Blaming Israel is an insult to humanity

On Tuesday night, 10 October, I went out to visit the home of an Israeli colleague in South Africa. Usually I don’t visit colleagues on a week day. This time there was a reason. She was informed that her brother-in-law was murdered by Hamas terrorists in the south of Israel. Her brother was an ordinary guy with a family, who woke up early on Shabbat to ride his bicycle. Nobody in the world expected him to be found on the road, next to his bike, murdered.

I’ve been reading some of the comments in South Africa, and one can hear people speaking about both sides, calling for restraint, some even blaming Israel for the murder of its own citizens. This brings to my mind George Orwell’s book, 1984, in which he wrote, “War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.”

Unfortunately, these words are as relevant in our world today as they were in Orwell’s Oceania. Reality continues to be distorted unashamedly, strong opinions that are based on sheer ignorance continue to be expressed forcefully. The same meaningless clichés are repeated time and time again, apparently out of adherence to Joseph Goebbels, who said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Along these lines, if you continue to blame Israel for the atrocities against its citizens, maybe people will believe it.

People all over the world don’t like to be shocked. They prefer to be “balanced”, to see “both sides”, to issue meaningless calls for “ceasefire”. People don’t like to watch the video clips that were taken by perpetrators of families being murdered, old people, Holocaust survivors, women being kidnapped, and young women being brutally attacked. Definitely not thoughts about 40 babies in one kibbutz that were murdered in their cradles, some decapitated.

It’s disturbing, and creates a dissonance with the long-tested and comfortable “both sides” and “restraint, support for peace” ideals. What has happened these past days in the south of Israel, where ordinary families were living their ordinary lives, being their ordinary selves, until terror and destruction hit? Only Jewish lives were brutally taken.

The scope of the atrocities committed against ordinary Israelis, the degree of barbarity and savageness, was unprecedented. Even ISIS (Islamic State’s) terrorism pales in comparison to what Hamas did.

But what’s no less important is the response of the civilised world. We heard country after country expressing shock at this heinous attack, offering sympathy and gestures of solidarity, as well as condemning Hamas unequivocally.

A few, however, chose to disregard the facts, and conveniently blamed Israel in their statements, justifying terror, placing themselves in the camp of the perpetrators. Even more ridiculous are the offers of mediation between murderers and their victims, between savages who destroyed lives and their targets. This attitude is an insult to humanity.

Unfortunately, Israel has always been the preferred choice for bashing by the so-called “politically correct supporters of the oppressed”. Accusations of Israel’s responsibility for all crimes possible and sometimes impossible are among the favoured pastimes of the self-righteous hypocrites. Much of these critics disregard the fact that they choose to support a theocratic military dictatorship, Gaza, under Hamas. That they support a brutal regime that oppresses the rights of women, minorities, and LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning) people. A theocratic junta that draws its support from Iran and openly propagates destruction of Israel and the Jewish people.

It’s time to stop hiding behind false “political correctness”. More than 1 200 men, women, and children were murdered only because they were Jews. Their murderers are direct followers of the Nazis. They don’t hide it, and their actions speak for themselves.

There can be no more sitting on the fence. Those who don’t openly condemn the atrocities perpetuated by Hamas identify themselves with the murderers. In reference to Pastor Martin Niemöller’s (an opponent of Hitler) famous quote: “If we don’t take a clear and decisive stand against Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Iran, they won’t stop at Israel, they will come for Jews worldwide, and then there will be no-one left to speak for us.”

• Eli Belotsercovsky is the Israeli ambassador to South Africa.