Israel Has a Right to Defend Itself. Or Does it?

The situation in Israel has left much of the West in a profound moral paralysis. Like many people, I struggle to articulate my thoughts about this issue: I have many questions and almost no answers.

Before we get to the questions though, the one answer I do have is that “Israel has the right to defend itself”. I know this because in the wake of Israel’s 9/11 this line has been chanted over and over by Western politicians of every stripe. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak even described this right as “absolute”.

It’s only been two weeks since Hamas terrorists fuelled by amphetamines infiltrated Israel, massacring civilians, abducting women, children and elderly Holocaust survivors, and parading the bodies of their victims through the streets of Gaza.

It’s only been two weeks since “solidarity protests” broke out in many Western cities celebrating this atrocity, with “protestors” flying Hamas flags, brandishing swastikas and chanting “Gas the Jews”.

It’s only been two weeks and yet, predictably, the narrative is already shifting. It turns out that when we said “Israel has a right to defend itself” we meant something else.