Reversing The Narrative

Would you consider playing soccer on a hockey rink? And would you consider doing so time and time again when results prove dismal?

Playing a land sport on an ice surface is a ludicrous proposition. It’s dangerous and not likely to yield good results. But this is exactly the situation that the pro-Israel narrative faces on the world stage. Today defenders of Israel are confronted by a powerful “intersectional” narrative. It’s a viewpoint, however, which not only condemns Israel’s actions but also attacks Jews everywhere. The intersectional view sets the playing field.

The field is rigged. According to the intersectionalists, the facts are clear. The Palestinians are victims. The Israelis are colonial invaders, having seized land from the rightful occupants and backed by imperialist powers such as the United States and the United Kingdom. The West Bank is said to be “the occupied West Bank” as if Israel had just taken over this territory in its quest for enlargement. Israel is condemned as an apartheid society that sets apart and oppresses a Palestinian minority. Moreover, intersectionalists say, Israel has no right to exist. As the Palestinian slogan goes, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” These views are chanted on the streets of the world and the refrain is widespread, especially on social media.

But intersectionalism doesn’t just stop with criticism of Israel’s policies or its complete eradication. Anti-Israel and anti-Zionist views easily and angrily spill over into anti-Jew venom. This is evident in the many global protests by those touting an anti-Israel perspective. Jews should be killed; Hitler wasn’t sufficiently thorough; Jewish women should be raped. All these terrible sentiments are on hateful display. The anti-Israel crowd has bought into a huge package deal with a lot of baggage and ramifications.

As intersectional, the anti-Israel pro-Palestinian narrative garners supporters from other movements where people feel oppressed. Movements such as BLM and LGBTQ gravitate to a pro-Palestinian viewpoint, sharing in a sense of injustice. That’s the intersection: victimhood. These victim causes are linked as common causes, whereas in fact the movements are very different.

Tying all victim causes to an anti-Israel stance comes with strange comrades. It links pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiments with support for the terrorist organization Hamas which calls for the destruction of Israel, as well as creating an alignment with Iran and its quest for power in the Middle East.

In the case of LBGTQ, adopting an anti-Israel stance is curiously suicidal. Israel, unlike Gaza for instance, accepts LGBTQ persons and hosts Pride parades. In many Arab countries, being LGBTQ would result in a death sentence or prolonged imprisonment. In Israel, gays, lesbians, women and minority religious members are protected by law. Not so in almost all Muslim countries. Try being a Jew in Saudi Arabia…or Syria…or Gaza, for instance. How many synagogues are there in Gaza or the West Bank for that matter, whereas there are at least 20 mosques in Israel and dozens of churches of all denominations.

The problem is this: the pro-Israel narrative is playing on the wrong field. The anti-Israel narrative lays out the geography of colonization, occupation and suppression and it labels the players right from the outset.