The World Has a Thousand Tragedies, Yet Somehow Israel is Always on Trial

When outrage becomes selective, human rights become political weapons, and the Jewish state is held to standards the rest of the world is allowed to ignore.

There is something profoundly disturbing about a world that claims to care so deeply about human rights yet appears remarkably selective about whose rights deserve defending. Look at the international headlines, the demonstrations, the university occupations, the endless political debates and the extraordinary amount of diplomatic energy devoted to one tiny country called Israel. A nation of approximately ten million people, surrounded by a region with a long history of conflict, has somehow become the permanent defendant in the courtroom of international public opinion. Every military operation is dissected, every political statement is scrutinized, every mistake is magnified and every accusation becomes international news. Meanwhile, enormous human tragedies continue elsewhere, often without anything resembling the same outrage. Apparently, the world’s moral compass has developed a peculiar habit of pointing almost exclusively toward Jerusalem.

Where are the millions marching for the women of Afghanistan, who have been systematically deprived of education, employment and fundamental freedoms? Where are the university occupations demanding justice for Iranian women imprisoned, tortured or executed by a regime that brutally suppresses dissent? Where are the enormous demonstrations against the persecution and murder of Christians and other civilians in parts of Nigeria? Where is the relentless international pressure over the atrocities committed in Congo, where generations have suffered through violence, exploitation and displacement? Where is the worldwide outrage over the suffering in Sudan, the devastation in Somalia or the repression of minorities in China? These tragedies are not hidden. They are documented, reported and investigated. Yet they rarely inspire the same sustained international mobilization. The suffering is real, the victims are real, and the perpetrators are identifiable. So why does the world’s moral enthusiasm so often appear to reach its highest intensity when Israel is involved?

Of course, Israel is not beyond criticism, however, there is an enormous difference between legitimate criticism and an international obsession that repeatedly treats one country as uniquely responsible for the world’s moral failures. When the same people who demand absolute perfection from Israel remain remarkably quiet about authoritarian regimes, terrorist organizations and mass atrocities elsewhere, I begin to question whether universal human rights are really their primary concern.

Consider the historical absurdity of the situation. The Jewish people have maintained a continuous connection to the Land of Israel for thousands of years. Their language, history, traditions, archaeological heritage and national identity are inseparable from that land. Jerusalem was central to Jewish civilization long before the modern political movements that now challenge Israel’s legitimacy existed. Jewish communities survived centuries of exile, persecution, expulsions, massacres and ultimately the Holocaust. In 1948, Jewish national independence was restored in the modern State of Israel. Yet today, people who would never dream of questioning the existence of most other nations casually debate whether the Jewish state has a right to exist at all. They describe Jewish national self determination as something inherently suspicious, while treating the national aspirations of virtually everyone else as perfectly legitimate. Apparently, self determination is a universal right until the people exercising it happen to be Jews.

And then there is the extraordinary hypocrisy surrounding the Middle East itself. Israel is frequently presented as the principal source of regional instability, while the destructive roles of other actors receive far less sustained attention. Iran has spent decades supporting armed organizations, threatening Israel and expanding its influence through regional proxies. Hamas deliberately murdered civilians and took hostages on October 7, 2023. Hezbollah has maintained a powerful armed organization in Lebanon outside the exclusive control of the Lebanese state. The Houthis have attacked international shipping and threatened regional security. Yet public campaigns often reduce this extraordinarily complicated reality to one convenient accusation: Israel is the problem. The ideological ambitions of terrorist organizations, the repression imposed by authoritarian governments and the responsibility of those who deliberately target civilians are pushed into the background. It is an astonishingly convenient version of morality, one in which the Jewish state is expected to defend itself without ever making its enemies uncomfortable.

The United Nations offers another illustration of this imbalance. Its General Assembly has repeatedly adopted more country specific resolutions concerning Israel than concerning many other states with appalling human rights records. This pattern does not automatically invalidate every resolution against Israel, but it certainly raises legitimate questions about political priorities and institutional consistency. The United Nations was created to promote international peace, security and human dignity, not to become an arena where political blocs can selectively demonstrate their moral superiority. If international institutions devote extraordinary attention to one democracy while repeatedly failing to respond with comparable determination to other grave abuses, their credibility suffers. Human rights cannot depend on which country has the most diplomatic enemies or which cause generates the greatest political applause.

The international media deserves serious examination as well. Israel is accessible to foreign journalists, its politicians speak publicly, its courts publish decisions, its citizens protest openly and its newspapers regularly criticize their own government. These democratic characteristics make Israel easier to scrutinize than closed authoritarian societies where journalists are imprisoned, intimidated or denied access. Ironically, the very openness that should distinguish Israel from many of its regional adversaries can produce a constant stream of negative coverage. A controversial statement by an Israeli politician can dominate international headlines, while systematic repression in countries where independent reporting is dangerous struggles to receive comparable attention. The result is a distorted picture in which the country most visible to journalists can appear more culpable than governments whose abuses are harder to document.

