Tectonic Shifts in Attitudes Toward Israel - Daniel Pipes, PhD
As Arabs and Muslims warm to Israel, the Left grows colder.
It is striking to note that full-scale Arab state warfare versus Israel lasted a mere 25 years (1948-73) and ended 45 long years ago; and that Turkey and Iran have since picked up the anti-Zionist torch.
That Arab and Muslim enmity has fractured, probably never to be reconstituted, amounts to one tectonic shift in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The second, no less important, involves the global Left's growing hostility to Israel.
Attitudes toward the Jewish state follow an almost linear progression of growing negativity as one goes from right to left.
It was not always thus. Joseph Stalin was so instrumental to Israel's birth in 1947-49 by providing diplomatic support and armaments that Abba Eban, Israel's first UN ambassador, observed that "we couldn't have made it, either diplomatically or militarily," if not for Soviet help. Democrats Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy rank among the most pro-Israel of American presidents, but Republican Dwight Eisenhower was unquestionably the most antagonistic.
MbS versus Jeremy Corbyn symbolizes these two tectonic shifts, as does Israel now enjoying better relations with Egypt than with Sweden. The president of Chad turns up in Israel but a singer from New Zealand does not. Israel's athletes compete in the United Arab Emirates but get banned in Spain. Muslims show increasing indifference to the breakdown in Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy, but Leftists express growing anger over it.
Only an Israel victory and a Palestinian defeat will achieve [a resolution of this issue]. In other words, getting the Palestinians to cry uncle is an urgent priority for Israel and its supporters.
[Washington Times]
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