One of the most interesting features of the European involvement in the Middle – East conflict, is the completely awareness, emphatic treatment and high identification with the Palestinian side (as well as with all Arabs). This is in contrast to the hostility against Israel, complete ignorance and indifference to the suffering of our people and the total support of the European public and media to the Arab side, in any violent explosion, no matter who is responsible for it. The struggle in Gaza is a clear example to show it: More than 7 years are our  man, women, children and babies, in the south, living in an endless misery of rockets, alarms, destroyed houses, closed school and businesses, but the European media and public, are completely indifferent. The media channels are not interested and when there is an event of especially heavy shelling on a town, the European reporters are not coming to the area because “they have no transport”… Never was used in Europe the concept ‘war crimes’ to describe the systematic shelling of civilians, even not the suicide murderers which killed so many civilians.  However, when Israel is trying to stop those criminal activities, than the Europeans are awake, demonstrating in the streets and screaming about ‘civilian victims’, ‘war crimes’, ‘disproportion’ etc.

All those facts are known quiet well, but why? What is the rational behind all this? What is the ‘history’ of that behavior, is it only implemented to the Middle East conflict, or is it just the mentality and a natural feature of the Europeans along their history? It is quiet clear that the treatment which Europeans gave to other nations, such as Africans, Indians and others, was terrible enough. Terrible was also the treatment which they gave each other, but the most terrible treatment was exclusively given to the Jewish people. All this existed parallel to the enormous achievements of European civilization in every possible subject: culture, technology, human rights, juridical system, democracy, and actually we are part of the European culture and democratic system. So what is the reason for that duality, for that deep gap between the negative and the positive behavior of the Europeans? why do they prefer ‘real-politic’ over ‘moral politic’? It is important to discus those questions in details.

It would be trivial to say, that the mentioned duality started long time ago, in the Greek and Roman times. Everybody know that beside their achievements in so many fields, there were in both system features like corruption, brutality – especially against slaves and nations in their provinces, arrogance and double standards – a good starting point for the European dualism. But the real push to that duality, was given by the introduction of Christianity. The Christian ideology is based on compassion, non-violence, forgiveness, and the right for existence of every human being. But how such a beautiful ideology could co-exist with violence of the Crusaders, the violence against non-European nations, the violence between the different churches, the world wars and many other examples?  The violence against Jewish people along the last 2000 years, is the ultimate and the most terrible example, starting with the concept of ‘God Murderers’, going to stories about ‘religious rituals’ in which blood of Christian children is used, or poisoning wells, going to just killings, and than to the ‘Protocols of Old Zion Leaders’, to the ‘Scientific’ Anti-Semitism down to the holocaust. So, such a gap, such a tension between ideology and practice, is the best formula for the development of human-type which is basically a hypocrite. But the hypocrisy has a twin brother: cowardice. Both features are resulted in clinging to comfort life on the account of basic human principles, selfishness, denial of truth (when the truth is not comfortable…), self deception, surrender to brutal forces and many other results. All those features played an important roll in the European history and the famous Swiss writer, Direnmat, summarized brilliantly those features in his play “The Visit of the Old lady”. Therefore it is important to review some events in the European history, in light of the mentioned features, especially the events around the world war 2, and Israeli-Arab conflict.

Three events are important in the discussion about the world war: The sacrificing of Spanish Republic to the fascists in 1936; The sacrificing of Czhecoslovakia to Hitler in 1938; and the sacrificing of Jewish population, disclosing them to the Nazi`s. When the Spanish Republic was bleeding and fighting against Franco and his allies – Hitler and Mussolini, the European nations, refused to sent any assistance to the republicans, disclosing them both to the Fascists, which destroyed the republic from outside, and to Stalin with his agents, which destroyed the republic from inside. In 1938 the Europeans ‘donated’ Czhecoslovakia to Hitler, for the illusion of ‘peace on earth’. Both events were ‘products’ of the mentioned European features and the result was terrible – the war. Many experts say that if the fascists and the Nazi`s were stopped in Spain or in Czhecoslovakia, it could stop Hitler and his allies from continuing their triumph parade. But the most terrible treatment was given to the Jewish people: Started with people closing their eyes (“it is not our business”), coming to those who refused to help,  and  coming to the many Europeans which collaborated willingly with the Nazi operation against Jews. The examples above are not showing just miscalculation, or wrong judgment, the wrong judgment is a direct result of hypocrisy and cowardice. The Europeans so wanted to continue their comfort life that they have forgotten the basic principles of dignity and humanity.

It would be natural to asses that after such a terrible experience people will open their eyes and change something in their behavior. Actually, it happened just after the war, resulted in the support to the establishment of Israel, but it was a very short period, and Europe turned back to its basic features. Therefore, a strait line is connecting between the three mentioned events and the treatment which Israel is given by the Europeans and their media. The hate, the automatic justification of the Arab side (and also the Islamic) in any conflict, putting the blame always on Israel, creates an atmosphere in which Israel has no justification to exist. Every hypocrite has excuses to his unjust behavior and so the Europeans, they have the ‘occupation’. However, in the last years most of the Israeli’s accept the solution of two states and they agree to finish occupation, but only if security is preserved. The victory of Hamas, in the elections, having 70% of Palestinian votes and the events after the withdrawal from Gaza, show  who wants the occupation to continue… the Palestinians. The reason is clear, the dream (which they share with the Europeans) of elimination Israel, which Hamas promise them is much more exiting than the reality of two states. Therefore, the ‘occupation’ as an excuse for the Europeans is not valid anymore. Sometimes we in Israel are asking ourselves if it is really so that most of the Europeans are hating us? The answer could be by analyzing the opinions of people in a public poll – here everybody is privately with himself. Such a poll was made several years ago by the European community, asking the people what country is ‘a danger to the world peace’. This poll was made at the middle of the suicide-murderers attack against Israeli civilians, the threats of elimination Israel, expressed by Iranian leaders (accompanied by nuclear threat), the assassination of leaders by the Syrians occupation army in Lebanon and the nuclear activity of North Korea. Not Iran, not Syria, even not North Korea… Israel (and US) were defined by the majority of Europeans as ‘the ultimate danger to the world peace’. The injustice and hypocrisy was so clear, so brutal that the European Community did not publish the results, but this is the true opinion of their people and hiding the truth is not a solution. Of course, the hate and all aspects shown above, could explain those results but there is something more: here was playing important roll the Spanish and Czhecoslovakian examples, in which the victims becomes ‘trouble makers’, which has to be sacrificed because their struggle for survive is ‘annoying’ the brutal forces and therefore they are ‘a danger’ to ‘peace on world’. In this case, the hate to Israel is much more stronger that the other two nations experienced, because every European knows that we shall fight for our existence in such a way that not only the fluent stream of oil to Europe would be in danger, but also the lives of many Europeans. Therefore we are ‘the ultimate danger to peace on world’.

That mentioned poll is the clearest example of European hypocrisy and cowardice and it shows that between the two contradictory concepts – ‘real politic’ and ‘moral politic’, the first is the European choose.  However, public and media opinions, strong and effective as they are, they need ‘leaders’ to promote those opinions. Who are the ‘leaders’ of the anti Israeli campaign in Europe? see the next article ‘The Holly Alliance‘.