THE man holds his dead child in his arms. Bloody corpses line the background. They are victims of Israel’s bombardment of Rafah, the “safe zone” to which Israel ordered Palestinian civilians to evacuate just months ago.
On the other side of the video, Israel’s representative to Eurovision marches across the stage waving an Israeli flag. Her entrance music plays “I don’t care, I love it”. Eurovision is often hailed as showcasing Europe at its most tolerant and joyful.
Last weekend, it exemplified a crisis of free-speech gripping the West – the suppression of criticism of Israel. Eurovision, while claiming to be “non-political” allowed expressions of support for Israel but banned dissent. Palestinian flags were prohibited.
The audience reacted by booing the Israeli representative, yet the broadcast footage miraculously looked like she received a rapturous reception. Criticism of Eden Golan was characterised as “abuse”.
Personal insults or threats are, obviously, disgraceful. Golan, however, made an active decision to represent Israel to the world whilst it was engaging in potential crimes against humanity. She made a political choice.
The suppression of those expressing disagreement exemplifies a discourse, embraced by Western governments, media, and institutions, in which criticism of Israel is delegitimised and punished. Scotland, unfortunately, is no exception.
Across the globe, students protesting their university’s links with the Israeli government have been met with institutional and state-sponsored violence. In the USA, the Netherlands, France, and Germany, police have used baton charges and tear gas against peaceful protesters who are often barely more than kids.
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Counter-protesters have been allowed to violently assault and racially abuse students. The violence has now reached the UK. In Leeds, a young woman was left crying on the floor in a pool of blood after university “security” staff reacted violently to a student demonstration.
Israel’s objective in Gaza is ostensibly to root out Hamas after its militants killed 1200 Israelis on October 7. The Israeli military has killed 35,000 Palestinians (the US accepts Israel has killed more civilians than Hamas fighters).
Hundreds of thousands more are now suffering a famine caused by Israel cutting off food and water supplies (a war crime).
The death rate in Gaza is higher than any other recent armed conflict. While there is no suggestion of conspiracy or coordination, four strategies are common to those seeking to delegitimise and silence criticism of Israel. First, is the conflation of legitimate criticism of Israel with antisemitism or support for Hamas.
The International Court of Justice has found that Israel’s actions “plausibly” amount to genocide. The UN Special Rapporteur and Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem have both concluded that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid. All people have a right, recognised in international law, to resist occupation by a foreign power (within the bounds of international law).
Yet anyone acknowledging any of this in public will be attacked as antisemitic. The rector of the University of St Andrews was condemned by the university and the press because she denounced both Hamas and Israeli war crimes and genocide.
The Israeli government has declared that accusing Israel of genocide or war crimes is antisemitic.
The EU has said the same about accusations of apartheid. It is claimed the very presence of a protest against Israeli actions represents a threat to Jewish people. Boycotting Israeli goods – a common form of protest against the actions of many states (including apartheid South Africa) – has been declared antisemitic by the UK Government and largely banned.
Commentators like Andrew Neil appeared to label critics of Israel’s participation in Eurovision as “Hamas lovers”. Rishi Sunak responded to student protests by dramatically summoning university leaders to Downing Street (accompanied by a splash in The Times) and ordering them to take “personal responsibility” for protecting Jewish students.
University leaders themselves say the demonstrations are overwhelmingly peaceful. Defenders of Israel’s (alleged) crimes, ironically, do the very thing that they accuse critics of doing – conflate “Israel” with “Jews”.
A form of antisemitism according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Second, is public punishment of critics. In January, UNRWA (the international agency on which Gazans depend for food) supplied the International Court of Justice with evidence on which it relied for its finding that Israel was plausibly committing genocide.
Just a week later, Israel accused UNRWA of employing people who took part in the October 7 attack. It subsequently emerged that Israel had obtained the evidence for this accusation by torture. This didn’t stop the UK, USA, and Germany stopping funding to UNRWA, crippling its ability to operate in the region.
Across the West, journalists who challenge Israeli spokespeople have been taken off air (Mehdi Hasan, Sangita Myska). The UK Government has blocked students from travelling simply because they took part in protests.
Third, while the fanaticism of Hamas and its supporters is (rightly) well-known and documented, the same standard is not applied to Israel.
Israeli spokespeople and leaders are on record stating that Palestinians do not exist as a people, are “human animals”, and a host of other genocidal statements. Meanwhile its supporters have attacked Israeli Christians and vandalised churches. Israeli settlers have been filmed boasting, “we killed Jesus … and we’re going to kill you and the Palestinians”.
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Acknowledging the extremism of only one side in the conflict dehumanises Palestinians and makes it easier for Israel’s supporters to paint all critics as defenders of extremists rather than engaging them in rational debate.
The tragic irony is that this ultimately degrades Israel and makes it more difficult to combat real antisemitism (which, along with Islamophobia, is a genuine threat). Chilling criticism of Israel reduces it to the level of the tinpot dictatorships the West supported in the 1980s.
Their crimes were tolerated because they were perpetrated against people the West didn’t like (generally Muslims and Communists).
Israel deserves better than to be treated like Pinochet’s Chile or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Israel deserves to be respected as a full member of the family of democratic nations. But that means being held to account.
Sam Fowles is a barrister, columnists and the author of Overruled: Confronting Our Vanishing Democracy in Eight Cases. You can find him on Twitter and Instagram.
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