After Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in 2005, there was hope that the Jewish state would not be blamed for any further violence coming from the Strip. Ariel Sharon, the prime minister who ordered the evacuation, did so in the belief that giving the Palestinians the territory they wanted would place Jerusalem beyond reproach. Be reasonable: what justification would there be for criticising Israel if rockets flew after that? As it turned out, this was a prime example of Israeli naïveté.
Even after the Holocaust; even after the attempt by the Arab world to strangle the country at the very moment of its birth; even after the Soviet anti-Zionist campaign that led to the “Zionism is racism” resolution of 1975; even after the UN’s “world conference against racism” conference of 2001, which dissolved into an orgy of Jew-hate; and after many other examples of downright bigotry, Jerusalem continued to believe that the world would be on its side if it was only do the right thing and be seen to be doing so. Nobody believes this today. This is the lens through which the world’s baffling response to Israel’s campaign in the north this week should be viewed.
Hezbollah – widely recognised as a savage jihadi organisation – began its rocket campaign against its democratic neighbour on October 8. This was entirely unprovoked. The two countries have no territorial dispute, Israel having withdrawn from Lebanese territory years ago, and the first missiles flew before .
