overwhelming military force. Why do you think Hamas launches those attacks?

They feel the land of Israel is theirs. And religion.

16. Have you heard the chant, 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free'?

No.

INTERVIEW ELEVEN

1. Show me on this map the outline of the British Palestine Mandate.

Unable to.

2. What did the Balfour Letter say?

It promised the introduction of a Jewish state in Palestine.

3. In 1947, UN Resolution 181 split Palestine into two states, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs. The Jews declared their state on 14th May 1948, the day the British left. The Arabs did not accept their state. Why do you think that was?

They wanted the whole of Palestine.

4. In Mandate Palestine the Arabs were called Palestinians. What were the Jews who lived there called?

Don't know.

5. From 1948 to 1967, Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip, but did not offer it to the Palestinians as a state. Why do you think that was?

Don't know.

6. From 1948 to 1967, Jordan controlled the west bank of the Jordan River, but did not offer it to the Palestinians as a state. Why do you think that was?

Don't know.

7. Do you think Israel is an apartheid state?

Yes. 

a. What is apartheid?

Separate laws for citizens based on religion/colour/politics.

b. Where is it enforced by Israel?

Against Israeli Arabs.

8. Do you believe Gaza is occupied by Israel?

Yes. 

a. Which Israeli military units are there?

Don't know.

b. What Israeli civil administration is there?

None.

c. Where in Gaza do Israelis live?

Israeli settlements in Gaza.

9. Gaza is subject to an Israeli blockade. What does this mean?

Not allowing weapons in.

10. Which other country enforces a blockade of Gaza?

Egypt.

11. In one sentence,  how would you resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict?

Find a way to live together in peace.

12. Under the Oslo Accords, the west bank is divided into three parts. Israel controls one, the Palestinian Authority controls one and a third is under joint control. What are these three parts called?

Don't know.

13. If there is ever a Palestinian state, the Palestinians want to move their capital from Ramallah to Jerusalem. Why do you think that is?

Religion.

14. Where is the capital of Israel?

Tel Aviv.

Why not Jerusalem?

Don't know.

15. From time to time, Hamas attacks Israel and Israel responds with overwhelming military force. Why do you think Hamas launches those attacks?

Don't know.

16. Have you heard the chant, 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free'?

No

DECONSTRUCTING THE INTERVIEWS

Question 1.

Not one person was able to answer this question, although in fairness why would they? What I should have liked is to ask Jeremy Corbyn and his pals to answer it, or maybe Rashida Tlaib, the US Congresswoman for Palestine, but in the unlikely event of that happening I strongly suspect they would harangue me for an hour about the evils of Israel and somehow forget to answer the question.

More realistically, I should like to ask anti-Zionist organisations like Amnesty International to answer it, but actually they too would probably harangue me for an hour about the evils of Israel and somehow forget to answer the question.

This is not a scientific judgment, but I suspect the problem would be that understanding that in 1921 an Arab state was created in two thirds of British Mandate Palestine  would so dramatically undermine the Palestinian narrative that no anti-Zionist could contemplate discussing it. And if they won't discuss it there is actually nothing left to talk about. It would be like the defendants at the Nuremberg trials saying we will answer any questions the court asks other than anything to do with war crimes.

Question 2.

The Palestinians rely heavily on putting the blame for the conflict on the Balfour Letter. My interviewees either didn't know about the letter, or they didn't know what it said. This matters because the crucial issue is not what the letter said but what it did not say. It did not say that Britain would hand over Palestine to the Jews. That is very clear, and the Jews of Palestine and the diaspora had absolutely no misunderstanding about it. This is why, although the Palestinian Jews had already lost two thirds of Palestine when the Arab Palestinian state of Transjordan was created, they understood very well that the homeland offered to them in the letter envisaged that being within Palestine, not instead of Palestine. No-one in the Jewish world thought otherwise, and the State of Israel was founded on that principle, made very clear in David ben Gurion's speech announcing the state's founding, in which he offered peaceful co-existence with the Arab Palestinians. That speech is on record, of course.

The Palestinian narrative that a colonial Britain replaced their country of 'Palestine' with a country called Israel is thus completely baseless. It is simply another example of the Palestinians refusing to accept responsibility for their forbears in 1947 refusing to accept the state that was offered to them in UN Resolution 181.

Question 3.

My interviewees tended to assume that the reason why the Arab Palestinians refused their state was something to do with them not liking the way the Mandate was split. If that were true, they would have attempted to negotiate an alternative arrangement. That they did not do this confirms that no arrangement would have suited them. The sad fact is the only thing they would accept was the Jews becoming citizens of a second Arab Palestinian state. Nothing less interested them.

Question 4.

For me, one of the most interesting questions was also one of the simplest. What were the Jews of Mandate Palestine called? Only one interviewee knew they were called Palestinians. This tells us so much about how the Palestinian Arabs became, in 1948 when the Palestinian Jews became Israelis, 'the Palestinians', thereby at a stroke wiping out the Jews' history in Palestine. Suddenly, everything Palestinian had been Arab. In modern terms, it was a PR win of the greatest magnitude. If if does not strike you that way, just think about anything you ever read nowadays about 'the Palestinians'. It refers, inevitably, to the Arab Palestinians, not just now but by extension going back in history. And what is worse, this myth that was created in 1948, that the Palestinians had only ever been Arab, laid the foundation for a second myth, that the Palestinians, meaning the Arabs, were the indigenous people of Palestine. The third myth this created was that there had once been a place called Palestine, and in people's minds 'place' somehow suggests sovereign state. Thus the myth that the Palestinian Arabs had been sovereign in a country called Palestine became the new history, or what we call revisionist history.

Now I want to tell you about a film, made in 1969, called 'The Battle of Britain'. I expect you are wondering why I want to tell you about this, but you will, I promise, be glad I am. It's a marvellous film, but it contains a fascinating error. Right at the very end, it shows a roll call of Allied pilots, the number from each country who fought in the battle. The last one, a single fighter pilot flying with the Royal Air Force, is described as Israeli. I daresay you are wondering how an Israeli pilot could have taken part in the battle several years before there were such people as Israelis. Well, put yourself in the place of the person responsible for creating this for the film. Do you call him a Palestinian, which he was, but which would confuse the hell out of people who don't know that the Jews of the Yishuv were Palestinians? Do you call him Jewish? Well, no. What about Jewish Palestinian? Problematic too. None of the Indian pilots were called, for example, Sikhs. None of the Polish pilots were called Catholics. So whoever did this decided on Israeli. I don't think it was ignorance, I think it more likely they decided it probably wasn't ever to get noticed anyway. Well, they reckoned without me. My point here is to show that by 1969 recognising such people as Jewish Palestinians was already problematic. The world had decided that Palestinian meant Arab.

Questions 5 & 6

Now let's look at perceptions of why when Egypt and Jordan could easily have given the Palestinian Arabs a state they did not do so. It would be easy to dismiss this as relatively insignificant but in fact it is of the greatest significance. The whole world expends a great deal of energy, and has done for many years, telling Israel it must give the Palestinians a state. Now, let's leave aside whether creating a Palestinian state is in fact in Israel's gift, which it isn't. The simple answer why those two countries did not do what they tell Israel it should now do is not because it didn't suit them, for whatever reason. I think we know that because there would be a record, would there not, of the  Palestinian Arabs demanding a state from Jordan and Egypt and being turned down. No such record exists, to the best of my knowledge, and do feel free to correct me if you know better.

That leaves only one reason. The Palestinian Arabs didn't think to ask for a state, either of Egypt in Gaza, or Jordan in the west bank. Let me say that again. They didn't think to ask for one. What they scream about endlessly now, and are prepared to murder men, women and children for, it did not even occur to them to ask for. And why didn't they ask for it? Because they thought they wouldn't get what they wanted? I hardly think so. They would still have asked. After all, they demand it of Israel, knowing that even if they murder Israeli children they are not going to get it. No, they didn't ask for it because they didn't want it. There is no other plausible, or even conceivable, explanation.

In Gaza, they were content to live under Egyptian rule. In the west bank, they were content to be annexed by Jordan, and to become Jordanians. So why was this all right with them but being Israeli isn't? Try as I might, I can think of only one reason. Under Jordanian and Egyptian rule the idea of a Palestinian state was not actually an idea. It only became an idea under Israeli rule.

Which leaves us with only one possible conclusion. The  Palestinian Arabs don't want a Palestinian state in Gaza and the west bank. They want it in Israel.

Question 7

On the question of apartheid, my interviewees either did not know if it is Israeli policy, or they said yes it is. Of the latter, just two actually came close to what apartheid means. Here are some of their answers to the next question: What is apartheid?

Wanting to rule and keep out others who aren't the same.

Keeping two cultures apart by law.

Division of races, culture and religion.

Separate laws for citizens based on religion/colour/politics.

I found it somewhat shocking that such a short time since the abolition of the only apartheid system there has ever been so many people have forgotten what it was.

The person who said:

Keeping two cultures apart by law

was asked where this is enforced. Their answer was:

In Israel and the west bank and anywhere occupied by Israel.

I am not going to attempt to deconstruct that. Given their almost complete ignorance of the entire subject, I can only assume they were repeating what they had read or heard somewhere. In other words, they hadn't actually thought about it, investigated it or asked about it. I have talked elsewhere in this book about people repeating what they hear without questioning it.

The one who said:

Separate laws for citizens based on religion/colour/politics

then stated that this policy is suffered by 'Israeli Arabs'. He believed that Arab Israelis are subject to different laws from Jewish Israelis. How he imagined that works, given the presence of Arab Israelis in parliament, where  laws are made, and the courts, where those laws are upheld, I don't know. I suppose he was unaware of these facts, which is troubling, because that might be a common belief.

The correct answer about what apartheid means from one person was:

Separation of ethnic groups into discrete areas.

The problem this person had was with the following question: Where is apartheid enforced by Israel? Their answer was:

Gaza. No freedom of movement. Kibbutzim have to have fences to keep Palestinians out.

You can see that this response is terribly problematic. Where even to begin to deconstruct it? Do they mean Israel imposes apartheid in Gaza? Hardly, since there are no kibbutzim there. This person seems to have heard something about kibbutzim needing security fences and attached that to the idea of apartheid. Other than that, I don't know how this response works.

It is worth noting, before I leave this question, that so few people said Israel is not an apartheid state. Such is the true power of propaganda.

Question 8

The other question that almost everyone got wrong was about whether Gaza is occupied by Israel. If my small number of interviewees is representative in the UK, this is rather troubling. If people believe Israel occupies Gaza, are they equipped to make any rational judgments about the conflict, or are they doomed to see Israel as an aggressor?

Bizarrely, Gaza is classified by the UK Foreign Office as occupied by Israel. I don't know why, and I cannot imagine what they think 'occupied' means, given that there is no Israeli military, governmental or civilian presence of any kind whatever in Gaza.

I have a suspicion the government and the people I interviewed make the same mistake. They have heard that Israel maintains a blockade of Gaza, and they think blockade in some way they don't understand means occupation. And this, I suspect, comes from the almost universal belief in Israel as an aggressor and an occupier. I don't expect ordinary Britons not involved in the issues to know, but come on, I do expect the Foreign Office to. I mean, isn't that the sort of thing we pay them for, knowing about foreign countries?

In the First World War, Britain blockaded Germany with the Royal Navy. I have never heard anyone suggest that Britain occupied Germany. I mean, if it had I can imagine that would have had a considerable impact on the conduct of the war. In the Second World War, Germany occupied Poland. I think we all know what that meant. It meant German troops controlling every aspect of life in Poland up to and including transporting civilians to death camps. I only mention these two examples in case anyone from the Foreign Office is reading this and needs a little help with understanding what occupation means and what it doesn't mean. If the FO is seriously saying Gaza is occupied because it is blockaded, then I think we should be asking for our money back. Are they stupid or are they biased? I suspect they are both.

So if the UK government believes nonsense, what chance is there that ordinary people are going to know any better? Interestingly, none of my interviewees could actually tell me, if Gaza is occupied, where Israel has either military or civilian infrastructure there. This can only mean they have accepted the lie without giving it any thought. I don't blame them; it's not an issue they are much interested in. But I do worry about it, because it is just a small example of how the public perception of the conflict, here in the small market town where I live, and by reasonable extension throughout the world, is not only wrong but is dangerously wrong, because it shows the power of propaganda. And here I must remind the reader that Israel is in a propaganda war with the Palestinians, a war it is demonstrably losing.

