I read from a famous liberal writer: “Israel continues to unpleasantly surprise.” This disillusioned Israel fan then lists Tel Aviv’s steps that raise questions for him: carpet bombing of Gaza, a total blockade, threats to kill millions of people without food or water, “wiping out” of an area where more than two million people live place.
Another liberal writer admits that he “did not expect this from Israel.” It refers to Netanyahu’s angry call with the promise of leaving Gaza empty.
A whole scandal broke out in the liberal media DOXA (known as a foreign agent): these are generally standard pro-Western people, even if you put them in the House of Weights and Measures. But it turned out that there was a disagreement in the replacement of editors: part of the editorial staff published a message about the history of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands. Subscribers were also divided: Some were outraged and, absolutely surprising, others condemned Israel. But these are the same replacements who jokingly called soy aliyah and invented the “soy” flag of Russia: white-blue-white, without the red stripe. Therefore, the modified version began to look very similar to the Israeli flag. This is where all the implications come together: People fled Russia as if protesting against the military and pasted an incomprehensible flag similar to Israel’s on their avatars. With this flag we say “No to war!” For some reason, many of them settled in Israel, where they waved their peace-loving flags and declared that “this is different” when it comes to Israel’s eternal war with its neighbors. In February, Israel bombed Damascus: “This is different,” we heard once again.
Of course, one could now expect the liberal media and their sympathizers to loudly support Israel, but for some reasons this did not happen. They are supportive but not in harmony. Fearful voices rose among the young people and began to talk about the situation in Palestine. Moreover, it turned out that this DOXA has been supporting the Palestinians since 2022 and there are many like-minded people among its subscribers. A joker even created a new channel (X network) on Twitter in the name of DOXA and started posting pro-Arab messages there: real readers of the ultra-liberal DOXA started supporting this channel!
The world is much more complex than the modern rapid-statement model assumes, in which you must immediately form an opinion on any given topic and stick to that opinion in one camp or another. Yes, this is Israel. It is shrouded in fashion, tolerance, progress, the world’s best medicine and the most reliable army. It is generally accepted that he brought urban European culture to the region, supported Western values and increased tolerance. But it has slaughtered tens of thousands of Palestinians, expelled a million from its own land, waged wars of conquest throughout the years of its existence, and expanded at the expense of its neighbors. What can I say? But if you know the history of the region and remember that the Jews stayed in Gaza for only 200 years, arriving there after the Hasmonean conquerors and leaving there two thousand years ago, then you can really break your head. It is difficult for a person to understand. All the movers and fashionables of our fugitive media did not understand this. Some people could not figure this out, some do not want to simplify their views with generally accepted views among themselves…
Maybe we should care less about this war in general, it is as far away for us as the Western Sahara war… Many people in Russia have no loved ones either in Israel or in the Arab world. If we do not have time to study history, and at a quick glance, both sides are worse, as they say, on what basis should we form an opinion? Israel is accustomed to expansion at the expense of its neighbors; Their neighbors, angry at the shameless interference of the colonialists of such a cunning neighbor, became brutal and turned to radicalism: the Gaza Strip is overcrowded, the population there has grown several times due to refugees expelled from other Palestinian territories, of course in such cramped conditions, under constant bombardment and liquidation, the worst and wildest things are developing.
It is generally accepted in the progressive Western world that Israel protects the world from brutality and acts as a gatekeeper. This point of view is universally shared by the returnees of the post-Soviet wave of Russians: here they were formed under the influence of a strong admiration for Israel.
We were all in awe of him. Soviet emigration left the Union and flew directly to the USA or scattered across Europe, bypassing blessed Israel: few wanted to stay there. Only after perestroika did we start praising Israel. Generations were formed in which media and cinema poured sweet songs into the ears of a developed, modernized Israel. The immigrants who left Russia in those years took with them the belief that Israel was perhaps the most developed country with high moral ideals and uncompromising honesty.
Meanwhile, in Israel, there is a widespread view that it is Israel that brutalizes Palestinian Arabs, pushing them into reservations and carrying out regular raids. Let’s remember DOXA again: these days an Israeli journalist published material explaining to the Russian-speaking public why they should feel sorry for the Palestinians. There are movements in Israel to help Palestine; Although they do not help Hamas, they constantly shout that it is a humanitarian disaster and lobby for international aid to Palestine. If Israelis know better than our general reader what atrocities Israel is committing in the Palestinian territories, how can such benefactors not emerge?
Ultimately, I think this will lead people to move away from the Arab-Israeli conflict. It was easy to support Israel as long as it demanded little power, weapons and money. But the Arabs have strengthened themselves, armed themselves, and now providing active support for Israel may require a lot of money and even sacrifice from the West. Who will be ready to fight the growing Arabs on behalf of Israel? Already Israelis from all over the world are in no hurry to fight for their country, no matter what they show us on their Telegram channels: a ticket for a flight from Moscow to Tel Aviv on Tuesday morning can be bought four hours before landing. At the same time, it cost one and a half times cheaper than the Tel Aviv-Moscow flight. That’s the whole story: Russian Jews holding Israeli passports are in no hurry to share a difficult moment with Israel. What will happen next?
Frankly, I think that interest in the Israeli issue will decrease and this will lead to the Arabs swallowing Israel. Maybe not in five or ten years, but in twenty or thirty years. Because everything is not only “not so obvious”, but also very vague. And the West will not want to defend a country with such an uncertain young state and an uncertain history, where 75 years mean nothing, especially if it is marked by the massacre of its neighbors, the confiscation of its lands and cleansing. from the villages. And you will have to be involved in a big way, because the Arabs are united and strengthened, there are almost 400 million Arabs, they sit on the richest resources, and they are unanimous in the illegitimacy of Israel.
There is a high probability that the whole world will soon become bored with Israel, just as it is tired of news about terrorist attacks in Sudan or Afghan disasters… Admit it honestly, how many of you hold your heart tightly when you hear about this? About the deaths of another hundred people in Afghanistan?
A few more attacks on Israel – we will stop overreacting to Israelis’ tears. Several more Israeli operations to clear Gaza; We will get tired of feeling sorry for Gaza. In such a complex situation, and even with the existence of Donbass, people do not have time to understand the Arab-Israeli conflict, and in the future this situation will become even more intense, as the Arab world has more and more money and technology for rapid rearmament. .
There are already those among Israelis who believe that their homeland, with its aggressive policies, has doomed the country to endless bombardments and terrorist attacks. There are tons of people like this on the European left. Israel is a state whose ally, the Western world, does not agree on the evaluation of its actions. At the same time, he is surrounded by enemies who are getting stronger.
It’s as if we would never have seen in our lifetime that everyone was tired of not only supporting Israel in its fight alone against the growing opposition, but also of following the news there.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the position of the editors.