2 weeks Ago By Editorial
Within weeks it will be the anniversary of the Hamas massacres. The October 7 attacks in Israel were self-evidently barbarous, slaughtering Jews in their homes. But it was the massacre of hundreds of young folk at the Nova dance festival in the Israeli desert that perhaps most starkly illustrated some of the issues at stake in the Middle East.
Advertisement Advertisement Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Belfast News Letter, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. While young people at campuses in privileged societies in the western world have (in effect) protested on behalf of the Hamas Islamic extremist mass murderers they seem not to have given much thought to the fact that such a rave would only be possible in that way in Israel, and not in the repressive Muslim states that surround it. And certainly not in Hamas-run territory.
It has been a tragedy to see western support for the Jewish state dwindle, often based on industrial-scale lies produced by Hamas as to the Israeli response. That response, while nothing like the distortions, has nonetheless been very robust – the Israelis defend themselves. Their extraordinary pager attacks show up another cultural difference between Israel and its foes.
The Jewish state is one of the most advanced societies in history. It is a scientific and technological powerhouse, with Nobel prizes greatly disproportionate to its tiny population. If any historian was to look back at history and say that some cultures and societies have been more advanced, even superior, to others, no-one would stop them.
If you say it about Israel, there will be an outcry. Advertisement Advertisement But it is a remarkable country, that came into being after the near annihilation of Jews in the holocaust. Hitler tried to exterminate them, and almost succeeded, wiping out much of the global Jewish population.
Almost every other society on Earth would have crumbled by now in Israel’s situation: being surrounded by far larger enemies. But it believes in, and defends, itself..