Just one person gave the correct answer to this question. The rest either said yes, or they didn't know. Of those who said yes, one said there is no Israeli military or administration presence in Gaza, but Israelis do live there. One said that Gaza is occupied, but there is no Israeli presence there of any kind. I expect you can see the problem with both of these responses. And a third said there is some military presence, that Israeli civilian administration is completely in control in Gaza, and that Israelis live throughout the Strip. What this person thinks happens when war breaks out between Gaza and Israel I cannot imagine.

The bottom line here is almost total ignorance of the fact that Gaza is Palestinian territory that Israel has nothing to do with. Do British and European politicians share this ignorance? I do hope not, but in that case why does the UK Foreign Office list Palestine as occupied? It makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Question 9

Notwithstanding that some people thought Israel occupies Gaza, most of them, perversely, were aware that Israel imposes a blockade on Gaza. How they think that works, I cannot imagine. Some replied that the reason for the blockade is to restrict the passage of weapons into Gaza, although I don't know how that squares with Israel occupying the Strip. One person said the function of the blockade is to stop Gaza trading, which is not true as there is a constant flow of lorries transferring goods between Israel and Gaza, and one person, curiously, said the blockade is to inhibit freedom of passage between Israel and Gaza, which is kind of right but not in the way they mean.

Question 10

Most people knew the other country blockading Gaza is Egypt. Which raises a question, if this is a representative sample: why is Israel the only country ever held responsible for Gaza's isolation?

Question 11

This question was changed depending on who I was interviewing.

A. When people talk of the occupation of Palestine by Israel, where do they mean?

One person said they didn't know, and one said:

Settlements and displacement in the west bank. Jerusalem should not be the capital.

They presumably have heard of international condemnation of 'settlements', have no idea about the Oslo Accords that allocated part of the west bank to Israel, which is where Israel builds houses (the 'settlements'), and they have some vague idea about Jerusalem which I was unable to expand on.

B. In one sentence, how would you resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict?

The responses were:

Recognition of the Palestinians by everyone.

Agree a split of land.

A two-state solution, fairly divided.

These 'resolutions' take no account of what the actual issues are, including Hamas's refusal to accept a state as long as there is a single Jew left alive, or that dividing what used to be the British Mandate is precisely what the United Nations tried to persuade the Palestinian Arabs to accept in 1947, which they have been refusing to do ever since. Does this ignorance on the part of my interviewees matter? Well, only if their ignorance is shared by politicians. My problem with that is that I rather think it is, and I'm reluctant to bring politics into this but that applies especially on the left wing, in the United Kingdom, in Europe and in the United States.

Question 12

Not one of my interviewees knew anything about the Oslo Accords. The only point here is that most left-wing politicians would themselves prefer not to discuss them, because the Palestinian narrative is that the Accords should be revoked in order to eliminate the State of Israel from 'Palestine'. Certainly Hamas does not recognise the Accords.

Question 13

Which brings me to the reason my interviewees thought that the Palestinians want their capital in Jerusalem. Pretty well everyone thought the reason is religious, that the city is important in Islam, and that is a good reason for it to be their capital. Leaving aside whether Jerusalem actually is significant in Islam, why would a mosque make it their capital? What no-one understood is the actual reason why they want part of the city. And again, why does that matter? Because if my tiny sample of people is anything to go by, the world actually believes that the presence of a mosque in Jerusalem is a reason for it to be the capital of a putative Palestinian state. This myth suits the Palestinians very well.

Question 14

The other question that I thought was simple but produced a surprising answer was about where the capital of Israel is. A majority of interviewees said Tel Aviv. What I don't know is whether that is simple ignorance about a country they haven't thought about, or there is some unconscious acquiescence to propaganda. If you think I am now going to come up with a clever answer to that, I'm not. I really do not understand how so many averagely educated people can get that wrong. Does it matter? Well, actually I think it does. The Palestinians would love to get their hands on part of Jerusalem. It would have enormous political benefit for them. If so many people don't know that Jerusalem is actually the capital of Israel, how easy would it not be for them to say, well, what does it matter if it is divided?

Almost no country in the world recognises that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, which makes Israel the only country on Earth that is not permitted to decide where its capital is. The reason  countries don't recognise it is not because they don't know the city is the seat of government, but they think it should be divided between Israel and a putative Palestinian state. Given that Jerusalem, under UN Resolution 181, was supposed to be an international city, I fail to see how this would work. An international city, obviously, cannot be anyone's capital. So what people are saying is Jerusalem should be the capital of Israel and Palestine but it won't be in Israel or Palestine. I suspect people have not really thought this through.

Question 15

Finally, let's look at the reason Hamas attacks Israel, knowing they can gain no military advantage by doing so. My interviewees gave vague answers for this, tending to be based on, well, they haven't given up hope, of something or other. I think this is very unlikely. If you know that by launching a few missiles, most of which have very little chance of killing your enemy, you are going to bring down death and destruction on your own people, I don't think you would think, well, let's give it a whirl. No, Hamas WANTS to bring down death and destruction on Gaza. Palestinian lives are a currency for Hamas, to be spent in its war with Israel. This is a propaganda war, and every dead Palestinian child is another nail in Israel's coffin. That my interviewees didn't understand that is a minor matter. That the international community does not want to see it is more important. But what matters more than anything is that the government of Israel appears blind to it.

WEAPONISING WORDS

We say a picture paints a thousand words, but the opposite is also true. A single word can paint a picture in your mind. The word 'Holocaust' will bring images into your head uninvited. It is impossible to prevent it. Those images will, in turn, create emotions or feelings. So a single word, if you are a propagandist, can be used to rouse emotions in the minds of your target audience. If you are Jeremy Corbyn, 'Palestinian' will immediately bring to mind a downtrodden people at the mercy of a racist, rapacious, colonial enterprise called Zionism. If you are a black activist, the word 'white' will bring to mind all sorts of things you hate, but if you are a wedding dress designer it will do exactly the opposite. And in fairness, the word 'black' has, unfortunately, been associated for hundreds of years in the English language, the language in pre-colonial times of white people, with evil. The word 'colonial' is heavily laden with negative connotations. My view of colonialism is a very negative one. I do not believe one country ever has the right to usurp the independence of another. And yet in Great Britain we had the Foreign and Colonial Office, and a Colonial Secretary, so clearly in the Britain of the Empire 'colonial' was not a negative word at all. Here in the UK 'monarchy' arouses quite opposite emotions in people; millions celebrate the Queen's jubilee, while to others the word symbolises oppression and privilege. In the United States, millions of people associate the word 'socialist' with communism and all that is evil in the world, while here in the UK millions of people associate it with a movement for social justice and fairness. Words mean different things to different people. What can you do? The problem with words is that they are so easily manipulated, and manipulating words allows you to manipulate people. I am a Jew, and a Zionist. I'm not especially proud of either of those things; they simply describe who I am. They are factual, not judgmental, and yet there are many people in this country for whom they arouse strong feelings of antipathy. I am white, so apparently I am privileged, but being Jewish I am also despised, and to be honest I'm not sure how being both privileged and despised works, but I have decided not to worry about it. To militant women, I am a man, and that is A Bad Thing, which brings me to an interesting point. I cannot help being white, or a man, or Jewish, and I think it is reasonable that I resent being told I should feel guilty for being any of those things.  If you don't like me being white, or a man or Jewish, that is your problem, not mine.

How people use words immediately affects how other people read or hear them. For example, here in the UK The Guardian newspaper, writing about the Israel-Palestinian conflict, never misses an opportunity to refer to 'the occupied Palestinian territories'. It will ensure that this expression, in full, is always used in the headline and as often as possible in the text of an article. The UK government's website, giving travel advice, refers to the same, but not only uses upper case (the Occupied Palestinian Territories) that gives the impression they are a thing, but then puts in brackets (OPT), telling us that because this thing has a set of official initials it really is a thing. In fact there is no such thing as occupied Palestinian territory, with or without capital letters, for the simple reason that there is not and never has been Palestinian territory. I have no problem with accusing The Guardian of bias, but what do I accuse the government of, bias or stupidity? OK, let's go with both.

This is first and foremost a book about rationality, and the rationality of hatred, so now I want to deconstruct two particular words: anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

A phobia is an irrational fear. People who use the word Islamophobia say no, the word has developed, but it hasn't, it has simply been co-opted into meaning what they want it to mean, so let's stick with what it actually means. Is fear of Islam irrational? Well, we are all used to terrorism carried out in the name of Islam, and we are used to crowds of Muslim men dressed in strange 'foreign' garb and wearing long beards, looking, to the British mind, like the people in the Middle East who behead American journalists, demonstrating against things they don't like in the country that has given them a home. So on balance I should say that fear of Islam is actually quite rational, in which case it is not a phobia, in which case the word 'Islamophobia' is not a real word, it is a weapon.

Anti-Semitism, on the other hand, the hatred of an entire race, is not rational, because it is only rational to hate someone for what they have done, and how many people, say in the US or the UK, have actually suffered any harm at the hands of a Jewish person? Interestingly, it is possible for people who have never even met a Jew to hate us. When Shakespeare staged The Merchant of Venice, he cast Shylock as the archetypal avaricious Jew. He created a character something akin to a pantomime villain that people would boo when he came on the stage. And yet Shakespeare knew that probably no-one in his audience had ever actually met a Jew, what with England having been ethnically cleansed of Jews 300 years before. Three centuries, you would imagine, would suffice to erase any folk memory of Jews but no, the audience knew who to hate. And do we know that Shakespeare's audiences didn't boo?

(And don't you find it interesting, and instructive, that in an age where no-one must ever be upset, where audiences must be protected from anything offensive, neither the Royal Shakespeare Company nor any other theatre ever worries about performing such an obviously anti-Semitic play? Modern audiences wouldn't boo, but are they doing just that in their heads?)

Jeremy Corbyn claims to love Jews but hate the Jewish national home. In his head that works, but he misses the point that Jews tend to love Israel, so it doesn't work for us. (Fair enough, his hatred of Israel is based on his total ignorance of the history and is thus itself irrational, but no-one would claim Corbyn is very bright.)

Anyway, this is supposed to be an introduction to the chapter on how words are weaponised, so let's get into that now.

“APARTHEID”

This is an excerpt from my novel, The Copenhagen Protocols, due for publication some time in 2023.

The motion was: This house believes the United Nations should take action against the apartheid state of Israel.

On the principle that anyone should be able to argue either side of the question, the motion was proposed and opposed by students who were picked from as far as possible a range of backgrounds. The proposer was Justin Hardy, an English literature student who had done well in previous debates and appeared to be able to argue on a variety of subjects. His seconder was Yusuf Khan.

Opposing the motion was Orla O'Kane. Orla had a BA from Queen's University Belfast and was at Brent doing a Master's in Gender Studies. She had no experience of debate but was an outgoing character and had strong opinions and people expected a lively debate if she was involved. Her seconder was Daniel Harris, a Jewish, American-born Londoner doing an MBA.

Justin's argument was pretty well what you would expect. The Palestinian people had been on the land since time immemorial and their rights were inhumanly suppressed by the Zionist state of Israel. The Jews didn't belong there and had only gained a foothold because the world felt guilty about the holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany, none of which was the Palestinians' fault. He made these points emotively, and he could tell his audience liked what he was saying. He warmed to his subject, and you felt that he really believed in what he was saying. He sat down to more than polite applause and felt he had done a good job. Orla O'Kane looked slightly worried, and looking at her you might have felt she was unsure of her ground after this performance.

However, she had all the facts and figures at her fingertips, neatly typed out on cards which she read from in turn, putting each one down on the table as it was done with as if to say yes, that point has been made. She countered Justin's arguments, which hadn't been hard for her to guess at, with efficiency, if with somewhat less emotion. She had very little interest in the subject and had only agreed to oppose the motion because no-one else would and she was a stalwart attendee of the debating society so didn't want to let people down. Nonetheless, she had done her research well, and for everything Justin had come up with she had a retort. Yes, the Palestinians had been there a long time but then so had the Jews. Not so much, perhaps, in recent history, but no-one could dispute their ancient ties to the land. When she said this she got the feeling that claims based on biblical precedent weren't going down particularly well in Brent. Nevertheless she pushed on, and no-one could argue that her case was not well put. Whether is would be enough remained to be seen.

