Israel’s ‘New’ Image in the World
Since its establishment 64 years ago, Israel has been bent on fortifying its existence which led to the uprooting of Arab Palestinians from a large part of historical Palestine. Fear, coupled with concern to maintain its presence, was manifested in an Israeli policy built on attaining a striking force superior to that owned by the entire Arab countries allowing Tel Aviv to wage wars against them at any time it felt is convenient to maintain its military superiority. But the policy of resorting to its “deterrent force” was met with complete failure in two instances in Lebanon in 2006 and in Gaza in 2008 – 2009. By waging these two wars, Israel has been facing a much greater ‘threat’ with the loss of its legitimacy as a state according to international law that is being violated on a daily basis by the Israeli apartheid/ colonial rule in the occupied Palestinian territories. This new threat which is detrimental to the existence of the Zionist state can never be deterred by military force, regardless of its superiority, because it is not coming from the traditional enemies of the Zionist state, but from its close western friends who traditionally supported Israel financially and militarily throughout the years.
The colonial Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land have become the main reason for worldwide condemnation of Israel. Measures to boycott all Israeli products exported by these illegal colonies/ “settlements” have been enacted in many countries, such as Denmark and South Africa which followed similar steps taken earlier by Britain and some European countries. Israel’s image was also plunging with a survey conducted earlier this year in 22 countries by Globescan PIPA for the BBC World Service showing that Israel was one of the most negatively viewed countries. Both Israel and North Korea came in third rank with 50% of the votes rating them as having negative influence. In some EU countries, views of Israel worsened with negative ratings being more than 74% in Spain, 65% in France, 69% in Germany, 68% in England, 65% in Australia and 59% in Canada. More serious is the fact that despite the vast Jewish influence in the German News Media, a majority of Germans now consider Israel as an aggressive state bent on attaining its self-interests by all means regardless of the threats it poses to world peace and stability. A poll conducted in May this year for Stern magazine found that 59% of Germans believed that Israel was aggressive. Among the respondents, 70% agreed that Israel pursued its interests without consideration for other nations. The same poll showed a very important shift in German consciousness that now considers that Germany does no longer hold any responsibility or obligation toward Israel derived from Nazi actions against Jews 67 years ago.
The huge role once played by the Western news media in blindly supporting almost every Israeli action regardless of its negativity and violation of international law and human decency, has been faced with increasing discontent at Israel’s actions which now maintains a worldwide status as a “hated state” most prominently for its apartheid rule that is being imposed by a brutal military force in occupied Palestine. The recent vote in UNESCO showed a worldwide support for the struggle of the Palestinian people and clear condemnation of Israel. In the past, the Western news media (controlled by the Zionist lobby) used to reiterate Zionist lies using the Holocaust and the Christian mistreatment of Jews throughout history to create a sense of guilt in Western minds, thus leading them to provide blind support to the ‘Jewish State’. Lately, it has become evident that the bright image created by the western media about Israel is steadily waning and it is “no longer an oasis of democracy in the backward Middle East”. In a recent article in the Washington Post, Rolland Kerbis, a professor in the Department of Political Science in the University of Minnesota, sees that “the future of Israel as a Jewish democratic and prosperous state is facing dire danger from inside Israel more that what is outside Israel, especially after the occupation of Palestine in 1967. This victory gave birth to a nationalistic/ racist tendency of extreme religiosity within the Zionist psyche of Israel which brought about extreme aggressive measures in its rule over the occupied Palestinian territories”.
Paul Krugman, a financial expert awarded the Nobel Prize in 2008, wrote in the New York Times about ‘The Zionist Impasse’, in which he criticized the policy of the current Israeli government by calling it “national suicide” that shall lead Israel to the abyss. Krugman added that, as an American Jew, he refrained in the past from criticizing Israel, but he thought that now “it is vital to break the barrier of silence before the government of Israel causes a catastrophe of a big proportion”.
