Jew Hatred Keeps Israel/Arab Conflict Intractable

 There is a difference between opposing Israel's government and wanting what many people want - genocide against the Jews and the destruction of Israel. 

When Hitler and his many followers embarked upon exterminating the Jews of Europe, they made it clear that it did not matter what a Jew did or did not do; they all had to be murdered. It did not matter if it was a baby or an old man. It did not matter if it was a man or women, or anything about the character of an individual. 

Demonizing and delegitimizing an entire people paves the way for genocide. It happened to Armenians. It happened to Cambodians deemed insufficiently communist by the deranged Khmer rouge. It happened to Tutsis in the 1990's. It happened recently to Yazidis, many murdered with their women and girls raped and made into sex slaves because they belonged to the wrong religion in the minds of the people that invaded their lands. These are but a few examples of the genocides and mass murders that people continue to inflict upon one another.

The capacity of people to hate, to kill, to form violent mobs, to harm and destroy is unlimited if unchecked. 

There are those that use religion to demonize Jews and justify war and harm against them. There are others that willfully and purposefully ignore the very real hatred against Jews that helps keep this conflict intractable. Many religious figures and others openly call for the destruction of the Jews, often using religion as the basis for the genocide they seek. Many others ignore this hatred or pretend it does not exist.

Anti-Semitism, defined as hatred against the Semites that are Jews, keeps the conflict alive. It thrives in religious and racial fanaticism and hate.  Mobs driven to Jew hating frenzies by their religious clerics and others are openly calling for war against the Jews. 

Jews that harm Arab civilians must be condemned and punished just as Arabs that harm Jewish civilians must be condemned and punished. Israel as a state is accountable for its actions. Anti-Semitism does not relieve Israel of its obligation to be responsible and ethical.

But to pretend that the pathological, widespread hatred towards Jews does not keep this conflict inflamed and unresolvable is either being delusional or deliberately deceptive.  

Much of the coverage of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs deliberately distorts narratives and images to make Israelis look horrible. Delegitimizing and demonizing Israelis or Jews does not bring either side closer to living in peace with one another. The more people are pushed and prodded to hate, the more they will hate and kill each other. There is way too much outside incitement keeping this conflict going.

To the Jew hater, the Jew can only be a malicious actor, never a reasonable human being responding to real threats. Millions upon millions of people the world over are fed narratives that Israel has no legitimacy and therefore must be destroyed. Without the ability to see one's enemy as an enemy that is still a human being instead of an irredeemable demonic figure, there is no way to end a conflict.

After the killing, after the senseless loss of lives, the senseless maiming and harm to people on both sides, nothing will have been resolved. Jew and Arab will still be stuck with each other on a small piece of land. There are people that incite, that want to keep this conflict inflamed, no matter the human cost on both sides. No matter how many wars are fought, no matter how many lives are senselessly lost, no matter how many people are maimed and crippled for life, nothing will change for the better. Jew and Palestinian Arab are married to each other whether they like it or not. Either they separate and figure out how to create two states on one small piece of land, or they mutually figure out how to live together in one state, an Israel/Palestine. Neither solution will be perfect. Both sides will have to make steep compromises and accept that a final resolution to this conflict will fall far short of everything they want. The only thing that is for sure is that war and violence, which the region has had more than its share of, resolves nothing.