Then it was Yusuf's turn. He had been prepared by the Union of Muslim Students and whilst he was not by any means a natural debater he managed to say everything they wanted him to say well enough. Their main concern was that he represented Islam, and that in turn gave him the right to speak for the Palestinian people, and they were right in thinking that Brent University students would respond well to having their very own Palestinian on campus, even though everyone knew in reality that he was Pakistani. It was one of those we're all Palestinians moments.

By the time Daniel Harris stood up, he could have been forgiven for thinking it was a lost cause. Looking at his audience, he thought he detected in them a look that said it was time to wind this up because there's nothing more to say. Well, what he said first was that he was himself descended from Palestinians, and that woke them out of their complacency. Even Justin Hardy sat up when he heard this. Daniel's great great great grandfather had fled as a young boy to Palestine, then part of Turkish Syria, to escape conscription by the Tsarist army, which meant twenty years and almost certain death. After the first world war, when Great Britain was given a mandate by the League of Nations to govern Palestine, Daniel's grandparents were both teachers in Amman, but in 1922, when the League hived off three quarters of Palestine and called it Transjordan, they fled west, across the River Jordan, to what remained of Palestine, and settled in Jerusalem. One of their children married an American, which was why Daniel was born in Boston. This short introduction took less than two minutes, but it changed the atmosphere in the debating chamber substantially, and even the people who had been listening only half-heartedly up until now were sitting forward on their seats, and that included Yusuf Khan. The very idea of Jewish Palestinians was a new one to him. Justin sat with his arms crossed in a posture of defiance.

Daniel's second surprise was when he said he had no intention of debating the motion. People started to look worried at this point. What did he mean? What he meant, he said, was, firstly, that with respect to his fellow students, neither member of the proposing team had actually addressed the motion. They had put a case, of sorts, for a Palestinian state, but the motion was very clearly worded and they had ignored it. On that basis alone, he stated, the motion could not be carried, because there had effectively been no proposition. It was not for the opposers to prove anything, it was up to the proposers to state their case on the basis of innocent until proven guilty, and they patently had not done this. He was quite correct of course. They had been so busy stating the obvious they thought that would be enough, but the president of the debating society looked worried because he had clearly missed this vital point. In any case, it was academic, because Daniel didn't leave anyone time to ponder this matter, because it was only his opening shot.

The motion, he said, referred to the apartheid state of Israel. No-one had addressed the wording of this, and he would now set out to show that with the existing wording the motion was invalid and could not be carried. The motion was based on an assumption that the State of Israel conducted a policy of apartheid. The motion could be carried only if this were true. If it were not, the motion simply had no validity, as it would effectively be proven there was no such thing as the apartheid state of Israel, and there would therefore be no motion to oppose. People started shuffling in their seats. Orla looked worried, not that Daniel might actually win this debate, which she really thought he might, even at this stage, because here was a man who was in another class altogether, but that he was only her second and she should have known what he was going to say.

Apartheid, Daniel said, needed to be defined before going any further. This, he said, as he looked around the room, went without saying, except that he had said it. Apartheid was, as everyone knew, an Afrikaans word, and the reason for that was that it referred very specifically to a policy of the government of the Republic of South Africa. Under that policy, South African citizens were classified according to their race. Each race had rights limited by that classification. So the word apartheid referred to a policy strictly concerning the citizens of one's own country. It could not, obviously, concern citizens of any other country. The Republic of South Africa could not have conducted such a policy against the citizens of, for example, Namibia or Botswana, neighbouring sovereign states, any more than the UK government could impose regulations on the people of the Republic of Ireland. South Africa could not even carry out such a policy against the people of Lesotho or Swaziland. He paused here to allow members of the audience to try and picture in their minds where these two countries were, surrounded by South Africa. So before going any further, one part of the definition of apartheid must be that it is a policy imposed on the citizens of a country by the government of that country.

Daniel now turned to the audience in general and asked them a rhetorical question. When Israel was called an apartheid state, which of its citizens was it supposed to impose a policy of apartheid on? Clearly, Jewish Israelis had no complaint in this way, so let us, he said, look at other Israelis. This meant Christian and Muslim Arabs who may identify as Palestinian but had full Israeli citizenship, and Druze ditto, and Bedouin, ditto. The only restriction on Arab Israelis, other than the Bedouin, was that they were not conscripted to serve in the military. They could volunteer, although some branches, like the Air Force, were closed to them. And whilst it was true that Arab Israelis suffered a certain amount of prejudice among the Jewish population, which, Daniel added as an aside, was perhaps understandable as their loyalty was highly questionable, no restrictions were imposed on their lives as Israeli citizens. Unlike black South Africans, they were not segregated in schools, public parks, transport or indeed where they could reside. They were not subject to arbitrary searches and arrest by the police. They could vote, they could stand in local council elections and in parliamentary elections. Given that Arabs were local councillors, mayors, members of the Knesset and even High Court judges, where exactly, Daniel again asked rhetorically, was the policy of apartheid? Now, he said, let's look at Palestinians in the disputed territories, in Gaza and the West Bank. If these people suffered any policy of apartheid, then that was imposed upon them by their government, which was effectively Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. Those people, he said, were effectively living in another state. They couldn't be kept separate from Israelis because no Israelis lived where they did.

Daniel took a moment to let all of this sink in. Apartheid, he said, looking at individual members of the audience and making them feel uncomfortable, was simply a term people had heard of, had little or no understanding of what it actually meant but knew it was a bad thing, and had attached it to the State of Israel maliciously without stopping for a single second to think what it meant and what actually happened in Israel. It was, in short, a propaganda word, used by people who didn't know what it meant and believed by people who didn't know what it meant. It was also, he said, an insult to the people of South Africa who had suffered under a white supremacist regime but had fought courageously and won their freedom, with the support of many in the first world, like his own parents he said, who took action on their behalf. To use the word in the same breath as Israel was stupid and ignorant, but most of all it was lazy. It meant not having to think, something to say that sounded meaningful but wasn't. He trusted, he said, that no-one in that room would ever think or say such a stupid thing again.

The room was silent for a while while this sank in. It was probably the most cogent, the most powerful speech ever made at the Brent University debating society. It was, in short, utterly indisputable.

When he finally sat down, he was politely applauded. Nevertheless, when it came to the vote the motion was carried.

~

It's fiction, but it is of course based on an observation, that once people know something they know it, and telling them the truth is a waste of breath, because people don't want the truth, they want confirmation that what they know is right. And when what they know confirms that they are right to feel strongly about something, let's say hate something, they will not be interested in learning facts that contradict their cherished belief.

Now I completely accept that if, say, we tried to explain to someone who accuses Israel of apartheid that it is a calumny, they would say I would say that, wouldn't I, because I'm a Zionist. And if I gave them incontrovertible proof that it is a lie, they would metaphorically stick their fingers in their ears, because they have a lot invested in their belief. They will, for example, spend time on the Web reading other people who think like they do confirming that they are right.

Can you imagine anyone in Nazi Germany saying, hold on, I'll just hop across the Channel and ask the British if Hitler is right? Can you imagine anyone, let's say for example in Amnesty International, saying, hold on, the Zionists say there is no apartheid in Israel so I'm going to go to Israel and find out for myself? People take their evidence from people who confirm what they need to believe. That's confirmation bias.

And yes, they might say, well, confirmation bias works for everyone, so Israelis only want to see evidence one way, they don't want to see the evidence that there IS apartheid. The problem with that is that if it were the case, people like Amnesty would set out to prove apartheid to Israelis. To the best of my knowledge neither they nor any of their fellow travellers have ever tried to do that. In a court of law the accuser has to prove that their accusation is correct. Well, Amnesty and a lot of other people and organisations claim Israel is an apartheid state, but no, the one thing they never do is publicly demonstrate it. They issue all sorts of 'facts', but those facts are not facts at all, they are confirmation bias, the facts they want to present, minus the facts they don't want to present. Just as a prosecution lawyer in court never provides the jury with the defence's case, Amnesty does not present the arguments against their case. They present their case and hope that people will not question it, which of course they don't, because the funny thing about the apartheid claim is that it is only ever presented by people who want to believe it to other people who want to believe it.

Having said that, you would think there is nothing to add, but I am afraid there is, because the haters don't just gather in their cabals and share their hate, they spread their hate. And who do they spread it to? Well, anyone who will listen, obviously, but there is a group of people they especially target, people whom the haters know they have to persuade. Those people are young Jews, especially young Jews in university.

Students are strange people, and the people who teach them, the academics, are also strange people. I say this despite never having been one of the first and therefore never having had much to do with the second. I am quite uneducated, having fallen foul of the English educational system which placed me in an old-fashioned grammar school that nurtured boys who fitted in and abandoned boys who didn't.

All this is by the by, actually. My point is that the world of higher education is not quite joined up with the world the rest of us inhabit. My only concern here is that what we are seeing currently in our universities is somewhat outwith the reality that governs normal life. For example, as I write, the leader of the National Union of Students can make statements that are openly racist and get away with it. Her statements have actually been so egregiously awful that she hasn't quite got away with it because the government has been forced, as a result, to withdraw its support for the union. Has this stopped her? Has it made the NUS say, hold on, we may have overstepped the mark here? No, I wouldn't say so. The union feels no compunction whatever about making Jewish students not only feel alienated but actually threatened. God forbid, though, that the leader of the union would use the wrong personal pronoun when addressing a member. That, of course, would be quite beyond the pale. Saying terrible things about Israel, which most Jews hold dear, is another matter. That is absolutely acceptable.

Back to my point, which is that Jewish students are vulnerable. This is not different from the Jews of two hundred years ago who converted to Christianity in the hope they would be accepted by the Christian world. Now, students are converting to anti-Zionism, in the hope of fitting in with the world that hates Israel. They don't understand why they are doing it. They don't even know they ARE doing it, but they are. Going along with anti-Zionism buys them acceptance. In any case, so pervasive is the anti-Israel narrative now in academia that who would not wonder if there is not some truth in it? I have lived for seventy years, and I have developed an ability to know when I am being sold a pup. I do not expect a teenager to be able to do that.

If everyone in your university is saying Israel is an apartheid state that colonised a country called Palestine, if even the faculty are saying it, then you are going, in the end, to believe it. They don't have to prove it to you, they just have to keep saying it. That is the nature of propaganda. It doesn't have to be true, it just has to be repeated often enough until it becomes true.

I am not going to go here into why the haters are wrong to claim Israel is an apartheid state. I should not need to. Instead, I am going to explain the most important weapon they have in their arsenal, and this explanation (which many readers will already know but it's worth explaining), changes the question into another question.

They change the meaning of apartheid. Doing this enables them, they believe, to show that Israel IS an apartheid state. Not because they have proved anything about Israel but because they have redefined apartheid to fit their accusation. It's like a prosecution lawyer saying no, well, maybe you didn't murder the victim, but you did give him the gun he shot himself with and we are now going to call that murder. I think a jury would have grave doubts about that.

I remember very clearly what apartheid was. I played a small part, a very small part, in fighting the apartheid regime in South Africa. Without even going, yet, into what apartheid was, I want to make one vital point. It was a policy imposed by the government of South Africa on the citizens of South Africa. Please hold that thought, because it overrides all others. Whatever the Israeli government does or does not do, I want you to read everything I say in the light of that statement. Apartheid cannot be imposed by a government of one country on the citizens of another country. I should not have to say that, of course. It is self evident.

The respondents to my question, why do you hate Israel?, regularly say they hate the country because it is an apartheid state. What they never do is:

1. Define apartheid

2. Show where it is practised.

In all the time I have spent trawling through the swamp of hatred I have never, not even once, found anyone saying they hate Israel because it is an apartheid state addressing either of these two issues. They will often quote authorities like Amnesty International but of course that is a circular argument. Amnesty is the organisation that changed the meaning of apartheid to fit their narrative. What Amnesty has done is to say, no, well, Israel is not practising actual apartheid, but hold on, if we change apartheid to mean this, well, then they ARE guilty. See? Case proved.

It is like the prosecution lawyer telling a jury he is going to present no evidence whatever that the accused is guilty, but he assures them it is true and he would like them to condemn him anyway. This is exactly where Israel is right now in the court of international public opinion. Trying to defend itself against an accusation of something and failing because what it is trying to defend itself against is not what its accusers mean.

This is how I know that's true. Here is an exchange I had with @Enjoyvoyager on Twitter:

@Enjoyvoyager: Every checkpoint, Israeli and Palestinians different types of passports for movement. Bring down the checkpoints and give Palestinians the exactly same rights on passport as a start.

