Israel, or the art of sleeping with one eye open

Beginning May 15, 1948, the British Mandate for Palestine was officially put to an end. It was a territorial administration commissioned by the League of Nations to the United Kingdom as part of the partition of the Ottoman Empire after losing World War I. Among its obligations were to "secure the establishment of a Jewish national home," and "safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine." It so happened that May 15 fell on Saturday, a Sabbath, so it was on May 14, one day before, that David Ben Gurion read, in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Israeli Declaration of Independence. Just a year prior, the United Nations General Assembly had approved a two-state plan, with one Arab and the other Jewish, a plan that the Jewish community had accepted but the Arab one had not.

Not a day had passed since the creation of the brand new State of Israel when Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq have not tried to invade it. The inhabitants of Israel, who had been exterminated or expelled from different countries in the world for centuries, established their country with a war for independence, like so many other countries in the world, with an army that was poor in practically every way. For 15 months, they fought against all their neighbors and won. Since then, they have not stopped fighting.

Criticizing the policies of a nation does not mean hating that nation or its inhabitants. Denying the right of that nation to exist and wishing that its inhabitants be swallowed by the sea is hate. Today, once again, Israel is under attack by a terrorist organization whose goal is to ensure the disappearance of the Jewish people and their nation from the region they have inhabited for almost 40 centuries. That is to say, at least 18 centuries before a Catholic soul and 25 centuries before a Muslim soul ever set foot on that land. Let the archaeological evidence dispel debates about who arrived first.

However, every time Israel is attacked and defends itself, voices arise that justify terrorist attacks because they say it is usurping land that belongs to another. This solidarity with terrorists is an acceptance of their precept that Israel should not be where it is. It has been of no use to explain recent history a thousand times and to remind that a Palestinian state has never existed (and that it still does not). The view that Israel and Zionists are committing genocide in the region has been embraced by a large portion of global public opinion, just look at the profuse use of this word in the press and on social media.

This mainstream perception was not always like this, but it grew and took shape thanks to the exotic marriage between the left and Islam, which was forged when many intellectuals and politicians welcomed and supported Ayatollah Khomeini's fundamentalism in Iran towards the end of the '70s. Islamic fundamentalism had, along with deconstructivism and socialist activism, the desire to end capitalism and the bourgeoisie. The enemies of the enemy became friends in the name of postcolonialism, anti-imperialism and other emerging -isms. It is difficult to understand the marriage thus forged, since the identity premises of '70s-era socialism, such as those that promoted sexual liberation, came face to face with the imposition of Shariah law, but it is there that semantic pragmatism devised a narcotic phrase for progressive minds: "It's a different culture," in order to preserve its powerful terrorist ally.

In 1987, the terrorist organization Hamas was formed with the goal of "establishing a Palestinian Islamic State in place of Israel." It's understandable, right?

Since then, Israel has had dozens of conflicts that nearly led to its disappearance as a state. Wars in 1956, in 1967, in 1973, in 1982, in 2014 and endless hostilities of varying levels of intensity and modality, but always with the same objective: Israel's disappearance. This reality is what has led Israel to constantly sleep with one eye open. Since then, it has also faced hostility from the media and in the public discourse, and while it is true that it has mostly won on the literal battlefield, it has certainly lost the battle to garner positive public opinion.

The manipulation of headlines and facts takes a curious form. Step one is typically a Manichean recounting of the linear succession of events in that justifies acts of terrorism as the consequence of some triggering act of Israeli aggression. The justification being used at present is that Israel is responsible for yesterday's Iranian drone attack due to its air attack in Damascus, a rationale that ignores the Israel being constantly under attack by Hamas, the Houthis and Hezbollah, who are financed by and take orders from the Iranian dictatorship. Since Oct. 7, the day the Gazan government invaded Israel, Israel has been the target of airstrikes each and every day from one of these three Iranian proxies. The target in Damascus was the headquarters of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and senior military leaders of the Iranian regime responsible for orchestrating attacks against Israel were killed there. It was a military objective cleverly located next to the embassy.

