Perhaps it took the shooting of a seven-month-old Palestinian baby in the West Bank last Friday to rouse the anger once again. Little Sam Fahd Abu Haikal was in a car near Hebron with his parents, brother and grandmother when Israeli troops ordered them to stop. Despite complying, one soldier fired shots at the vehicle. A bullet passed through Fahd Abu Haikal’s hand and killed his son.
Any parent can relate to that age, when a child – not even a toddler – requires constant care, love and attention. Who could not be moved by the cruel taking of such an innocent life? And yet the apparent pitilessness and carelessness of Israeli troops towards Arab lives is wearingly familiar. Stories of families being blown up or burnt alive in Gaza and southern Lebanon – “because Hamas” and “because Hezbollah” – can’t provoke quite the same surge of outrage they once did, as we’ve all been desensitised by such acts becoming so common. It’s hardened into something else.
As US President Donald Trump reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call last week: “Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.” Even in America, the Israelis are losing the battle for public opinion: in February, a Gallup survey showed a 25-year low in Americans’ sympathy for Israel.
If Mr Trump’s statement was anywhere near correct, this should cause a deep sense of dread in anyone who believes – as I do – not only in Israel’s right to exist, but in the necessity of a two-state solution. One side turning into an international pariah is not a good starting point from which to forge a durable peace.
For those of us who wish to see peace and security for Israel, it is currently exceptionally hard to make a positive case for the country’s actions. This applies especially to younger people, who don’t feel the historical context that older generations did. Instead, they see a state where people rioted when Israeli soldiers who filmed themselves gang-raping a Palestinian were arrested; whose leaders have apparently endless impunity to break international law, issue genocidal statements and kill anyone they want; and whose leader has openly boasted that “there will be no Palestinian state”.
Being “the only democracy in the Middle East” – a questionable claim to begin with – really doesn’t cut it these days, not least because it produced the most extreme government in Israeli history, and in any case many believe that Mr Netanyahu has been attempting to undermine state institutions to delay or avoid an adverse result in his ongoing corruption trial.
But eight million Jewish Israelis cannot – and shouldn’t be – left without a country. Whatever the merits and demerits surrounding the creation of the state, and the terrible injustices borne by the Palestinians, the reality is that the land has to be shared. That is not an outcome that will be made easier to bring about if one side – Israel – is demonised by much of the world.
Israel’s friends should be counselling that military victories alone will never protect its future. It must find a way to win friends again. There was an Israel that once made peace. And there is a Jewish culture whose glories remain undimmed, from the sublime music of the violinist Itzhak Perlman to the powerful, evocative stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer. Both are overshadowed at the moment; the fury and destruction of the Israeli war-making machine sucks all the air out of the room.
Some still have hope. My friend Nomi Bar-Yaacov, an award-winning Israeli-British peace negotiator and human rights lawyer, insists that “humanity and co-existence will eventually prevail. We can nurture the path to peace through raising awareness of the narratives of all sides, ensure that there is accountability, work on building trust and ensure that humanity and empathy prevail”. The question many will ask at the moment, however, is if those are goals that Israel’s leadership even regards as desirable.