Me: That's what you think apartheid is, is it, different nationalities having different passports?

@Enjoyvoyager: The suppression of movement is apartheid yes.

There you have it from the horse's mouth, an unequivocal statement about what apartheid is, and a good reason for hating Israel. This book is, remember, a study of the rationality of that hatred, and here we have someone hating Israel because they believe the unbelievable.

“GENOCIDE”

This is the question I asked people:

Please explain what you mean by 'genocide'. This is a research question, not a criticism, so tell me what you feel genocide is and in what way Israel is guilty of it.

The answer I got from respondents was that genocide is what Israel does. That, of course, is a circular argument, which avoids actually answering the question. 'Genocide' has become a popular word in recent years. Just as anyone you don't like is a Nazi, a war in which civilians are killed is now genocide. At the time of writing, during the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Ukrainian civilians are dying and their government is saying this is genocide. This is patent nonsense.  This is my dictionary's definition of genocide: “The deliberate extermination of a race of people”. Is Russia setting out to exterminate the entire Ukrainian people? I hardly think so. What they are doing is reprehensible and unforgivable, but it is war, nothing more. When Nazi Germany invaded France, very many French civilians were killed, but we know for sure that the only genocide the Germans were planning in France was of the French Jews and Gypsies, not the French race.

For Ukraine to accuse Russia of genocide is not only foolish, it diminishes the meaning of the word, and it also diminishes the seriousness of what Russia IS doing. There is no need for hyperbole in order to tell the world that Russia is doing something very bad indeed.

When people accuse Israel of genocide, they don't know what it means but they know it is A Bad Thing. The entire narrative against Israel now comprises a made-up world of words that have been re-engineered for the purpose. If Israel is genociding the Palestinians, would there actually be any  Palestinians left by now? In reality, there are more of them than ever, and their number is growing year on year.

This is actually a conflict for the people at the top of the food chain, because they want the Palestinians to believe in genocide, but at the same time they want there to be more Palestinians who, in their dreams, are going to get something they call the 'right of return', and swamp Israel. Of course it's all nonsense, but they have no problem with believing in nonsense.

This is why my respondents had no problem with accusing Israel of genocide. The word doesn't have to mean anything, it is enough just to say it.

“OCCUPATION”

This is the question I asked people:

“Please explain what you mean by 'occupation'. This is a research question, not a criticism, so tell me what you feel occupation is and what Israel is occupying.”

I also asked people, in the interviews I did face to face, whether they believe Gaza is occupied by Israel, and almost all of them said yes, despite being completely unable to explain what that might mean, or show what Israeli military or civilian presence there is in Gaza. So, obviously, this begs the question: what do people think occupation actually means?

I am pretty sure the reason people say Gaza is occupied is because that is the Zeitgeist. Everyone knows Gaza is occupied, therefore Gaza is occupied. That it is not, and has not been since 2005, is neither here nor there, because we now live in a world where what you say is true if you want it to be true. The people who campaign against Israel, I mean the people at the top of the food chain, not the people they manipulate, know very well that Gaza is not occupied. The very idea is ludicrous. Do people not stop and think, if Israel occupies Gaza, how do the mini wars between the IDF and Hamas work out? It's so ridiculous I don't know where to begin, and yet here we are, people don't give any of that a moment's thought, they just know Israel occupies Gaza. It's like someone saying black is white and white is black. How do you argue against that?

What the people who hate Israel mean is that, OK, Gaza might not actually, technically, you know, not in one sense be occupied, but hang on, it is blockaded, and that's the same thing, isn't it? Well, no, actually it isn't. There's a clue in the words. What they are trying to say is that Israel is an illegal occupier of Palestinian land so what's the difference? The west bank, Gaza, it's all the same thing, isn't it. Well, actually no. There's a clue in the words.

Where this leaves us is that Gaza is not occupied by Israel but that doesn't matter. 'Occupation' has become a weaponised word, like 'apartheid', a word that means what you want it to mean because that's what you want it to mean. And that pretty well epitomises the entire hating Israel thing. People hate Israel not for what it is but what they think it is (what they are told it is), not for what it does but for what they think it does (what they are told it does).

And the people who are, as I say, at the top of food chain, understand this very well. They know they can keep saying Gaza is occupied, knowing no-one, not even the British government, will query that, knowing that because they say it, it is true. They have created a world in which black really is white and white really is black.

So what about other areas people call 'occupied', the west bank, the Golan Heights and eastern Jerusalem? Occupation is now such an entrenched word in the Palestinian narrative that it seems to me important to explore each of these places, because the situation is different in each of them.

The Golan was captured from Syria when the latter tried to invade Israel in 1973, when it very nearly succeeded. The region was subsequently incorporated into Israel to ensure it remains a buffer zone against the Syrians, if ever they stop killing each other, using it again as a jumping off point for their tanks. We are told that it is illegal, in international law, for a state to annexe territory it has won in war, and I would not argue with that because I don't know enough about it. What I do know is that practically every border in Europe was drawn as a result of the victors in war annexing land they had won, as recently as 1945. The same applies on the southern border of the United States. And, lest we forget, the map of the Middle East itself was redrawn by Britain and France after they captured much of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War. So the concept of illegal annexation of land looks pretty shaky to me.

The same applies to Jerusalem, but the city is an even more interesting case. Under UN Resolution 181, the one the Jewish Palestinians accepted and the Arab Palestinians rejected, Jerusalem was to be an international city, belonging to no-one. Now I suspect that was wishful thinking from the start, but it became irrelevant because not only did the Arabs refuse to declare their state but their allies, the Jordanians, simply annulled the plan for an international city by capturing Jerusalem in 1948. They occupied the city and strangely enough no-one objected. There was no outcry about the UN plan being abrogated in war, no outcry when the Jordanians destroyed every synagogue they could find in the city, no demand for them to leave. No-one said that Palestinian land was being occupied.

In 1967, when Israel had again to repel the combined Arab armies, it liberated Jerusalem from Jordanian occupation, and it has remained liberated ever since. Strangely, though, the Palestinians who didn't object to Jordan occupying the city now object to Israel 'occupying' it. In that case clearly they have no problem with Jerusalem being occupied, their problem is with Israel occupying it.

Thus 'occupation' changed from a word that didn't matter to a word that is used as a weapon. In the Palestinian narrative, the city is occupied and must be liberated. 'Occupied' is an emotive word. Feed it to the Palestinian masses and they will hate the occupier. Feed it to the United Nations, the European Union, the US Democratic Party, and they can be relied on to hate the occupier. None of those people hated Jordan for occupying Jerusalem, they just hate Israel for occupying it. By extension, they didn't care about the Palestinians who lived in Jerusalem, living under occupation then, but they object to it now. This isn't love for the Palestinians, it's hatred for Israel. The  Palestinians are merely pawns in a game that is bigger than them.

If the unimaginable happened, and Iran destroyed Israel, it would occupy Jerusalem, Gaza and the whole of Israel. Do we think Iran will have any scruples about making the Palestinians live under Iranian occupation? The  Palestinians are like the Indian National Army, men who fought on the Japanese side in World War II, imagining that the Japanese would be better masters than the British. If the Palestinians imagine Iran would give them their independence, they are more dim than I realised. Turkey occupied Palestine, then the British, and the only people who gave the Palestinians nationhood are the Israelis. Israeli Arabs live as full citizens of their country. Unlike their former compatriots in UNRWA prison camps, they are free.

And before I finish talking about occupation I want to make one last point about the expression 'Occupied Palestinian Territory', or in government-speak, 'OPT'. Come on, it's got initials, it must be true.

There is, though, an extremely fundamental problem with these words, so fundamental I am horrified that it is never discussed. The fact that in international law a state can only be deemed to occupy territory if that territory was previously sovereign, you would think, would be so blindingly obvious that no-one would ever say 'Occupied Palestinian Territory' again. Since no territory Israel supposedly occupied has EVER been sovereign, there is no legal case for calling any of it occupied. OK, so far so good, but there is an even more fundamental issue. Yes, I am afraid it really is even more fundamental.

Where is Palestine? What is Palestine? The last time there was a territory (not, though, a country) called Palestine, it was a British territory mandated by the League of Nations. Does that mean that when people talk about the Occupied Palestinian Territories they mean Israel is occupying British Mandate Palestine? When did that territory become 'Palestinian'? Once Israel declared statehood in May 1948, the land not included in Israel, left over, if you like from Mandate Palestine, did not become 'Palestinian territory', it became the bit left over that no-one wanted. What happened to magically turn that land from land no-one wanted to 'Palestinian territory'?

The only claim I ever hear about where Palestine might be is everything beyond the Green Line. The problem with that is that the Green Line was an armistice line drawn on a map, in green pencil, to show where the IDF and the invading armies had stopped fighting. Now, though, the Green Line is spoken of as if it means something. Now, beyond that line is something called Palestine.

Look, don't quote me on this, because what do I know, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the status of a green pencil in international law is, how can I put this – limited. Everyone, though, talks about it as if green marks the spot where 'Occupied Palestine' begins. Anything more egregiously ludicrous would be hard to imagine, and yet grown-ups, people wearing suits, actually talk about it, like children talk about the tooth fairy, as if it's real.

How does Israel counter this propaganda? Well, it tries to give people facts. The poor saps, they think that facts have some kind of value. They have absolutely none. That is why Israel is doomed to lose the propaganda war, why there is nothing Israel, or its champions like myself and many others, can do to stop people hating it. The hatred now has a life of its own, quite separate from any reality. This is almost certainly a unique situation in the history of mankind.

“ILLEGAL SETTLEMENTS”

People who hate Israel love the word 'illegal'. It makes them feel very good about hating Israel, even though they actually have no idea what is legal or illegal in the Middle East. They have heard the word and it works really really well for them. It gives them the moral high ground, because no-one who hears them say it knows that they don't know what it means. 'Illegal' is therefore a weapon.

'Settlements' is a word of massive propaganda value. In my interviews with people to assess how much they know about the conflict, not one person had any idea about how the west bank works, or the Oslo Accords, so there was no point asking them what they thought 'settlements' are. It is often said that the 'settlements' are an obstacle to peace, and the Palestinians and their camp followers iterate this ad nauseam.

When the PLO signed Oslo II with Israel, Area C of the west bank was, by agreement, to be under complete Israeli jurisdiction. The 'settlements' are in Area C. I find it hard to see how building homes in an area which your enemy has agreed is your territory can be an obstacle to peace. You might counter this with the argument that building in Area C is going to make it hard for a Palestinian state to take over Area C, which I wouldn't disagree with. I would simply ask what the point was of agreeing for it to be Israeli territory if the long-term Palestinian plan was for it not to be Israeli territory. I have to say that doesn't work for me.

So, if Area C was envisaged as always being part of Israel, how can building houses there in any way affect the prospect of peace? Why would towns built on land acceded to Israel be called settlements? The problem arises, I think, in part because many Palestinians are unhappy with Oslo II. Well, they insisted that the PLO must be recognised internationally as the sole representative of the Palestinian people, and the PLO signed the Accords, so if anyone is to blame for Palestinian unhappiness it is not Israel, it is the Palestinians.

The other problem is that most of the people in the world don't know any of this. They don't know that Israel building houses on land that the Palestinians have agreed is part of Israel is not building 'illegal settlements' any more than Israel building homes anywhere else in Israel.

And of course the word 'settlements' does seem to suggest that these homes are not permanent, indeed that there is some nefarious purpose to building them, that they are some kind of Trojan horse. Well, Area C is not Palestinian land. I think we have covered that.

In other words, any talk of 'illegal settlements' is entirely irrational, and given that it is brought up so often I can only see it as a weapon. I have to say, mind you, it is a very effective weapon. Even American Democrats, who seem blissfully unaware of the above, like to use it as a weapon.

“ISRAELI PALESTINIANS”

Newspapers like The Guardian in the UK refer to Arab Israelis as Israeli Palestinians. Firstly, why that way round? Why not Palestinian Israelis? They might sound much of a muchness but they absolutely are not. There is a big difference. The second word states what they are and the first word is a qualifier. So Israeli Palestinians, to those who are hostile to Israel, are Palestinians who happen to live in Israel. By accident. Not really Israeli, but Palestinians waiting for their freedom. That is the very strong implication. Actually, as far as I am aware, surveys regularly show that Arab Israelis are very content to be Israeli. They might have gripes, but given a choice, according to the surveys, they would want to be Israelis, not to go and live in a Palestinian state should one be created. So journalists who call them Israeli Palestinians are using the term as a weapon, something the people themselves have not asked them to do.

