How poor orphan syndrome serves Israel’s enemies
Jews are painfully aware of being in the grip of a pandemic of misinformation that fetishises the deliberately manufactured victimhood of the Palestinians and wilfully denies Israel’s desire merely to survive in its ancestral homeland.
How did we get there? How did this virus of denial and delusion take hold? How did we reach a point where supposedly intelligent students (and supposedly intelligent academics) at leading universities, and supposedly decent people have all fallen so deeply under the spell of a hate-filled narrative of myths and fabrications – clearly inspired by racist stereotypes and medieval Jew-hate – that they are prepared to hold sit-ins and take to the streets to glorify jihadi slaughter and call for the death of Jews?
How did we reach the point where politicians elected (or selected) to serve their constituents – or in the case of the Greens, to fight global warming – neglect the needs of their constituents (or the planet) to obsess over the world’s one Jewish state, so tiny it would fit into California 18 times?
How did we reach the point where the US president punished its ally, Israel, with an arms embargo when this ally is defending itself against existential threat from an Iranian-backed terrorist organisation which slaughtered, butchered, beheaded, raped and abducted 1,400 of that ally’s civilian population, including babies, infants, seniors and US citizens? How did we reach the point where the governments of a slew of Western nations – including the UK based on a quote from the new PM – are effectively rewarding the terrorist organisation which slaughtered, butchered, beheaded, raped and abducted by awarding them state-hood?
How did we reach the point where organisations such as The Red Cross and UNRWA were colluding so closely with terrorists that their staff and vehicles were involved in the Oct 7 massacre, as well as a point where the august Red Cross was not just complicit in the capture of hostages (including babies) but is failing to offer humanitarian aid to the hostages who have been captive now for nine whole months? How did we reach the point where the global policeman, the UN, is so corrupted and deluded that it excused the butchery and hostage-taking while attempting to punish the victim of this orgy of violence? How did we reach a situation where Jews feel as if they are being pounded by a tsunami of hate while – to extend the metaphor – many of the great are ignoring their predicament and condemning them for it?
Obviously this epidemic of delusion that portrays Israel as imperialist, colonialist and even – absurdly – an “apartheid state,” didn’t happen overnight. It is mainly due to exposure over many decades to the aforementioned fake narrative. And media, too, obviously has, for decades, been a key vector for contamination through reports which are selective with facts, avoid context and downplay or neglect entirely threat and harm to Israel while inflating and highlighting threat and harm to Palestinians.
But I believe that “poor orphan syndrome” is the more relevant factor in this epidemic of anti-Israel sentiment. Poor orphan syndrome (or POS) is about wilfully excluding all inconvenient truth in the same way that a man demanding mercy for being a poor orphan omits to mention that he’s only an orphan because he murdered his entire family. And just as the orphan wishes to hide the fact that he is primarily responsible for his orphan status, so the Palestinians and their allies and leaders resolutely conceal all inconvenient truths and omit all facts that might reveal that their narrative of victimhood is counterfeit. It is why Palestinian apologists and spokespeople despise context, hate facts, hate statistics and hate history, because they all fatally undermine their claims to the land and their claims of victimhood,
They are assisted in this concealment by media, sometimes through active bias but often because human interest” stories (the more tragic the better) always play better than cooler more factual ones in a modern newsroom. This is ruthlessly exploited by Palestinian spin-doctors who know that a tear-jerking report about a dead teacher or a wounded child (garnished, naturally, with extensive footage of weeping relatives) will always get air-time, while the fact that these deaths or injuries are due to Hamas Jiadis deliberately embedding in the heart of residential areas and the fact that such deaths are sought by Hamas as it allows them to parade victims for propaganda value woulld will probably be ignored. By ignoring the macro and focusing on the micro, the report reinforce the Palestinian claim of victimhood, while a report containng proper context would somewhat undermines the Palestinian claim of a callous IDF.
POS is clearly at play when Palestinian sympathisers read or hear reports of the allegedly oppressive and brutal actions by Israel that supposedly justify “resistance.” That is, they hear about clampdowns, air-strikes, etc, or military operations, but they do not hear about the activities which provoked these “clampdowns,” etc. These activities – invariably terrorism in some form – either go entirely unreported, or are mentioned so briefly that the narrative of Palestinian “victimhood” is not disrupted.
POS is responsible for sympathisers never being reminded that for two decades, from 1948 to 1967 – long before there was the fig-leaf of Israel’s “occupation” of the territories to “justify” brutal slaughter – Israel suffered endless murderous terror attacks. And since 1967, there have been more than 50 years of bombs, suicide bombers, hijackings and an orgy of slaughter against Israelis and Jews. And not only in Israel but around the world including London, Paris, Madrid, Munich, Rome and Vienna.
Even now – although it goes largely unreported outside Israel – northern Israel continues to suffer rocket-attacks, from missiles fired rom South Lebanon by Iran’s other surrogate, Hezbollah.
POS is also at play when pro-Palestine “sympathisers” hear about the West Bank Barrier Wall. Palestinians condemn it as an “apartheid wall” but fail to mention that it was only built to halt a three-year murder spree – after the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords – when Palestinian terrorists from the West Bank slipped in to Israel to plant bombs in cafés, markets and on buses, killing some 400 men, women and children and maiming hundreds more.
POS was also at play when pro-Palestine “sympathisers” heard about the Palestinian workers forced to endure long queues at border crossings and heard about the “indignity” and “inhumanity” of searches. But they did not hear that Palestinian terrorists and suicide bombers – who have included pregnant women – regularly attempted (and still attempt) to enter Israel to plant bombs.
Palestinian sympathisers have been told Israel is an occupier and imperialist because it controls territories including East Jerusalem and the West Bank. But this is another example of POS because a critical fact is always glossed over: that these territories were only acquired because of a war of extermination initiated by Arab nations.
It’s not POS, but it is an inconvenient truth that Palestinian Jews lived in Palestine continuously, alongside Palestinian Arabs, from Bible times (including as a majority in Jerusalem until the perfidious British handed Jerusalem to the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan).
As another example of Poor Orphan Syndrome, pro-Palestine sympathisers probably don’t know that Arab attempts to crush the Jewish state economically with boycotts and “secondary” boycotts began in 1948, many decades before a pretext of Israel’s “occupation” of the territories.
They are probably unaware that deadly rockets were raining down on Israel’s towns and cities for a decade before the Oct 7 massacre. These rockets were fired from Gaza, the territory handed to the Palestinians in 2005 and systematically transformed into a jihadi stronghold.
But like so much else, the rockets went unreported, or were reported when Israel retaliated thus creating the perception of Israel doing harm to Palestinians. And even now – although it goes largely unreported outside Israel – northern Israel continues to suffer rocket-attacks, from missiles fired rom South Lebanon by Iran’s other surrogate, Hezbollah.
The orphan isn’t, of course, confessing to the actions that made him an “orphan,” or the actions that continue to provoke defensive measures from a state under existential threat. Instead the “orphan” just goes on murdering, pleading for mercy. and accusing his victims. And the deluded, gullible and misinformed in thrall to his lies and deception continue to offer him sympathy and shun the real victims.