By Steve Levy
It has been bewildering how the left and its biased allies in the legacy media have repeatedly cajoled a naÏve and uneducated youth culture into believing that the creation of a Jewish state in Israel is somehow racist and a form of colonialization, while ignoring the fact that the establishment of Muslim societies in Pakistan, and then again in Kosovo, are accepted as totally rational solutions that facilitated people of like mind and culture to live harmoniously in a nation state.
It’s not as though the Jewish people, the United Nations, or the Brits (who first drew the boundaries) threw a dart against a map of the world, and it indiscriminately landed in the midst of a region formally known as Judea.
Jews had thousands of years of history living on these lands. And so, too, did those of other nationalities.
It is not acknowledged enough, however, that Arabs did not descend upon this area in a dominating fashion until the seventh century, when Islamic tribes sought to conquer foreign lands through force (just as many Christian-based nations did). That’s what is known today as colonialism.
Nevertheless, Jews and Arabs, many of whom are Palestinians, lived side-by-side within this area.
It’s not much different than how Muslims and Hindus in the region around India lived side-by-side or how Christians and Muslims lived on shared land in what was formally known as Yugoslavia.
When friction started to develop between the Muslims and the Hindus in India, the British Empire, which controlled the region at the time, carved off a separate section of India for the Muslims. It was later called Pakistan. Few on the left ever recite this as an act of racism or colonialism. If anything, most observers claimed that this was a logical and fair way to allow both Hindus and Muslims to coexist, and to promote the cultures of their choice within their own nation-states.
The fiercely strong centralized government in the communist nation of Yugoslavia forced Christians and Muslims to live side-by-side within the same country. When the cohesion of the atheist government dissipated with the fall of the Iron Curtain, hostilities ensued between the two cultures.
The Serbian nation that formed after the collapse was followed by a Declaration of Independence by the Muslims therein, who carved out their own nation-state from Serbia into what is now known as Kosovo.
Fierce battles ensued, much brought about by the brutal Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic, who was properly castigated as engaging in ethnic cleansing of the Muslims. Despite many people being displaced by the battles and the carve-outs, no one in the liberal media at the time was claiming that the carve-out for Muslims was racist or an act of colonialism.
Ultimately, the United Nations, with a strong push from NATO and the Clinton administration, recognized the new Muslim state. Most applauded the move and actually participated in it.
So why is Israel treated differently?
For centuries, Jews were forced to outwardly migrate into Europe and other parts of the world due to antisemitism, and were never able to consolidate into their own nation-state. But after the Holocaust, the remaining Jews who weren’t killed off in the concentration camps were left helpless and wandering.
It was a stroke of compassion, not racism or colonialism, that sparked the movement to allow for the Jewish people to have a place to call home. What more logical place than the area that they had been living in for 5,000 years?
Yes, there were Palestinians living there as well. They were offered their own state, which they refused. They said they wanted control over all the land in the area.
As noted above, when Yugoslavia was divided into Kosovo and Serbia, there were some people on both sides who were displaced. Almost all were consolidated into the states that shared their culture and values.
The double standard that is projected toward Israel is astounding. It is in large part because of the ethnic and religious solidarity between the Palestinians and Muslims throughout the world who have tremendous sway in the United Nations. It is also because a liberal democracy, such as Israel, is anathema to the communist nations that comprise an additional huge chunk of the UN.
Either way, it’s rather repulsive the way the UN, which originally helped create Israel, has, over the last several decades, treated the carving out of Israel so markedly differently than how they’ve accepted the creation of Muslim states in Pakistan and Kosovo.
If only our liberal mainstream media and the leftists on our university campuses could see this basic fact.
Steve Levy is President of Common Sense Strategies, a political consulting firm. He served as Suffolk County Executive, as a NYS Assemblyman, and host of the “On the Right Side Podcast.” He is the author of “Solutions to America’s Problems” and “Bias in the Media.” www.SteveLevy.info, Twitter @SteveLevyNY, steve@commonsensestrategies.com