Now let's move on to a far more important point. There is actually no such person as a Palestinian Israeli. Surely, you say, there is. Well, no, there isn't. If you want to make the point that a Palestinian Israeli is an Israeli of Palestinian origin, then you have created a problem. Very many Jewish Israelis come from families who also hail back to Mandate Palestine days, in which case we are going to have to call them Palestinian Israelis too, aren't we? They are Israelis of Palestinian origin just as much as the Arabs are, so I'm afraid for the Arabs to claim to be Palestinian is no more valid than for the Jews to be Palestinian.

If Israel-haters call Arab Israelis Israeli Palestinians, that is propaganda, or weaponised speech.

“THE BALFOUR DECLARATION”

This letter is often cited as the root of the conflict. Anti-Zionists say that if Britain had not meddled in the Arab world none of this would have happened. Let's examine the rationality of that idea. First of all, Britain was not meddling in an Arab land, it was meddling in a Turkish land. That Britain was giving Arab land to the Jews is a myth that is heavily  exploited on the Palestinian side. To people who know little or nothing of the history, it sounds entirely plausible, and so it is a useful weapon. Great Britain liberated Palestine from the Turks in the First World War, and they turned what was a poor, undeveloped backwater under Ottoman rule into a thriving territory preparing itself, under the terms of the Mandate, for home rule. I would not call that meddling.

None of the people I interviewed had any idea what the letter was about, so I incline to the view that there is general ignorance about it globally. Ignorance is itself a powerful weapon that helps to create hostility against Israel. Taking, oh, I don't know, let's say Jeremy Corbyn as an example, here we have a high-profile anti-Israel campaigner who is demonstrably ignorant about a matter he feels passionately about. That's what this book is about – analysing the rationality of people's hatred.

Lord Balfour did not promise to give a land called Palestine to the Jews, he promised that Britain would facilitate the establishment of a Jewish national homeland IN Palestine.  He could not have known, when he wrote the letter to Chaim Weizman, that Britain would give three quarters of Palestine to the Arabs as THEIR national homeland before anything was done for the Jews of Palestine. The people who complain about Britain meddling never complain about Britain creating a Palestinian nation called Trans-Jordan. They never seem to complain about Britain meddling then. I don't know why that would be.

As I say, ignorance is a useful weapon, and ignorance about the Balfour Declaration is just another weapon put into the hands of people who don't know what it said by people who do know what it said.

“THE WEST BANK”

I'm calling the 'West Bank' a weaponised expression because it is not a real thing, and you have to suspect that if people make words up they must have a reason for doing that.

You will see 'the West Bank' appearing regularly in the comments I elicited online. The people who use the expression have no idea that it means nothing, which confirms what I have been saying, that propaganda is put into the mouths of people who don't know what it means by people who do know what it means.

Zionists always call the region Judea and Samaria, and I am going to confess that I did wonder if, even though Judea and Samaria is a real place, they themselves were not doing a bit of propagandising. But looking into the history of the region it becomes clear very quickly that the West Bank thing did literally come into existence only once it was liberated by Israel from the illegal Jordanian occupation. Before that, it was just Jordan. I suggest one bit of evidence for that is that Jordan has never called itself the East Bank.

If anyone can offer me some evidence that the region was called the West Bank before 1949, do please let me have it. I can see no evidence that Great Britain called it that during the Mandate period, or that Turkey called it that during their 400-year occupation of the region. Actually, why would they?

Now, though, 'the West Bank' has become so firmly fixed in the minds of everyone involved in or observing or wittering about the conflict that no-one ever challenges the fact that it doesn't mean anything. A bit like 'electronic cigarette'.

And because it has become a thing, it has become a thing that's a problem. People have come to believe that the region is somehow 'Palestine', and that therefore Israel is occupying Palestinian land. How they conclude that I don't know, but as long as Israel's enemies can keep alive the West Bank myth it will remain a useful weapon.

And by the way, you may notice that unless I am referring to what people call it, I call it the west bank, lower case, because that's what is for my purpose, land on the west bank of the Jordan. Upper case would make it a place, which it isn't.

“PALESTINE”

This is the question I asked people:

Please explain what you mean by 'Palestine'. This is a research question, not a criticism, so tell me what you feel Palestine is, where it is and how long it has existed for.

The existence of something called Palestine is an article of faith that has sustained Palestinians for decades. I suppose they rationalise it by saying if they are Palestinians that means there is a place called Palestine. That sounds rational enough but sadly it is not. It's like saying there are gypsies so there must be a place called Gypsieland. Or, more sensibly, there are Kurds so there must be a country called Kurdistan. In reality, Kurdistan is an undefined region spread across Turkey, Iraq and Syria, not a country (which by the way I think it should be).

The Palestinian thinking is also based on their belief that there used to be a country called Palestine, before the Jewish hordes came and colonised it. The slightest acquaintance with history should disabuse them of this idea, but in Palestinian thinking history is what you want it to be. Fair enough, history is not an exact science, but neither is it as completely nonsensical as that.

There never has been a sovereign country called Palestine, so the argument that Israel occupies such a country is both ahistorical and irrational. If any country does occupy Palestine, it is Jordan, but that is a legal occupation mandated by the League of Nations, so that's OK. Now let's look at rump  Palestine, the part that was left when three quarters of British Mandate Palestine was carved off into a new country called Transjordan.

Incidentally, not one of the interviewees I asked could identify what the original Mandate Palestine looked like, and all expressed surprise when I drew for them the outline of modern Israel and Jordan.

We are all familiar with the chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”. Apart from the obvious genocidal meaning of this, given the minor obstacle of nine million Israelis who might have to be disposed of to make that dream come true, for me the interesting word is 'Palestine'. The word itself is now a weapon, because it says, indeed threatens, that it will replace Israel. It is a word that promises to annihilate nine million people.

OK, the Palestinians might be generous, when their dream comes true, and they might, like the Pharaoh, let the Jews go, but there would be no modern-day Moses to lead the Jews elsewhere, because there is no elsewhere. In the Second World War, no country could be found that would take even a few tens of thousands of Jews fleeing from the genocide of that time. Indeed, some countries, including the United States, sent refugees back to be killed. So where would nine million people go? I am not for a moment suggesting any of this is going to happen, obviously, because the State of Israel is not going to commit suicide. I am talking about the fantasy world of Hamas. I don't know if “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is meant to make Palestinians feel warm and fuzzy, or it is meant to scare Israelis, but the best hope of Hamas is that it does the former because it certainly doesn't do the latter. If it is a weapon, it is not loaded.

When I started writing this chapter, I had not realised how many words in the lexicon of the Israel-Palestinian conflict have been weaponised, or created specifically as weapons. I have been repeating throughout the book that the conflict is in fact a propaganda war, and so I should not have been surprised, when I started to analyse the language of the conflict, how many of the words are propaganda words. All of the anti-Zionists who have contributed their thoughts to this book use those propaganda words without having to think about them. They are the words that frame the conflict in most people's minds. And this includes not only anti-Zionists but the people, like my interviewees, who have no axe to grind. They tended to use those words, because they are the words the world has come to accept, unthinkingly.

What is especially worrying is that many advocates for Israel also use the words. They do so because everyone else does. For example, how do you discuss the problem of the people held prisoner by UNRWA without using the propaganda, or weaponised, word, 'refugees'?

The purpose of this chapter has been to explore the words that have been weaponised, not to discuss their validity or otherwise. Writing this book, I got drawn into something I had never had any interest in, I went on Twitter, thinking it would be a helpful way to engage with others on this subject. I quickly learned that Twitter is not a platform for exchanging ideas and views, it is a platform for shouting at people. No-one on Twitter is listening, but that, I suppose, is the human condition. Everyone knows what they know. They don't want to know what other people know.

People who hate Israel 'know' it is an apartheid state. They probably don't know what the word means, and they probably could not say where such a policy is enforced, all of which was confirmed by the questions I asked people, but none of that matters. I never get involved in a discussion about the existence or otherwise of apartheid, any more than I get involved in a discussion about the existence of fairies. Both are invalid questions and would be wasting my time. Zionists who debate apartheid with anti-Zionists are not only wasting their time, but simply by debating whether it is true or not, by explaining that it isn't, they are allowing the question to be debated, and that necessarily implies there are two ways of looking at it. It is not a question to be debated and there is only one way to look at it. My only answer, if I am asked whether Israel is an apartheid state, is, 'Don't be silly, ask me a real question.' If they insist, I will ask them to define apartheid and tell me where it is practised by Israel. All they can then do is give me the newspeak meaning of apartheid, as coined by Amnesty International, and display their geopolitical ignorance, which leaves nothing to discuss.

Discussing and debating any of these words I have talked about is a mistake. Discussing a word says it is up for discussion. These words are not up for discussion, any more than a suicide bomb is up for discussion.

IN ONE SENTENCE, HOW WOULD YOU RESOLVE THE CONFLICT?

It seemed to me that if so many people hate Israel because of its conflict with the Palestinians, they should have in mind a solution to the conflict, and it seemed like a good idea to ask their proposal to that end. After all, plenty of them spend an inordinate amount of time telling the world how much they hate Israel and how much they love 'Palestine'. Surely it made sense to ask for their solution to the problem, because they surely want to resolve the conflict. I shall leave it to the reader to decide if my faith was rewarded.

(You may, by the way, notice that no-one felt constrained by my 'In one sentence'.)

DT @taadbjd wrote:

One state with equal rights for all.

[What DT is proposing is the abolition of Israel, which was fairly predictable.]

~

Timber Larryz @LarryzTimber wrote:

end occupation. Israel doesnt want to make Palestinians citizens so a two state solution is the only way.

[Without this respondent telling us where this 'occupation' occurs it is difficult to comment. That Israel doesn't want to make Palestinians citizens is of course ahistorical. Over a million Arab Israelis are descendants of Arab Palestinians who were offered Israeli citizenship in 1948 and accepted.]

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Rima Ahmed @AamadReem wrote:

The only solution to the freedom of Palestine is the exit of Israel from our country.

[This respondent seems to have misread my question, which was not about the 'freedom of Palestine', whatever that might mean. As for the gist of their 'solution', it seems to be saying that if Israel didn't exist that would resolve the conflict. For some reason I can't quite understand, they do seem to have a point.]

Taariq @Taariq_chocos wrote:

Great question. If someone took your entire house and only gave half back what would you do. Unfortunately I think it's the only way two state solution but feel free to tell me why it won't work.

[I don't think I can make sense of this response, apart from acknowledging that he feels angry, so no comment.]

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EggMcMullah @EhhMcMullah wrote:

The 2002/2007 Arab Peace Initiative. What is yours?

[This was not a 'peace initiative', it was a demand for Israel to concede to everything on the Palestinian wish-list.]

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Sin D @HvyHnddHrlt wrote:

Democracy instead of Ethnocracy

[This is quite interesting. Clearly, Israel is a democratic country, whereas neither Gaza nor the territory under the Palestinian Authority are, so I'm a bit stuck here. Where, in his mind, would democracy resolve the conflict? As for 'Ethnocracy', this is tricky. Is he saying this applies to Israel? If so, why, given that Israel is so obviously multi-ethnic, but in any case what does the democracy or otherwise of Israel have to do with anything? His response works quite well as a slogan, but it falls apart very quickly. Oh, and wouldn't it be nice to ask him about the ethnocratic territories of Gaza and the PA areas, not to mention every Muslim state in the world? Not sure he thought this through.]

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J @TheJniac wrote:

Create a merged Israel-Palestine with limited autonomy in the territories allotted to Israel in the United Nations Partition Plan, while the rest is solely the territory of Palestine, who also holds exclusive authority over international relations and any armed forces.

[I think what J is saying is let's turn the clock back to before the Palestinian Arabs declined the state offered to them in UN Resolution 181. His idea of making Israel a state subjugated to a state of Palestine is obviously high on his wish list, but does it answer my question? Would it resolve the conflict? Or is it possible Israelis might spot a flaw in the plan?]

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Sara @saragotnoluck wrote:

begone zionist

[I think what Sara is saying here is that the solution to the conflict is for Israel to voluntarily cease to exist. Not sure that is really workable, but thank you to Sara for her input.]

luminatus @luminatus1 wrote:

Apply international law to the Israel regime and grant Palestinians full human rights (including right of return, the right to resist their Occupier) Palestinians need a peace keeping force in Jerusalem to protect the Christian and Muslims & their holy places from Zionist terror.

