Developments in the situation in Gaza will unfortunately not put an end to the moral injunctions to criticize Israel.
Some Jews, deeply attached to Zionism, did so spontaneously, believing the accusations to be sufficiently credible to warrant sounding the alarm. I believe they were misled by information that is largely false—made all the more pernicious by the fact that it emanates from supposedly respectable institutions. This is the case with the United Nations, whose bodies are elected by states of which 80% are autocracies, and where many of the remaining democracies have disarmed their critical faculties, preoccupied as they are with maintaining their international influence or blinded by emotional a priori that equate weakness with virtue.
Other Jews have projected onto Israel their anger at the government currently in power. This raises two problems. First, one is criticizing a democratic state fighting for its survival—one in which one has already decided not to live. Second, such positions are inevitably exploited by the propaganda of that state’s worst enemies.
For others, particularly in the Anglo-Saxon world, their Judaism had already drifted toward a naïve humanitarian cosmopolitanism, to which the woke movement has granted a kind of certification of moral “kashrut”—one that ought, in fact, to serve as a warning sign.
There are finally those who, out of political or religious commitment—followers of Trotskyism or of Satmar—have made hatred of Israel a central axis of their behavior. With those who welcomed October 7 as a punishment inflicted upon the forces of evil, no accommodation is possible.
While the vast majority of Jews experienced October 7 as an existential rupture and saw the images of a cursed past resurface, many of their neighbors regarded that day as just another episode in an endless litany of interethnic violence.
Their indifference was traumatic, as it echoed others from the past. But was it merely indifference?
In October 2003, a poll asked citizens in fifteen European countries which states posed the greatest threat to world peace. Israel won this dubious distinction, ranking ahead of Iran, North Korea, and the United States, which had just emerged from the war in Iraq.
That poll was conducted only days after a horrific terrorist attack at the Maxim restaurant in Haifa, which killed twenty-one people and injured more than sixty—images of which were widely broadcast.
October 2003, October 2023: does the apparent indifference to the victims reflect the persistence of a deeply ingrained antisemitism? The explanation seems to me more complex.
Several studies have shown that mass terrorist attacks initially generate a surge of sympathy for the victims, followed by a phase of emotional distancing, as the prospect of retaliation may trigger a chain reaction that threatens the safety of observers who, rightly or wrongly, do not feel personally concerned by such events. In Israel’s case, this period of empathy was particularly short.
Why? There is, of course, the entrenched Palestinian victimhood narrative, which has at times elicited reactions of outright hatred—of the “after all, they deserved it” variety.
But there is something else as well. Compassion for the persecutions Jews suffered throughout history, and support for the equality of their rights, are now widespread in our societies. Yet while the legality of the State of Israel is generally accepted, its absolute legitimacy is not fully so. Proof of this can be found in President Macron’s clumsy but telling insinuation that Israel’s existence derives from a UN decision—implicitly suggesting that what one assembly has created, another could undo—while overlooking the fact that the existence of this state, like that of many others in history, depends above all on its ability to defend itself.
That recourse to arms collides with a deeply rooted Christian imaginary, in which a thirst for vengeance is supposedly an essential feature of Jewish behavior. Accusations of ritual murder or global conspiracy have, most often unconsciously, been transmuted into absurd denunciations of “genocide.”
In the 2003 poll, one European country stood out for its particularly negative perception of Israel and has remained very hostile ever since: the Netherlands, which once represented Israel’s interests when it had severed relations with the communist bloc.
From being a land of refuge for Jews fleeing the Inquisition to the nickname “the Jewish club” given to Ajax Amsterdam, and including the help extended to Anne Frank’s family, the image of the Netherlands is largely positive in Jewish memory. The large number of Dutch “Righteous Among the Nations” has overshadowed the fact that three-quarters of the country’s Jewish community were exterminated.
It seems to me that the main drivers of hostility toward Israel in the Netherlands are not, as in neighboring Belgium and France, the presence of a large Muslim population and political parties eager to cultivate it as an electoral base. Rather, they appear to be linked to pacifism and to a colonial past for which some, following a well-worn script, assign responsibility to American capitalism and its allies—among whom Israel naturally features in the front line.
Also weighing heavily in the Netherlands is the moral authority of religious and humanitarian organizations, which are highly sensitive to the dichotomy between the strong and the weak and virtuously blind and deaf to calls for massacre emanating from radical Islam. During the trial concerning the appalling violence inflicted a year ago on supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv, some judges even refused to characterize the acts as antisemitic.
The upcoming Dutch parliamentary elections will therefore be closely watched far beyond the country’s borders.
Dr. Richard Prasquier
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