The Left. vs. Israel
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Since the creation of Israel, Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims have
been the mainstay of anti-Zionism, with the Left, from the Soviet Union
to professors of literature, their auxiliary. But this might be in
process of change: as Muslims slowly, grudgingly, and unevenly come to
accept the Jewish state as a reality, the Left is becoming increasingly
vociferous and obsessive in its rejection of Israel.
Much evidence points in this direction: Polls in the Middle
East find cracks in the opposition to Israel while a major American
survey for the first time shows liberal
Democrats to be more anti-Israel than pro-Israel. The Saudi and
Egyptian governments have real security relations with Israel while a
figure like (the Jewish) Bernie
Sanders declares that "to the degree that [Israelis] want us to
have a positive relationship, I think they're going to have to improve
their relationship with the Palestinians."
 But I should like
to focus on a small illustrative example from a United Nations
institution: The World
Health Organization churned out report A69/B/CONF./1 on May 24 with
the enticing title, "Health conditions in the occupied Palestinian
territory, including east Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan:
Draft decision proposed by the delegation of Kuwait, on behalf of the Arab
Group, and Palestine."
The three-page document calls for "a field assessment conducted
by the World Health Organization," with special focus on such topics
as "incidents of delay or denial of ambulance service" and
"access to adequate health services on the part of Palestinian
prisoners." Of course, the entire document singles out Israel as a
denier of unimpeded access to health care.
This ranks as a special absurdity given the WHO's hiring a consultant
in next-door Syria who is connected to the very pinnacle of the Assad
regime, even as it perpetrates atrocities estimated at a
half million dead and 12
million displaced (out of a total pre-war population of 22 million).
Conversely, both the wife and brother-in-law of Mahmoud Abbas, leader of
the Palestinian Authority, whose status and wealth assures them treatment
anywhere in the world, chose to
be treated in Israeli hospitals, as did the sister, daughter, and
grand-daughter of Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader in Gaza, Israel's
sworn enemy.
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Mahmoud Abbas (L) and
Ismail Haniyeh (R), pictured in March 2007, both had close relatives go
for medical treatments in Israel.
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Despite these facts, the WHO
voted on May 28 to accept the proposed field assessment with the
predictably lopsided outcome of 107 votes in favor, 8 votes against, 8
abstentions and 58 absences. So far, all this is tediously routine.
But the composition of those voting blocs renders the decision
noteworthy. Votes in favor included every state in Europe except
two, Bosnia-Herzegovina (which has a half-Muslim population) and San
Marino (total population: 33,000), both of which missed the vote for
reasons unknown to me.
To repeat: Every other European government than those two supported a
biased field assessment with its inevitable condemnation of Israel. To be
specific, this included the authorities ruling in Albania, Andorra,
Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic,
Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland,
Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova,
Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania,
Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the
United Kingdom.
Making this European near-unanimity the more remarkable were the many
absented governments with large- to overwhelming-majority-Muslim
populations: Burkina Faso, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon,
Gambia, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tajikistan,
Tanzania, Togo, and Turkmenistan.
So, Iceland (with effectively no Muslims) voted for the amendment and
against Israel while Turkmenistan (which is over 90 percent Muslim) did
not. Cyprus and Greece, which have critical new relations with Israel,
voted against Israel while the historically hostile Libyans missed the
vote. Germany, with its malignant history, voted against Israel while
Tajikistan, a partner of the Iranian regime's, was absent. Denmark, with
its noble history, voted against Israel while Sudan, led by an Islamist,
did not.
This unlikely pattern suggests that monolithic Muslim hostility is
cracking while Europeans, who are overwhelmingly on the Left, to the
point that even right-wing parties pursue watered-down
left-wing policies, increasingly despise Israel. Worse, even those
who do not share this attitude go along with it, even in an obscure WHO
vote.
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Angela Merkel, the
ostensibly right-wing chancellor of Germany, lets a refugee in Berlin
take a selfie with her.
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Muslims, not leftists, still staff almost all the violent attacks on
Israel; and Islamism, not socialism, remains the reigning anti-Zionist
ideology. But these changes point to Israel's cooling relations with the
West and warming ones in its neighborhood.
Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the
Middle East Forum. © 2016 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.
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text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an
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