['The right to resist their occupier' does not sound like a resolution to the conflict, because if there were a resolution there would not be an 'occupier', so this respondent has not really thought this through. I remain unconvinced by his grasp of international law.

And just a note about protecting holy places. When Jordan occupied Jerusalem, it destroyed synagogues and other Jewish religious sites, so he seems to have replaced 'Jordanian' with 'Zionist'. His idea of a peacekeeping force in Jerusalem I find odd, if he is not adding the status of the city to his wish list. He is telling me what he wants for the Palestinians, but in his mind the Israelis are not part of the equation, so his resolution lacks a certain amount of realism.]

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Sam Essa @SamEssa8 wrote:

It's exceedingly simple and non-time consuming. A free and Democratic Palestine from the river to the sea where every citizen (Jewish, Muslim Christian) is EQUAL in every way possible. One man/woman one vote. Unconditional right of return.

[I can see that he feels abolishing Israel would be 'exceedingly simple', but he may have given insufficient thought to the likelihood of that so, no, not a resolution. Easy to scoff, but since this is pretty much the Hamas stance (although Hamas may include killing all Jews in their policy, but don't quote me on that) it might pay us to take it seriously.]

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seddigheh razaz wrote:

peace

[A nice sentiment, and there is almost nothing to be said about it, except that someone has to agree to peace, and since Israel has only ever wanted peace and the Palestinians bring up their children to want to go and fight Israel, what does he actually see as a resolution?]

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Abdelrahman Mhadi @AbdelrahmanMhdi wrote:

The UN Resolution, two states resolution on behalf on 1967 borders and the returning of the Palestinian refugees to their cities with compensation for their suffering and diaspora as the UN said.

[I could be wrong but what this respondent seems to be saying is he wants to turn the clock back so that British Mandate Palestine is divided into two states, even though the Palestinian Arabs refused that at the time, but then he wants to fast forward to create boundaries not based on the UN Resolution but on the boundaries created by the Arabs, having invaded the new state of Israel in 1948. This is a common Palestinian theme, wherein everything went wrong for them because Israel redrew the map in 1967 when it repelled the invaders again and changed those boundaries. I could be wrong about all of this, but that's how it reads to me. The rest of his 'resolution' is just silly. Like pretty well all of the responses, it is nothing more than a Palestinian wish list, completely disregarding that there are two parties in the conflict.]

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shahriar rakib wrote:

Two state solution … But as Israel keep building illegal settlements in palestine that's becoming more harder … Israel want's all of the land for it self don't care about any UN resolution …

[The 'two-state solution' is a common theme, but of course it means different things to different people. As for 'illegal settlements in Palestine', I understand why this respondent says that, because that is what much of the world's media is saying, but in fact Israeli homes are built in the area of the west bank allotted to it under the Oslo Accords agreed to by the Palestinians themselves. And of course 'settlements' is a propaganda word. Finally, Israel was created as a direct result of UN Resolution 181. It was the Palestinian Arabs who refused to accept the state that resolution gave them, so this respondent's statement is the opposite of what actually happened.]

sabotaged wrote:

end Zionism.

[This can only be taken to mean end the State of Israel, which first of all is something Israel seems unlikely to accede to and is therefore, secondly, hardly a resolution, so all in all it's not really very helpful. And of course he is also saying none of the problem is in any way anything to do with the Palestinians, or their rejection of a state in 1947.]

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S Star wrote:

The Jews must give the Palestinian territories/land/rights back to Palestinians as it was before 1948.

[S Star seems very confused. Obviously, they are saying the only way to resolve the conflict is for Israel to cease to exist, but I'm not clear what kind of resolution that is. They do not appear, either, to factor in the non-Jewish, Arab Israelis. What does he propose would happen to them? As for the Jews giving it all back to the Palestinians, the problem there would be that before 1948 the Jews WERE Palestinians. His 'resolution' is therefore based rather more on simple hatred than any rational thinking.]

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Sultan Reem wrote:

Honestly it would be a division, an equal division of land, one to Israel and one to Palestine.

[This sounds reasonable, until you factor in that this is exactly what UN Resolution 181 proposed in 1947, that the Jewish Palestinians accepted and the Arabs rejected. It would also depend on Israel swapping land for peace, but that was tried in 2005, when Israel left Gaza, but it didn't work, because Sultan Reem might like the idea but Hamas is committed to never accepting the existence of Israel.]

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Just Caden wrote:

Split land equally in the USA states like Texas and California hate each other and have very different views and there is a little tension but it's working.

[I have to say this is naïve, and by the way I have been to both states and I am unaware that Texans and Californians hate each other. As mentioned elsewhere, splitting the land is precisely what the Jewish Palestinians accepted in 1947 and the Arab Palestinians rejected, so it seems odd to me that this is suddenly a resolution, after more than 70 years. And as I keep saying, it is a demand that Israel gives and the Palestinians take, which after the Gaza debacle is wishful thinking.]

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dana porat @pargae wrote:

A plestinian country next to israel, not instead of israel.

[As this is precisely what the Palestinian Arabs were offered by the United Nations, but declined, and what subsequent representatives of the Palestinians have since declined, it is hard to see this as a resolution, as much as it is what Israel wants. And let us not forget that the Hamas Charter specifically forbids it, so as long as they control Gaza it is not going to happen.]

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Bernard McMahon wrote:

Give them their land back, at least the West Bank, to the proper borders before Israel took whatever they fancied, under a massive international committee to create fairness on all sides and proper self rule, mutual respect for both countries would come with time.

[What does 'Give them their land back' mean? What land? The land they declined to declare a state in? What does ' … proper borders' mean? There have never been borders, because the Palestinian Arabs and their allies annulled UN Resolution 181 by trying to stop the creation of the State of Israel. What does '… Israel took whatever it fancied' mean? Israel came out of three defensive wars with territory it had never wanted. I shan't try to deconstruct this any more. Suffice it to say that Bernard has as little idea of the history as any other respondent, and therefore his resolution is not a resolution at all.]

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Liam wrote:

Full rights and reparations for Palestinians including right of return, and the end of the Israeli war machine.

[This is far too vague for me to be able to deconstruct it. I would not even know where to begin, but I include it because this section isn't just about my responses to people's comments.]

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the service shark wrote:

I would want a 1 state solution. And the people get to choose which government we all live under, we all get to vote. And the government chosen must allow equal citizenship and must also allow Palestinian's to call themselves Palestinian's, and Israeli's to call themselves Israeli's. No matter which government is chosen. We all just want peace. Every single Israeli and Palestinian want peace. We don't want to live a life of war. We ALL just want peace. It all depends on whether or not our governments can get along so they talk about a peace-treaty between Israel and Palestine.

[This is simple to deconstruct. This respondent's resolution is to turn Israel into Palestine. A one-state solution can only ever mean that. Given that Israelis are as likely to vote for that as turkeys are likely to vote for Christmas, I don't really need to detain the reader any longer with this one.]

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Samix wrote:

For it to be a land that is open and not governed by the Israeli.

[This is a straightforward demand for the end to the State of Israel, to be replaced by a State of Palestine, so yet again it is not a resolution, it is a wish.]

~

Veronica Harwich wrote:

Treat all people respectfully & with dignity. Remove all Israeli settlers from what was intended to be Palestinian territories. Honor legal documents which show true property ownership. People should also understand that most Palestinians have much stronger bloodline connection to that land than those who have immigrated there.

[The first sentence is nice but I am unable to see in what sense it is a resolution to the conflict. In some way I don't understand, I suspect Veronica actually does think it is, though. She doesn't explain what territories were intended to be Palestinian. Does she know, or is it just something she thinks ought to exist? And no, most Palestinians do not have a connection to the land, because most are descendants of relatively recent immigrants from Arab countries. In her view, though, the Jews are the immigrants. Their connection going back thousands of years does not seem to trump that of Arabs immigrating in the 19th and 20th centuries and calling themselves Palestinians. Finally, like most people she harks back to history. History prior to 1948 is actually irrelevant. Once the State of Israel was formed in 1948, and became a member of the United Nations, nothing else matters. Just as the fact that Ukraine used to be part of the Soviet Union is irrelevant. All that matters is national sovereignty now, because if it doesn't then no country on Earth can claim to be a state.]

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Anaya Zahid wrote:

America should stopfunding isnotreal and the settlers should stay in there own country why cant they stay in there own place cause there greedy and sleflish and arrogant always wanting they should not have

[I am guessing calling Israel isnotreal is a rather clever way of saying Anaya does not like the country. Again, this question of 'settlers'. It is now a given that Israelis living in the west bank are 'settlers'. The word being derogatory, as in 'illegal settlers'. That the Israelis living in the west bank are living in Area C, allocated to Israel by the Oslo Accords in full agreement with the Palestinians, is something so many respondents are entirely ignorant about. The world's media talk about 'illegal settlements', so is it any wonder most people believe that actually means something? Why the Oslo Accords are beyond the comprehension of journalists I don't know. The rest of this response is simply an expression of hate. What it is not, and I must bring this yet again the the reader's attention, is an attempt to suggest how the conflict might be resolved. I am tempted to think that for many people expressing hatred is more important than resolving the conflict, when I have given them an opportunity to contribute to a resolution with a constructive idea.]

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Treasure wrote:

Palestine_GAZA is the motherland of Muslims.İt's our holy land and no one has the right to own it except Muslims. Muslims live there free_Practice their religious rights and beliefs_İt's their land Nd they should not be oppressed by Israel or any other power. İn Islam there's only on God(Allah). Muslims never accept surrender or slavery..The only power İs Allah.No power can enslave the Muslims We only bow before Allah_Owner of the Dominion! Oppressors must keep this in mind! #freepalestine

[I don't really know why I have included this response, other than to show that for some people spouting religious claptrap is all they can do, which is hardly a contribution to resolving the conflict, and for that reason perhaps including it here is valid.]

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Eric Gandara wrote:

2-States that’s the broad International Consensus all other alternatives are unworkable two-state solution’s least destructive of all proposals on table

[There are just two problems here. The two state solution is exactly the one the Palestinian Arabs rejected in 1947, and it is the one Hamas still rejects, so as much as Eric would like to see this, as would Israel, it is not going to happen.]

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Hamza Ali Khan wrote:

Dismantlement of the jewish state and *HUMANE* deportation of jewish settlers (not all, only the ones who came by controversial or illegal means which is a majority) back to whichever place they came from with compensation, and basically reverse the situation to what it was BEFORE the zionis migration in the span of a few decades.

[I'm not going to attempt to deconstruct this, but my reason for including it is to show how impossible it would be to have any rational discussion with this person, and this person may actually be representative of not only the Palestinians in the street but those who hold the destiny of the Palestinians in their hands, people whose starting point is not a hope for resolution but hatred.

It would be easy to underestimate the impossibility of sitting down with people like this and discussing geopolitical reality. If Palestinian politicians hear what people like this are saying, and they must do, they will be encouraged to keep up their implacable opposition to finding a resolution.]

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Donna Vorce wrote:

That's a good question. The best one that comes to mind after a little thought is an enforced territory for both nations. Concessions and compromise to israel yes and also to the existing population of bedouins (whatever name you want to call them). israel quits expanding (retracts in fact) and both groups are expected to live in areas established in 1948. If the international community would enforce - with some big teeth - this as a resolution, it might be ok after tempers settle down. I wish people could simply leave each other alone but it's gone too far for that. When western nations meddle in mid-east politics it seems to make it worse.

[This is at least a rational suggestion. However, it completely ignores the causes of the conflict, and Donna appears to believe that Israel is expanding, so she is going to have a problem with suggesting a resolution if she doesn't know much about the situation. This is confirmed by her use of the word 'bedouins'. You would have to know who the Bedouin are, and how they fit into Israel, which she obviously doesn't, to be able to suggest practical solutions to broader issues.]

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Mango Mango wrote:

Right of return for all palestinians across the world (Jewish/muslim/Christian) return of the Golan heights to syria, merger of the Gaza strip and Israel and west Bank into one state. All this would make palestinians the majority in Israel And finally, a constitutional change that gets rid of nationality vs citizenship, giving all palestinians the right to vote and live everywhere. Also a change declaring this new union to be fundamentally secular (and not as a homeland for the jews) and made for all palestinians (muslim/jew/Christian). Basically I support a one state solution that turns Israel into a secular palestine for the palestinians of all religions

[This is the classic one-state solution, meaning Israel should become Palestine, in which case it is a wish-list, not a solution. I am slightly intrigued by the idea of 'Jewish Palestinians'.]