But every time false narratives and manipulation of information by terrorists is disproved by evidence, the Islamism apologists go back even further, until another triggering act is found for which Israel can be held responsible, until (always) reaching the conclusion that the Jewish state should not exist and again start blaming Israel for the escalation. Thus, in 1987 the terrorist organization Hamas was formed with the goal of "establishing a Palestinian Islamic State in place of Israel." It's understandable, right? Since, Hamas has carried out suicide bombings, stabbings and attacks with firearms and rockets. Since its emergence, it has taught violence in the streets and schools and destroyed civic life to make being a martyr for the cause appear desirable. Since the 1990s, suicide attacks have intensified, killing 60 Israelis in 1996 alone. From 2000 to 2004, 425 attacks were recorded. In order to take the lives of Jews, they sacrificed the lives of their own.

In 2007, Hamas took power in the Gaza Strip, investing millions of dollars in the construction of tunnels to traffic weapons, thanks to which they have fired tens of thousands of rockets against Israeli cities. Its fiscal policy also befits an economy that extracts everything for war. Public executions are held for those who challenge its rules. It goes without saying that it is a tyranny without rights. Equating Hamas with a state is an insult, in the first instance, to the Palestinians. Hamas is a criminal organization that dedicates all its resources and efforts to erasing Israel from the face of the Earth, and in doing so, there is no investment in the protection or development of the strip's inhabitants. This is why they live in a state of misery and insecurity despite the funds and humanitarian aid they receive. What's more, the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip are instrumental in Hamas' war. The Palestinians are there to protect weapons and military equipment, and not the other way around.

If you want a country to allow itself to be killed it is because you want its extermination, let's not give it any more thought.

It is no coincidence that Hamas' operational commands and depots are in residential areas. The rockets are fired from there, and the failures that logically occur cause them to fall in the Gaza Strip itself, killing civilians, in addition to turning them into a military target if adversaries want to neutralize the launch base. This humanitarian tragedy consists of having a population governed by terrorists with staunch ideas that legitimize any action taken to achieve their goal.

In less than a century, Israel became a rich and powerful nation, but above all democratic. In fact, it is the only country in the region that say so. Meanwhile, Palestine is torn apart by two opposing sides, which have not managed to form a state. On the one hand, Hamas, and on the other, the Palestinian National Authority, governed by Al Fatah, a socialist party founded by Yasser Arafat and whose current leader is Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian National Authority since 2005.

The progressive double standard

As happened after the Oct. 7 massacre, and as is happening now when less than 12 hours have passed since Iran's attack featuring hundreds of drones and missiles, the voices demanding a measured response from Israel can already be heard. The double standards and cynicism are enormous. The culprits become the victims, again, looking somewhere in the chain of events for a reason to blame Israel for the attack on its own soil. Again, Israel's original sin is existing. Only anti-Israeli prejudice can explain this reasoning, a kind of, "They were asking for it by being there."

The request for a measured response never extends to the terrorist authorities in Gaza, Iran or Yemen. The famous anti-aircraft system that protects Israel is effective but not infallible, and many missiles managed to hit Israeli soil. If it had followed the international progressive agenda, it would have ceased to exist a long time ago. Israel is being asked to negotiate with terrorists, and to make matters worse, it is being equated with an organization that does not meet even half of the moral standards being required of Israel itself. It is also expected that when Israel wins a battle, it says: "Well, I won, I'll retire to let my enemies regain strength and I'll leave. No worries here." That attitude was of no use to Israel in Gaza in 2005, which led Hamas leadership to turn it into an arsenal full of missiles. Making deals with terrorists is handing Israelis over to death. It's in the founding documents of Hamas. You just have to read them, it's all there.

Hamas does not want two states. It was never interested in building one for the Palestinians with institutions that protect their freedoms and their families. On the other hand, Israel is a very young state, born from a struggle that is the same as always, a story centuries in the making. If the Jewish people did not break when 6 million of their brothers and sisters were killed in the gas chambers, and if they were able to win a war in less than a week, they are not going to stop defending themselves now, because letting terrorism win would be accepting evil, which they will not do. Israel will prevail because it learned that resistance must never falter. They learned to sleep with one eye open, and if they have to repeat the obvious for 20 more centuries, so be it.