WarSclerotic

The Left vs Israel, Israel Hayom, Daniel Pipes, June 1, 2016

Since the creation of Israel, Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims have been the mainstay of anti-‎Zionism, with the Left, from the Soviet Union to professors of literature, their auxiliary. But this ‎might be in process of change: As Muslims slowly, grudgingly, and unevenly come to accept the ‎Jewish state as a reality, the Left is becoming increasingly vociferous and obsessive in its ‎rejection of Israel.‎

Much evidence points in this direction: Polls in the Middle East find cracks in the opposition to ‎Israel while a major American survey for the first time shows liberal Democrats to be more anti-‎Israel than pro-Israel. The Saudi and Egyptian governments have real security relations with ‎Israel while a figure like (the Jewish) Bernie Sanders declares that “to the degree that [Israelis] ‎want us to have a positive relationship, I think they’re going to have to improve their relationship ‎with the Palestinians.”‎

But I should like to focus on a small illustrative example from a United Nations institution: The ‎World Health Organization churned out report A69/B/CONF./1 on May 24 with the enticing ‎title, “Health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, and in the ‎occupied Syrian Golan: Draft decision proposed by the delegation of Kuwait, on behalf of the ‎Arab Group, and Palestine.”‎

The three-page document calls for “a field assessment conducted by the World Health ‎Organization,” with special focus on such topics as “incidents of delay or denial of ambulance ‎service” and “access to adequate health services on the part of Palestinian prisoners.” Of course, ‎the entire document singles out Israel as a denier of unimpeded access to health care.‎

This ranks as a special absurdity given the WHO’s hiring a consultant in next-door Syria who is ‎connected to the very pinnacle of the Assad regime, even as it perpetrates atrocities estimated at ‎a half million dead and 12 million displaced (out of a total prewar population of 22 million). ‎Conversely, both the wife and brother-in-law of Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinian ‎Authority, whose status and wealth assures them treatment anywhere in the world, chose to be ‎treated in Israeli hospitals, as did the sister, daughter, and granddaughter of Ismail Haniyeh, the ‎Hamas leader in Gaza, Israel’s sworn enemy.‎

Despite these facts, the WHO voted on May 28 to accept the proposed field assessment with the ‎predictably lopsided outcome of 107 votes in favor, eight votes against, eight abstentions and 58 ‎absences. So far, all this is tediously routine.‎

But the composition of those voting blocs renders the decision noteworthy. Votes in favor ‎included every state in Europe except two, Bosnia-Herzegovina (which has a half-Muslim ‎population) and San Marino (total population: 33,000), both of which missed the vote for reasons ‎unknown to me.‎

To repeat: Every other European government than those two supported a biased field assessment ‎with its inevitable condemnation of Israel. To be specific, this included the authorities ruling in ‎Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, ‎Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, ‎Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, ‎Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, ‎Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.‎

Making this European near-unanimity the more remarkable were the many absented governments ‎with large- to overwhelming-majority-Muslim populations: Burkina Faso, Chad, ‎Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Sudan, ‎Tajikistan, Tanzania, Togo, and Turkmenistan.‎

So, Iceland (with effectively no Muslims) voted for the amendment and against Israel while ‎Turkmenistan (which is over 90% Muslim) did not. Cyprus and Greece, which have critical ‎new relations with Israel, voted against Israel while the historically hostile Libyans missed the ‎vote. Germany, with its malignant history, voted against Israel while Tajikistan, a partner of the ‎Iranian regime’s, was absent. Denmark, with its noble history, voted against Israel while Sudan, ‎led by an Islamist, did not.‎

This unlikely pattern suggests that monolithic Muslim hostility is cracking while Europeans, who ‎are overwhelmingly on the Left, to the point that even right-wing parties pursue watered-down ‎left-wing policies, increasingly despise Israel. Worse, even those who do not share this attitude ‎go along with it, even in an obscure WHO vote.‎

Muslims, not leftists, still staff almost all the violent attacks on Israel; and Islamism, not ‎socialism, remains the reigning anti-Zionist ideology. But these changes point to Israel’s cooling ‎relations with the West and warming ones in its neighborhood.‎