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Massab Miharbi wrote:

One solution one state one man one vote irrespective of clour race or even religion ...

[Yet, again, a suggestion of a one-state soliution, meaning converting Israel into Palestine, so not a solution at all. Why have I included this if we have seen it already in other responses? Well, it demonstrates what we are up against when we are looking for a resolution to the conflict but so many people on the Palestinian side are not.]

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Beautiful creature wrote:

Israel give the land back.

[Which land this respondent is referring to is not known, but like me you might suspect they mean all the land of sovereign Israel, in which case this is yet another resolution that is not a resolution. And in any case, back to whom? Great Britain, or going further back in time, Turkey? The point being that this respondent, like so many, appears to be under the impression that there was once a country called Palestine, occupied by people called Palestinians, who incidentally were all Arabs, and possibly all Muslims to boot.

My point here is to wonder how people who have not the first idea of the history can have any idea how historical problems might be resolved. Clearly, you cannot address a problem if you don't know what the problem is, and this person, like so many, has no idea what the problem is. This can only be a function of what they have been taught. A good example of what people are taught is the education provided in UNRWA schools, funded by the EU, to teach Palestinian children that the Jews stole their country. I suspect that, like me, you see this as unhelpful.]

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MasterElitant wrote:

Islam already promotes tolerance to other people, and so having a muslim palestinean state ruling the state would pose no threat of ethnic cleansing to the jews living in palestine.

[Yet another one state solution that is not a solution, but this is not why I have included it. The idea of Islam promoting tolerance I have to say is not one I am familiar with. As far as I am aware, the word 'Islam' translates into English as 'submission'. Islam teaches submission of women to men, Muslims to their god, and non-Muslims to Muslims, all of which is historically documented. When Jordan occupied Jerusalem, it systematically destroyed all the synagogues it could find, which is not how I think of tolerance.

What this respondent either ignores or is unaware of, when he advocates a Muslim Palestinian state, is that not all Palestinians are Muslim, in which case Christian Palestinians would also be expected to submit to Muslim law. All this, of course, is quite apart from this resolution involving the voluntary liquidation of Israel, which appears to be very attractive to Palestinians but is less attractive to Israelis.]

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Luiza Lou wrote:

From watching this video I'd propose the recognition of Palestina as a nation mainly by Israel. This would be the base ground to start a resolution in my opinion. Then, other important countries recognizing it as well..

[Wouldn't it be easy if all we had to do to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict was for Israel to recognise Palestine? I have a strong suspicion that if that really were all it would take Israel would jump at the chance. I can, however, see one or two hurdles to overcome first, like Hamas recognising Israel and the Palestinians understanding that every descendent of every Arab Palestinian there has ever been, wherever they live in the world, including the United States, and including any who are currently US Congresswomen, moving not to Palestine, where you would imagine they would want to live, but to Israel, because they think that should also be called Palestine, might present some difficulty.]

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Horner Farah wrote:

Two state solution 50% to each other will be the realistic one but isreal will refuse the deal any way so there is no point arguing with Zionist

[Horner seems to have this back to front. Given that it was the Palestinian Arabs who refused the state offered to them by UN Resolution 181 in 1947, what Zionists do or don't do would seem to be immaterial.]

~

You will probably have noticed, like I did when I read these responses, that they all have one thing in common. Without exception, they are not resolutions at all, they are demands. And without exception they are based on a belief that Israel created the conflict and therefore it is for Israel to meet the Palestinian demands and make amends for past transgressions. I was going to say it is fortunate that these people are not involved in any negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, but in a way they are. The people who head Hamas and the PA are saying exactly what these ordinary people are saying, that the conflict will be resolved when Israel accedes to all of their demands. That is not what I would call negotiation.

The Palestinian belief, which my respondents show very clearly, is that only Israel can resolve the conflict, when in fact the truth is exactly the opposite. For example, a point I make on Twitter from time to time is that it is not Israel that is making the people of Gaza suffer, it is Hamas, because it is not in Israel's gift to end their suffering, only Hamas can do that. All Hamas has to do is make one phone call to the Prime Minister of Israel, and at a stroke the people of Gaza will suffer no more. I tease the haters from time to time, and not once has anyone said, oh yes, you're right. But it's true, isn't it? What interest does Israel have in maintaining the blockade? On the other hand, what interest does Hamas have in maintaining it? Well, they have everything to gain. By the suffering of Gazans they win support worldwide.

And if the world loses interest, all Hamas has to do is attack Israel, in the certain knowledge that Israel will respond with overwhelming military force. The world's media, notably, here in the UK, The Guardian, Independent, Private Eye and the BBC, will report the latest outbreak of violence from a starting point of a David and Goliath contest. Hamas 1, Israel 0. And all Hamas would have to do to avoid that overwhelming military response is not to goad Goliath, which is of course precisely why they do. My point here is that Israel cannot resolve the Hamas problem, only Hamas can, and the same applies, in a different way, to the PA.

My respondents all describe Israel as some kind of monster abusing the poor, benighted Palestinians. This is why, for example, millions of Palestinians are still kept in 'refugee camps', awaiting the day when they will be able to 'return'. Can Israel resolve this issue? I think only UNRWA can resolve the issue, by doing what every other refugee organisation in the past hundred years has done – resettle the 'refugees' and then go out of business. Those people are hostages, not to Israel but to the Palestinian hierarchy. No-one in their right mind can think Israel absorbing the millions, not only from the camps but from all over the world, including any who have become United States Congresswomen, is ever going to happen. So the maximalist demands for resolving the conflict are not remotely resolutions at all, they are just that, demands, and like all of the responses I had to my question they are guaranteed to ensure the conflict is never resolved.

And finally, not one of my respondents ever mentions the three wars the Arabs fought to try to destroy the State of Israel, in 1948, 1967 and 1973. These wars have been airbrushed from the consciousness of everybody, and yet they are of course the reason why Israel controls land it had never intended to control. So, no-one thinks this might have some connection with any potential resolution. Is this ignorance? Is it because people genuinely don't know about those wars? Well, obviously that is not possible. So is it wilful ignorance, removing it from the equation because it is inconvenient? No, strangely, I don't think it is that either. I think people have become so obsessed with the only solution being Israel making concessions (from minor ones to ceasing to exist), Israel giving the Palestinians their 'freedom', that literally no-one is addressing how all this started. No-one is saying to themselves, if the Arab Palestinians had accepted their state in 1947 when the Jewish Palestinians did, if the Arab states had not tried to invade Israel, three times, we would not be looking for a resolution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, because there would be no Israel-Palestinian conflict. Every one of my respondents is talking about anything except the elephant in the room, the actual reasons for the conflict.

And so this becomes circular, because the people who run Gaza and the Palestinian territories, Hamas and the PA, have no intention of resolving the conflict. It is often said that the PA in particular has become so kleptocratic it would not be in the financial interest of the people who run it to become a democracy. So the west bank Palestinian politicians are happy to retain the status quo, and Hamas is playing a long game, although I don't think even they realise how long that game is going to be. They have made it crystal clear they will not accept the existence of a State of Israel. In which case, my respondents can wish all they like, their wish is never going to come true. Not because of Israel, but because of their own people.

There is absolutely no gain for Israel to maintain the status quo. Quite the reverse. Israeli parents do not want to see their sons and daughters go to war. The images I see online of children dressed as soldiers are all, without exception, Palestinian. Clearly, Palestinian parents DO want their children to go to war.

And yet would you not think that anyone who has been fighting a war for over 70 years might not start to wonder if there is another way? Egypt and Jordan made peace with Israel, not because they suddenly loved Israel but because they accepted they could not win a war with it. In another part of the world, nearer to home for me, the IRA made peace for exactly the same reason. Not only did they come to understand they could not defeat the British Army, but the people themselves started to realise the IRA had become consumed with hatred and bloodlust, and that was no way forward. And what has happened in Northern Ireland? The IRA's political wing is now close to running the province via the ballot box, and by extension is likely to create the very thing they could not create with violence – a united Ireland. If only they had understood that years earlier, how many lives would that have saved?

If only Egypt and Jordan had realised they would never defeat Israel militarily, how many lives, on both sides, would have been saved?

And if only the Palestinian people could see they are being led by kleptocrats and death-worshippers, they would rise up and do what none of my respondents have proposed – make peace with Israel.

If the conflict is ever going to be resolved, if, as I believe must happen, there is ever a Palestinian state, this will come about because the Palestinians themselves resolve it. This is not in Israel's gift. And until the rest of the world understands this, which I see no hope of, the conflict will simply go on for ever.

ZIONIST RESPONSES

1

It's been solved. Jordan was part of the 2 state solution and it was 77% of the mandate. The entire "Palestinian" story is just a gift to continue to milk billions per year from the rest of the world. Peace wouldn't pay so they have zero interest in that.

2

Stop the endless hatred. Either live in peace or GTFO. JEWS DON'T HATE ARABS! JEWS WANT TO LIVE IN PEACE. PALESTINIAN HATE JEWS! PALESTINIANS CALL FOR A VICTORY EVERY DAY.

3

They won't be able to answer realistically or rationally, and wouldn't know how to prevent any future Palestinian state from becoming yet another barbaric and intolerant Islamist hell hole.

4

There will be no peace until the world (mostly the EU) stops feeding Palestinians false hope and the Palestinians realise that they lost. Israel isn't going anywhere. Until then, the conflict will continue.

5

1. Accept Israel and stop terrorism!

2. Stop brainwashing Palestinian kids and adults that Israel has no right to exist, that we "stole" their land

3. Stop involving kids in terrorism

4. Stop "Pay for Slay"

6

Peace deal and return to original borders Exactly as Israel did with Egypt and the Sinai

7

I can't think of an absolute resolutions, right now I guess there is nothing better than having a two state solution as the Ex PM also have suggested and made effort in support if it .Both Isreal and Palestinians irrespective of the past, should come into terms with each other amicably else no solution would be possible .Let time decide !

8

I would propose a two-state solution that is based on the thoughtful Peace Offer that was made more than 20 years ago by Israeli President Ehud Barak. It provided 97 percent of the West Bank and 100 percent of the Gaza Strip for the Palestinian State. All Israeli settlements in the West Bank would be dismantled and handed over to the Palestinian Authorities. In return, Israel would get 3% for security posts. Also, All Palestinian factions would be required to disarm and Israel would be fully and diplomatically recognized by the Palestinians and their Arab neighbors. Any future acts of Palestinian Terror (such as rocket fire from Hamas) would render this agreement null and void.

~

It was probably naïve to think that Zionists would come up with anything better than anti-Zionists. I know what you are thinking – that this is a complex conflict and there is no single resolution. I beg to differ. I think it is blindingly simple. At the risk of boring you, if the Palestinian Arabs had accepted their state in 1947 there would be no conflict, so before we start to look for a resolution there is a resolution that never happened but could have. A blindingly simple one.

The Arab states tried to resolve the conflict the hard way, by invading and eliminating Israel, but we know where that went. The Palestinians have tried to resolve it by garnering international support for their cause, and they are certainly getting that, but unless and until the international community can force Israel to annul itself the Palestinians can garner all the support they like, it is going to make no difference.

The Palestinians are playing a long game, a very long game. Their current strategy involves two long-term tactics. One is to move the Democratic Party in the US towards hostility to Israel. The other is to persuade Jewish students throughout north America and Europe to switch allegiance from Israel to the Palestinians. None of the responses I had to my questions recognised either of these issues. They were simplistic answers that, sadly, displayed little or no understanding of what is going on. They were also looking for complex solutions to what is, as I say, a simple problem.

Just imagine, for example, if Hamas made a call to the Prime Minister of Israel and said, OK, we will recognise Israel, sign a binding peace treaty, in exchange for normalisation of relations between Gaza and Israel. There is actually no obstacle to them doing that, nothing they could demand of Israel that would make it impossible, because it is possible. Right now.

I was hoping that some of the Zionists I invited to contribute to the debate might have said something like that, but they didn't. The importance of this is, again, if this tiny sample is indicative of Israeli thinking, Israeli politicians are going to make the mistake of looking for complication where none exists. By which I mean, why does the government not say to the United Nations, if Hamas does that we will recognise a Palestinian state? You can be quite sure that if that happened the PA would fall into line. The demand for a Palestinian 'right of return' would be quietly dropped. It has never actually been a possibility, it has only ever been a weapon.

