The world’s double standard toward Israel is prejudice dressed as principle - opinion

Why are Jews, representing barely 0.2% of the world’s population, so frequently portrayed as responsible for events over which they have neither control nor influence?

And why is Israel held to standards that are applied to virtually no other country?

These are not merely rhetorical questions. They go to the heart of a disturbing phenomenon in contemporary political discourse: the normalization of anti-Israel prejudice, frequently dressed up as legitimate political criticism.

Of course, Israel, like every state, is not beyond criticism. Policies should be and are scrutinized and debated. But there is a fundamental difference between legitimate criticism of Israeli policy and the systematic, blind and naive demonization of Israel as uniquely evil, illegitimate or criminal by an international community blinded by division.

The distinction becomes especially important when criticism of Israel is accompanied by a double standard.

Where are the comparable demands for international sanctions against countries that deliberately murder, torture or expel their own populations? Where is the same outrage directed at regimes that suppress women, LGBTQ communities, persecute minorities, imprison political opponents or launch wars of aggression?

Why is Israel routinely singled out at international forums while some of the world’s worst violators of human rights escape comparable scrutiny?

And why is the Jewish state, alone among the nations of the world, so often expected to justify its very existence?

These questions become even more troubling when the history of the region is ignored.

Israel did not create the Arab-Israeli conflict. It did not initiate the rejection of the 1947 United Nations partition proposal. It did not invent terrorism as a political instrument. And it did not compel generations of Palestinian and Arab leaders to reject opportunities for negotiated accommodation.

Yet whenever Israel defends itself against terrorism or armed attack, an extraordinary reversal frequently takes place. The aggressor disappears from the narrative, while Israel becomes the principal culprit.

This inversion of responsibility is not merely intellectually dishonest. It can have deadly consequences.

The victims of terrorism are then transformed into the alleged perpetrators, while those who deliberately attack civilians are presented as freedom fighters.

There is another disturbing dimension to this phenomenon: the increasingly blurred line between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.

It may be legitimate to criticize Israeli policies, but when Jews throughout the world are held collectively responsible for Israel’s actions; when Jews are physically accosted, Jewish institutions are attacked because of events in the Middle East; when Jewish students are intimidated; or when Jewish communities are told that they must condemn Israel to prove their moral legitimacy, something far more sinister is taking place.

The old accusation from time immemorial that Jews are responsible for society’s problems has simply acquired a modern vocabulary and is now accompanied overtly by violence and intimidation.

The question therefore must be asked: Why Israel? Why the Jews? Why this extraordinary obsession?

Perhaps the answer lies in both political and social convenience. Israel is a small, identifiable and highly visible target. It is easier to mobilize public anger against a democratic state than against authoritarian regimes whose governments control information and suppress dissent. It has always been easier to mobilize anger against Jews, especially in Europe. The fact that history is repeating itself with vengeance is reason for utmost concern

But convenience cannot justify hypocrisy.

Those who genuinely believe in human rights, international law and the protection of civilians should apply those principles universally. They should condemn terrorism regardless of its perpetrators, defend civilian life regardless of nationality, and demand accountability from all states, organizations and societies that violate fundamental norms.

Israel should be judged by the same standards as every other country – not by lower standards, but certainly not by impossibly higher ones.

The alternative is not justice. It is prejudice masquerading as principle.

Israel will continue to face criticism. That is part of being a democratic state. But criticism becomes unacceptable when facts are deliberately distorted, history is erased, responsibility is inverted, and an entire people are demonized.

The time has come to ask the uncomfortable questions – and to insist on honest answers.

For if Israel and the Jews are blamed for everything, sooner or later we must ask whether the problem lies not with Israel or the Jews, but with those who have made blaming them their political reflex.