One of the most important observations in Bret Stephens’ piece is that hatred of Israel increasingly tells us less about Israel - and more about the societies indulging in that hatred.
That is what makes this essay so powerful.
Stephens carefully distinguishes between criticism of Israel, which is legitimate, necessary, and deeply present within Israeli society itself, and the obsessive moral exceptionalism now directed toward the Jewish state.
Because what we are witnessing across large parts of media, academia, activism, and culture is not normal criticism.
It is ideological fixation.
A fixation in which Israel is uniquely stripped of context, proportion, and even legitimacy itself.
A fixation in which every error, tragedy, allegation, or accusation is instantly woven into a broader theological narrative of Jewish evil.
A fixation in which fabricated or exaggerated claims are eagerly embraced so long as they reinforce prior ideological assumptions.
As Stephens writes:
“Societies that value critical thinking and reasoned moral judgment do not make a fetish of demonizing one small country and its people while imagining that peace, justice and freedom would somehow be achieved if only the country and its people were made to disappear.”
That is precisely the point.
A society grounded in reason does not become obsessed with one tiny democracy while largely ignoring mass atrocities, authoritarianism, ethnic cleansing, political repression, terrorism, slavery, and genocidal violence elsewhere across the globe.
A healthy intellectual culture does not repeatedly suspend skepticism whenever the accusation involves Jews or Israel.
And yet that is exactly what has happened.
For more than two decades, many of the most explosive allegations against Israel, from Jenin to Al-Durrah to the hospital blast after October 7, have eventually collapsed, unraveled, or required substantial correction after being amplified worldwide as unquestioned truth.
But by then, the damage is already done.
Because the goal increasingly seems less about truth than emotional and ideological reinforcement.
And that should concern everyone, regardless of where they stand politically.
When journalism rewards narrative over evidence, institutions lose credibility.
When academia rewards activism over inquiry, intellectual rot follows.
When moral standards are selectively applied to Jews, societies corrode from within.
Stephens is right to frame this as a broader crisis of the West itself.
Not because Israel is beyond criticism. But because civilizations that lose the capacity for proportion, fairness, historical memory, and moral consistency inevitably begin losing something far more important than political arguments.
They lose their grip on reality.
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