It doesn’t take much to stir up hatred for Israel. Just splash a bunch of photos depicting starving children with protruding bones, gasping in desperation, and the job is done.
And that is exactly what many biased media outlets have done. Provided with the visual ammunition, they have wasted no time disseminating the most horrifying images that have helped to vilify and demonize Israel as a heartless, sadistic, and immoral country, deserving of no sympathy for its own sufferings of October 7.
The problem with those damning photos is that they lack context. While those poor children obviously exist, no one knows how they got that way or who was responsible for their systematic starvation and abject neglect. Are they Gazan children? Were they deliberately used for good photo ops or are they legitimately kids who have not been fed? There is no way to know, but who needs their background details when it’s so much easier to blame Israel for their plight?
Mass famine in Gaza
Here’s what we do know. We know that the food and humanitarian aid that is regularly being provided has been hijacked by Hamas operatives, who have been selling a 25-kilo sack of flour for NIS 2,000, the equivalent of $560 (that’s NIS 80 or $22 per kilo). For a government that supposedly championed the cause of its victimized people, this takes price gouging to a whole new level.
But when you’ve lost everything you own, as corrupt leaders play the ultimate chess game with your life, it becomes easy to see how children could suffer the effects of starvation just because there is no money to feed them.
All the blame is laid at the feet of Israel, accused of having perpetrated this type of evil upon helpless Gazans who have not taken the reins of their own destiny. Knowing how effective this libel of genocide can be, Hamas is only too happy to reap the benefits of the isolation now threatening the Jewish homeland as infuriated nations believe the image that is being portrayed by those who have the most to gain – the ones truly responsible for this suffering.
As ubiquitous reports surface of a mass famine in Gaza, Israel is on a path toward desertion and abandonment by all her former friends who no longer have any patience or reserve goodwill left for the country they, too, believe has committed unforgivable crimes.
Israel is about to be tried and sentenced without a fair preponderance of factual evidence, by nations of the world who are satisfied with incriminating photos and unsubstantiated innuendo. According to two more well-known Israeli representatives, former government spokesperson Eylon Levy and actress/activist Noa Tishby, there has never been a time when Israel was portrayed in such vilifying terms as now.
But all of this serves useful purposes: firstly to the enemy, who literally gets away with murder while maintaining their unique branding as “freedom fighters” who are battling the great oppressor next door.
Secondly, it serves the purpose of legitimizing the antisemitic sentiment that has been well contained for decades, always seething beneath the surface but never emerging, due to accepted societal constraints. That is no longer a consideration, since the war has facilitated a case against Israel, painting it as the overpowering aggressor who shows no mercy to the helpless.
The ugly truth of how they became helpless is unmentioned, because acknowledging that detail would incriminate the real oppressors, letting Israel off the hook. But that cannot happen, because it is antithetical to the needed narrative of a guilty Israel.
An inversion of moral gravity
A brilliant discourse of this dishonest reversal of blame was articulated by former vice president of the Royal United Services Institute David Martin Abrahams, who wrote the following in his article titled, “In the shadow of cowardice” (The Jerusalem Post, May 26): “Since the atrocities of October 7, 2023, the world has witnessed the total inversion of moral gravity. That date – when Hamas theocratic proxies of Iran stormed into Israeli towns to rape, burn, mutilate and abduct civilians – should have marked a universal moment of reckoning.”
Sadly, it did not. The momentary collective gasp over the shocking revelation of what took place, soon dissipated, turning instead into a useful weaponization against Israel and all Jews who, predictably, were seen as equal partakers of the guilty acts, attributed to their homeland. It is the reason they were denied access to education on their campuses. It also accounts for the cold-blooded murder of two Israeli embassy workers, whose executioner was subsequently hailed by many to be a brave hero.
As Abrahams wrote, the October massacre “should have triggered the full-throated condemnation of any ideology that dreams of Jewish extinction and plots it with millimeter precision. It should have unified the free world in the unambiguous rejection of all who celebrated it.”
But when your goal is demonization of Israel and the Jews, as an extra added bonus, honesty is not beneficial to that objective, because the factual evidence will only serve to muddy the waters that need to be crystal clear for all to see. Abrahams calls it cowardice, but it is much more than that. It is a malicious act, calculated to inflict injury and punishment upon the people who were specifically chosen to usher in world redemption.
It is actually a finger-poking in the eye of the Creator, as an indictment against His choice. Whether driven by jealousy or the fury of being second in line, it is a way to rail at the intended divine order that no human can manipulate no matter how hard they try. The unenlightened world prefers the darkness of evil rather than the illumination of truth and justice.
And while Israel is far from being an example of an uncorrupted people, the promise of our own regeneration exists, along with the hope of a coming worldwide restoration that will seek a righteous path rather than the destructive highway it is presently on, as it demonizes the innocent and exalts the guilty.
Thankfully, we have a faithful arbiter who will right the wrong and return Israel to her rightful place – not only among the nations but also as the example she was meant to be.
The writer is a former Jerusalem elementary and middle school principal. She is also the author of Mistake-Proof Parenting, available on Amazon, based on the time-tested wisdom found in the Book of Proverbs.