But there is another factor that cannot be ignored, however uncomfortable it makes people: antisemitism. For centuries, Jews were blamed for economic crises, political instability, disease, wars and almost every imaginable social problem. They were accused of controlling governments, manipulating institutions and secretly directing world events. Today, some of these ancient prejudices have found a new vocabulary. Instead of speaking openly about Jews, conspiracy theorists speak about Israel or Zionists while recycling the same accusations of hidden control and collective evil. This does not mean that every criticism of Zionism or Israeli policy is antisemitic. It means that antisemitic ideas can hide behind political language, and pretending otherwise does nothing to protect legitimate debate.

The distinction becomes painfully obvious when Jewish communities thousands of kilometers away from Israel are targeted because of events in Gaza. What responsibility does a Jewish student in Amsterdam have for decisions made by the Israeli government? Why should a synagogue in Paris require additional security because of a military operation in the Middle East? Why should Jewish citizens in London, New York or Berlin be expected to explain, condemn or apologize for actions taken by a foreign government? Nobody should have to prove their political innocence simply because they are Jewish. When hostility toward Israel becomes hostility toward Jews, the argument that this is merely political criticism collapses.

What disturbs me perhaps most is the transformation of human suffering into a political competition. I refuse to accept the idea that compassion for innocent civilians in Gaza requires indifference toward murdered Israeli families. I refuse to accept that defending Israel’s right to exist means ignoring the suffering of innocent “Palestijnen”. And I certainly refuse to accept that the lives of Iranian protesters, Afghan women, Sudanese families or Congolese children somehow matter less because their suffering is less fashionable on Western university campuses. Human rights either belong to everyone or they are not universal human rights at all. There is no moral achievement in shouting about one tragedy while deliberately looking away from another.

For me, Israel is not an abstract political argument. It is a country I have known since childhood, a place whose history, people and extraordinary determination have shaped my life. I have defended Israel for decades, long before social media turned international politics into a competition for attention and outrage. My support has never depended on which political party governs Jerusalem. Governments come and go, politicians make mistakes and policies change. The Jewish people’s right to live securely and determine their own future does not disappear because someone dislikes an Israeli prime minister. Nor does Israel’s right to defend its citizens disappear because its enemies have become particularly skilled at manipulating international opinion.

What makes this international obsession even more extraordinary is how frequently Israel’s achievements disappear beneath the accusations. This small country has made remarkable contributions to medicine, agriculture, water technology, cybersecurity, scientific research and emergency response. Israeli researchers collaborate with institutions across the world. Israeli technologies help address problems far beyond the Middle East. Its hospitals treat patients from different religious and ethnic backgrounds, and its society contains Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Druze and other communities. Israel has serious internal disagreements and inequalities, as every society does, but reducing an entire country to a permanent symbol of evil requires an extraordinary refusal to acknowledge its complexity.

Perhaps that is precisely the problem. Israel refuses to fit comfortably into the simplistic ideological categories that so many activists prefer. It is an ancient homeland and a modern state. It is a Jewish nation with a diverse population. It is a democracy facing genuine security threats. It is technologically advanced while carrying the historical trauma of centuries of persecution. Its citizens argue fiercely with one another, challenge their government, mourn their dead and continue building their future. Israel is not perfect, and it has never claimed to be. But perfection is not the condition under which other nations are permitted to exist.

The international community needs to confront a deeply uncomfortable question. If its concern is genuinely about justice, why is its outrage so unevenly distributed? If civilian lives matter, why does the identity of the perpetrator so often determine the intensity of the response? If national self determination is a universal principle, why is Jewish self determination so frequently singled out for rejection? And if antisemitism is supposedly unacceptable, why are familiar forms of collective blame tolerated when they are repackaged as political activism?

I am tired of watching people congratulate themselves on their moral superiority while demonstrating so little consistency in their principles. I am tired of seeing the suffering of innocent people turned into ideological ammunition. And I am particularly tired of the assumption that Israel must continuously justify its very existence to people who would never impose the same demand on another nation.

Israel does not need to be worshipped. It does not need immunity from criticism. It does not need the world to agree with every decision made in Jerusalem. What it deserves is something far more basic: the same standards, the same recognition of its sovereignty and the same fundamental right to security that the international community claims to defend for everyone else.

The world has a thousand tragedies demanding attention, compassion and action. Yet somehow, Israel remains permanently on trial.

Perhaps the greatest scandal is not that the world watches Israel so closely. Perhaps it is that so much of the world has learned to look away from suffering whenever Israel is not involved.

Justice that changes its standards depending on whether Jews are involved is not justice. It is prejudice dressed in the language of morality.