So it really is that simple. OK, you are right, what do I know, I'm not a politician, or an academic or an expert of any kind. But excuse me, the politicians and the academics and the experts have not resolved the conflict in 70 years, so something has to change because they will keep going round in circles long past my lifetime.

What I was perhaps looking for as a suggestion by Zionists is simply that the Palestinians, all of them, should accept the existence of Israel, should drop maximalist demands that have never had any chance of being agreed to and are in fact deliberate obstacles to ensure there will be no resolution.

And that is the point, really, isn't it? The Palestinians do not want a resolution. Neither Zionists nor anti-Zionists can suggest one, because one side is not looking for it.

The EU, the United Nations and everyone else who thinks they should stick their oar in are unable to comprehend this simple fact.

HOW WOULD I RESOLVE THE CONFLICT?

You cannot resolve a problem if you don't know what the problem is. In my day job, this is why the pharmaceutical industry cannot cure Crohn's disease, because it looks for solutions but it doesn't understand the problem. It doesn't understand the mechanism of adaptation in the immune system. In the Foundation I head, we do understand it, because of the research done by the late Dr Richard Mackarness. We know what causes Crohn's, so we are able to cure it.

Everyone is trying to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict, come up with solutions without understanding the cause of the conflict. The universal belief is that it is a conflict over land.

It is not. If it were, the Palestinian Arabs would have taken the land offered to them in 1947. They would have taken it when subsequent Israel governments offered it to them, and when Israel gave them Gaza they would have set to nation building there. They did none of these things, so clearly the conflict is not about land.

Hundreds of years ago, people called Europe Christendom. Kings and queens were called 'Christian Monarchs'. This is why Christians were unable to accept Jews in Europe, because in their terms Europe was a Christian place.

When the Muslims conquered the Levant in the seventh century, the region became 'Muslim land'. What had been Jewish land for thousands of years became part of the Muslim empire, and the non-Jewish Levantines became Arab Muslims. The focal point of the conflict between Muslims and Christians was Jerusalem, the Jewish city conquered by the Romans and then Christian Europeans and then Muslim Arabs.

The Muslim Empire, the Ummah, clashed head on with the Christian empires in the city founded by the Jews. When the Muslim Ottomans made the city and the surrounding region part of their empire, the 'fact' that this was Muslim land was born.

And before going any further with this, let us be clear about something important. The Western world has the interesting but naive belief that, like Christianity and Judaism, Islam is a religion, and can be negotiated with like any other religion. It is not and it cannot. It is an all-embracing system of belief around religion and society. This matters because the conflict between Islam and the West is not religious, and cannot be resolved by ecumenical means. It is not me saying there is a conflict. Christian supremacists used to believe theirs was the one true faith, and that therefore they had a right, and a duty, to convert non-believers, and expel or murder people who refused to submit. Muslim supremacists believe theirs is the one true faith, and that therefore they have a right, and a duty, to convert non-believers, and expel or murder people who refuse to submit.

It is strangely ironic that the people everyone in this war loves to hate, Jews, who are described by haters as invaders, land-grabbers and baby-killers, are the one people of the three 'people of the book' who have no interest in converting, expelling or murdering anyone. Well, I find it ironic, anyway.

Islam is inherently in conflict with Western culture, and ground zero for that conflict is once again Jerusalem, or Zion, or Israel. Muslim supremacists cannot accept Jews in their Muslim world, just as Christian supremacists could not accept Jews in theirs. And since the Muslim conquest of the Levant, that region became part of the Muslim world. To Muslim supremacists such as Hamas and Hezbollah, there is no resolution to the conflict that includes Jews.

So do I believe the conflict will never be resolved? Perhaps, but at the time of writing this I see a glimmer of hope. The Muslim world is not monolithic. Indeed is is highly fractured and in conflict with itself. Sunnis, Shias, Wahabis and others have been at war with each other since the birth of Islam, and that conflict itself has no resolution. Just as Christians slaughtered other Christians in the name of Christianity, so Muslims slaughter each other in the name of their brand of Islam. If Palestinians think that by getting a state they are going to get their 'freedom', they are sadly deluded. Palestine, like Lebanon, will simply become a client state of Iran in its war with the Arab Muslims.

So the resolution, paradoxically, is largely in the hands of those Arab states, particularly the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia, all of whom are coming to understand that Israel is part of the solution, not part of the problem. They have been backing the wrong horse for years. They thought Jews have no place in the Middle East, but they are coming to see that the Jewish branch of the Semitic peoples is closer family than the Persians who share their religion but don't share their religion.

As much as the Palestinians deplore the improving relationship between Israel and their erstwhile Arab backers, that is Realpolitik. The Palestinians had their chance, several times, and every time they thought they could have all the land, but they are now on the wrong side of history.

Because it is starting to look like they are going to have to accept a resolution imposed by others. In other words, they are going to have to accept, with some adjustments, United Nations Resolution 181. Then there will be the Middle East peace that could have existed since 1948.

But will Hamas ever allow this to happen? No, they are never going to make that phone call. We tend to think that long-standing situations cannot change, but the Berlin Wall came down, and the fence between Israel and Gaza can come down. All that would take is for the people of Gaza to do what the people of Communist eastern Europe did. Take back control.

CONCLUSIONS

This has been an interesting and instructive exercise for me, and I hope for you too as a reader. I have to say it has also been saddening, because I knew before that the Israel-Palestinian conflict has no easy solution, but having it confirmed has not made life any better.

If it has achieved anything, for me, it is to clarify what the problem is – why people hate Israel and why nothing can be done about it, because their hatred is irrational. This means they hate Israel for something it did not do, is not doing, and therefore cannot be persuaded to stop doing.

There are a number of fundamentally erroneous beliefs, among Palestinians, the people who support the Palestinians (i.e. hate Israel), and even among people who have not really thought much about the conflict, like the people I interviewed face to face here in the UK, people with no axe to grind, just going with what they have been told by the news media about the conflict. These are that:

1.

There once was a country called Palestine.

2.

The people who lived there, and had for countless generations (in other words the indigenous population) were called Palestinians, and they were Arab and Muslim.

3.

The country called Palestine was stolen by European Jews, who expelled, murdered or otherwise disposed of the indigenous Arabs.

4.

The only resolution to the conflict is:

a)

For Israel to give the Arabs everything they have a right to, or

b)

For Israel to terminate itself and give Palestine back to the Palestinians.

These false beliefs are of course encouraged by the Palestinian leaders, which means that the ordinary Palestinians are being manipulated to want what they can never have, and are therefore condemned to perpetual victimhood. It also means that Western liberals, having bought into the myth of Palestinian victimhood, can only ever be part of the problem because they cannot be part of the solution. They want for the Palestinians something the Palestinians cannot have, so their support further condemns the very people they think they are helping but are not.

And finally, what about the Jews, the students especially, who are gradually coming round to the idea that Israel, not the Palestinians, is the problem? I do not blame them for believing this myth. They are young and vulnerable to peer pressure. They have no idea they are being taught by the enemies of their own people to turn on their own people.

And now I am going to be judgmental, something I hope I have avoided thus far, but there comes a point where it just can't be avoided. The people who peddle the myth of Palestinian victimhood are evil. The Western liberals who allow themselves to become useful idiots are just that, idiots. And I am reluctant to accuse young Jews of anything but even them I must say something about. If they are at university, as far as I recall the function of a university education is to teach people to think. The function of Palestinian manipulation is exactly the opposite, it is to teach people not to think but to believe what they are told, unquestioningly. Here I must blame the people who teach in UK and US universities, people who think they are being clever because they can't see they are being stupid, people who think their function is to teach students not to think but to believe what they themselves believe. These teachers have no right to do that. If they can't teach their students open-mindedness, to question what they are told, to see at least two sides to every argument, they are in the wrong job.

My point throughout this book has been to examine whether people have rational beliefs about Israel and about Jews. Well I knew the answer to that before I started, but if all this book has done is to confirm that they don't then it has not done what I wanted it to do. It would be nice to think that both sides in this argument (well, war really) might read it and stop and think, I wonder if perhaps they could just see things a little differently. The sad fact is, and I may have said this already, that people do not change, that facts that do not confirm what they believe are discarded.

And here I am going to come clean and admit I have my own set of beliefs, which basically means that not only do I believe that Israel is on the side of the angels but I KNOW that to be true. Has reading what Israel's haters have to say in any way affected me, perhaps tempted me to consider that there might be some truth in what they believe, that I should do what I say they should do, listen to opposing views? Well, actually no.

You see history is history. I know how the conflict started, and I know how and why it has been kept going all these years. All over the western world and all over the Muslim world people are taught to believe that the entire conflict is Israel's fault, and so it is up to Israel to put it right. Well, I have an advantage over most normal people. I have not the slightest problem with believing that no matter how many people tell me they are right and I am wrong, I know I am right and they are wrong. Early in this book I gave examples of things that everyone says, like 'electronic cigarette'. I am the only person I have ever met who doesn't call it that because I know it's nonsense. I also asked if I should be the arbiter of what is rational and what isn't. Well, the historical facts are that Israel, whilst not always doing the right thing, has always wanted to live in peace with its Arab neighbours. If you actually stop and think about this, how stupid would the first Israelis have to have been to establish their tiny state in the world's most hostile place, and then do anything at all to make the locals hate them? It just wouldn't be rational. They wanted one thing, which was to survive, so starting a war that would bring them within a hair's breadth of annihilation, a war that was never going to end, would have been the very last thing they wanted.

No, I have no qualms about saying Israel is on the side of the angels. The Arabs started this, and only they can finish it. In May 1948 Israel did not attack five Arabs states, five Arab states attacked Israel. The people who hate Israel never even talk about this, never consider even the possibility that that one fact is actually all that matters. I have said it before and I am going to say it again; all Hamas has to do is pick up the phone and call the Prime Minister of Israel, and the resolution, the one that none of my respondents has been able to articulate, will suddenly become blindingly obvious. If you are a Zionist, I firmly expect you will see the logic of this.

If you are an anti-Zionist I firmly expect you will dismiss it out of hand. I expect you are thinking, particularly if you are a Labour MP who has been on a fact-finding visit to 'occupied Palestine', that I should myself go and see the terrible conditions Palestinian refugees are living in, and then I would change my mind. Well, actually, no I wouldn't. You see, I deal in facts, not feelings. Truth, not emotions. I do not care about Palestinians living in terrible conditions. There are people all over the world living in terrible conditions that, unlike the Palestinians, are not self-inflicted. I am not going to spend one moment of my time to become engaged with the lives of Palestinians. If they want their lives to get better, I can tell them what to do, and I can tell them that inviting foreign politicians to come and emote over their victimhood is not going to make anything better, it is going to make everything worse, that the more the Palestinians persuade western liberals to pity them, the longer this is going to go on. For those people, and their children and their grandchildren, there is no future, no way out, no resolution.

Israelis, on the other hand, will just get on with their lives, developing their economy, creating ground-breaking technology, being a light unto the world, going to the synagogue and the mosque and the beach, doing all the normal things, not because they hate Palestinians, but because in the absence of  Palestinians wanting to resolve the conflict, the conflict is something Israelis can live with.

For as long as it takes.

I welcome comments,

and if you find a typo I want to know please.

robert@brynin.com

SOME REVIEWS FOR WHY DO YOU HATE ISRAEL?

ON AMAZON

*****

An eye-opening important book that everyone should read. A brilliant book.

*****

If you think antisemitism ended after the Holocaust, that it is now just a fringe right wing aberration, or that it's possible to call for the elimination of Israel without being antisemitic, you need to read this book.

RS Brynin braves the very depths of anti-Israel Twitter to ask people why they hate Israel, why they hate Jews and how they would resolve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Twitter is not a happy place if you are Jewish and a Zionist. Brynin exposes the senseless hatred people still have, and in the process, allows the haters themselves to demolish the argument that Anti Zionism is not really antisemitism. There is a reason antisemitism is known as the world's oldest hatred, and as they answer Brynin's questions, the tweeters have no shame in letting us know that they are simply its latest practitioners. Many of them are even proud of it. For his part, Brynin responds to this horrible litany with rational, reasoned arguments, pointing out the sheer illogicality of most people's statements.

"Why do you hate Israel" is not an easy read for any Jew or rational person, but it is an education that I believe we all desperately need.