India, Israel, and what the world needs to remember about Daniel Pearl

There are two ways to look at what’s happening between India and Pakistan. The most recent manifestation of a long-standing conflict over Kashmir, or India responding as any sovereign nation would after its people were attacked by terrorists (yes, clearly I’m setting up a parallel between India and 10.7, so just hang on)?

The answer is so obvious the question is almost rhetorical. India’s actions are even more easily put into perspective given that they just took out the Al Qaede terrorist responsible in 2002 for the kidnapping and beheading of WSJ South East Asian Bureau Chief Daniel Pearl.

Time out for a WOOOOO!

Of course, they didn’t kill Pearl because the Pakistani Al Qaeda affiliates are liberal and don’t appreciate the Journal’s more conservative editorials. They killed him because they are fundamentalist Islamist terrorists, and he was a Jew.

That begs the question, what is the difference between Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Taliban, ISIS, Hayat Tahrir al Sham (the new guys who took over Syria), Hezbollah, Ansar Allah (Houthis), Lashkae e Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and so many other terror groups you’ve never heard of?

Absolutely nothing.

What’s the difference between all of these radical Islamic terrorist organizations and Hamas?

The narrative people have been sold.

For decades, billions have been invested by Qatar and the like to influence and alter the perception of Hamas in order to create a swallowable justification for the most extreme, radical, genocidal terror against Jews in Israel.

Recently, a lot of that money went toward aligning the plight of the Palestinians with BLM to create the perception that Israelis are white colonist (don’t forget occupiers) attempting the genocide of people of color.

The first chapter in the fairytale began after the Six Day War, when the focus of the PLO shifted from capturing all of Israel, to something they felt the world would champion, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

The reframing of the multi-national aggression against Israel (whoops I mean conflict) to being about Palestinian statehood became a convenient way ever since to justify all terror and military action against Israelis, if not Jews individually around the world. I mean after all, if the Palestinians in the Middle East don’t have a state, then of course it’s totally okay to blow up a Jewish cultural center in Argentina. Makes perfect sense!

If you disagree with any of that, then congratulations. You bought the narrative, hook line and stinker.

Propaganda is the only way to explain how millions of women today can say that rape is resistance.

Or how highly respected news outlets could so quickly report stories about Israel targeting a hospital before any corroborating facts were available from sources other than Hamas.

Or how college-age white kids could so proudly and naively wear keffiyehs made popular by the OG of terror, Yassir Arafat.

Or how the LGBT community could stand with those who would hang them publicly in a heartbeat over their orientation. Still can’t fathom this one.

Or how so many Western governments and politicians could devote so much airtime to the Palestinians at the expense of the needs of their own people, and more mind boggling, their people are okay with this.

Misguided views of geopolitics and race is the only way to understand the demonization of Israel and harassment of Jews throughout the West, and why people think that targeting a kosher restaurant or a kid walking to class is somehow a legitimate form of protest.

It’s why the world gives the Palestinians a pass no matter what they do, no matter how horrific 10.7 was, no matter how much opportunity they squandered after Israel disengaged from Gaza in 2005, no matter how many peace plans they’ve rejected, no matter what gets preached about Jews and the West in their Mosques, no matter how many Olympians were killed in Munich, and worst of all, how Hamas brutally oppresses their own people.

Whatever poison was in the water since the beginning of time that lead to the holocaust, centuries of pogroms, blood libels, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, expulsions from European countries, the violence after Passion Plays, and thousands of years of the worst hate the world has ever known, is still in the water. The extra-strength version still gets consumed online and in private conversation every day by the ocean-full.

This distorted view of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (if most bothered to learn its history at all) and the true dynamics between Israel and its enemies, and the proliferation of timeless antisemitic tropes, are why there is such outrage over Gaza despite Hamas having started the war and all the evidence of just how horrific 10.7 was. It’s also the exact reason there will be no outrage over the loss of Pakistani lives.

Granted, the scope of India’s response, scale of damage inflicted, and death tolls are not the least bit comparable, but the premise is same. Indians were killed by terrorists. India is retaliating as a form of payback and to neutralize future threats to protect its people. They are acting no differently than any government would, no differently than Israel after 10.7.

The only difference is that the ICJ will not bring any Indian leadership to court. No one will angrily take to the streets to disrupt civic life. No pro-Pakistani pins will be worn at next year’s Oscars by coopted celebrities. Not one poster will be printed, no Indian college students will not be harassed, and the windows of Indian restaurants will not be smashed. It’s the same old double, triple, quadruple standard against Israel.

People just aren’t willing to believe that 10.7, any terror attack before or any of Israel’s major wars with the broader Arab world, rather than being rooted in some supportable aspiration, is simply part of the same timeless hate against Jews.

To awaken from their intellectual and ideological slumber would mean realizing their entire political belief system is upside down, and that in their self-righteousness, they foolishly bought into dangerous worldviews that suited who they want to be.

Sorry to Iron Beam a hole in your identity politics, but those are the facts. Unfortunately, facts are the last thing to matter as it relates to the Middle East. It ranks just after perspective and open mindedness. Alas, it will take a lot more than one angry article to break the spell, when so many are what helped create the spell in the first place.

We all make choices every day about what media we consume, who and what we align ourselves with, and the extent to which we’re willing to allow our political beliefs to become inseparable from who we think we are and want to project.

With all the destinations online, the hardest one to arrive at is the truth. It’s even harder to admit we’ve been wrong. But that’s the choice we all face and certainly what the majority faces in how they view Israel and the conflict, and their opinion of Jews as a people.

It’s not too late. Bubbles pop. Bad segments eventually go to commercial, I don’t know. No matter how long people have been listening to what they’ve been told to believe by a very willing and complicit world, they hopefully will begin to think for themselves. When they do, they might start seeing the conflict in a different way, and in this case, India and Israel exactly the same.

That’s my narrative and I’m sticking to it.