Why Is Israel Treated Differently?

GUEST COMMENTARY - Being Jewish is a gift. You are born into a tradition of learning, charitable giving, meaningful rituals and pride of heritage. These are model characteristics of a culture that has survived more than 5,000 years. So why do so many people hate the Jewish people and their homeland? Why is Israel treated differently than every other nation?

In 1947, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly passed the Partition Resolution 181, which divided the British Mandate of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, and established an international zone for Jerusalem. The State of Israel was born out of this post-Holocaust UN vote. However, the Arabs rejected a state side-by-side with the Jews, waged war and lost. Ever since, the UN has seemingly been trying to roll back its decision.

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has passed more than 45 resolutions against Israel, but virtually none against Iran or its terrorist proxies that attack Israeli civilians.  According to UN Watch, in the UN General Assembly none of the countries in the European Union (EU) has introduced any resolutions regarding human rights violations in China, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Turkey, Pakistan, Vietnam, Algeria or 175 other countries. But most of these same EU countries typically have voted against Israel in nearly all the UN General Assembly resolutions.

Articles in CityWatch and other media have associated Israel with genocide. Yet the number of deaths of non-terrorist Gazan civilians in the current Gaza War is reportedly 16,000, proportionately lower than the World War II death count in Hiroshima and Nagasaki when an estimated 214,000 Japanese civilians were killed by US atomic bombs and in Germany where an estimated 780,000 civilians died because of war-related bombardment. The US government needed to demolish the enemy and decisively win the war.  No government nor special interest group accused the USA of genocide or demanded a ceasefire between the Allies and Axis powers.

The UN and various entities want a ceasefire to hinder Israel from demolishing Hamas and decisively winning the Gaza war. Also, when Sierra Leone, the bastion of genocide, South Africa, the home of two Islamic State (ISIS) training camps, Qatar which has funded Hamas and the anti-Israel Al Jazeera, and the UN are calling for a ceasefire, it can be surmised that this would be against Israel’s interests.

A premature ceasefire would embolden Hamas and other terrorist groups. According to the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) and its Global Terrorism Index (GTI), Hamas is one of the top four deadliest terror groups in the world. The other three are ISIS, Jamaat Nusrat Al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) based in sub-Saharan Africa, and Al-Shabaab, an Al Qaeda affiliate in east Africa.

The IEP has also assessed the impact of terrorism on 163 countries, covering 99.7% of the world’s population. Among all countries, Israel is number two in having its civilians as terror targets. Burkina Faso in Africa is number one. So why does the international community go after Israel, the victim, and not go after the terrorist perpetrators such as Hamas? The answer is because of a mindset. Israel can be treated differently because it is the Jewish homeland and therefore, unique among nations, not just in the religious sense, but also because in only 75 years this small country with only 9 million people, which is about the size of New Jersey, has turned its desert wasteland into an agricultural, intellectual, high-tech and military powerhouse. In therapy, this opposition would be diagnosed as “delusional jealousy”. In modern language, it’s “discrimination”. However, instead of supporting Israel and eradicating this shameful prejudice, the UN and EU send millions of Euros and dollars to the terrorist government of Gaza. Combined with payments from Iran, Qatar, Turkey, pro-Islamic charitable groups, and taxation on the Gazan people, Hamas is able to fund its $2 billion budget for weaponry. These payments also enable Hamas leaders to get rich, not just by “skimming” these payments but also by stealing food and supplies intended for Gazan civilians and then selling it to Gazans at exorbitant prices. According to the National Post, the estimated cumulative net worth of the top Hamas leaders living outside of Gaza is $11 billion.

In 2006 to end the Lebanon war between Israel and Lebanon, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1701. The Resolution’s provisions were very specific:

1. Disarm Hezbollah and prevent it and other non-state groups in Lebanon from rearming 
2. Demilitarize southern Lebanon — except for the Lebanese military and U.N. forces
3. Strengthen enforcement of Resolution 1701 by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) authorizing it to use force to ensure that southern Lebanon would not be used for terrorist activity

The current war in Lebanon is the result of the UN failing to enforce Resolution 1701 and allowing Iran to re-arm Hezbollah. In the past year, the UN has condemned Israel for crossing Lebanese airspace even though Israel’s actions were in defense of its citizens after more than 8,000 rockets were fired into Israel from Lebanon. Why didn’t the UN condemn Hezbollah for this aggression against Israeli civilians? Because this would showcase the UN’s failure to enforce Resolution 1701 on Israel’s behalf.

When Hezbollah’s pagers exploded, the UN condemned Israel because some civilians were killed or wounded. In its press release of September 20, 2024, the UN quoted now-dead terrorist Hassan Nasrallah who said, “Israel exceeded all limits, laws and red lines”.  Unfortunately, the UN doesn’t consider the firing of 8,000 missiles at civilian targets to be exceeding all limits, laws and red lines. Now Israel is going after the Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon and no doubt some civilians will be killed or wounded. Sadly, this is the pain that Hezbollah has wrought on the Lebanese people.

Even after barbaric efforts to annihilate the Jewish people, the enemies of Israel know that it will sustain itself even while being treated differently and pounded by terrorists, the UN and EU. Like an inflatable Bopper punching bag that has bounce-back action each time the bag is hit, Israel will bounce back to a standing position. It must survive because the Jewish people have no place else to go. Since October 7, 2023, over 31,000 immigrants have moved to Israel. So as various countries and groups keep punching this small Middle-Eastern nation, Israel will stay resilient and fight to defend itself. Because just like the Jewish traditions of learning, charitable giving, rituals of life and pride of heritage, survival is in the Jewish DNA.

(Marcia Selz, Ph.D., is the author of “At Vitoria: A City’s Medieval Promise between Christians and Sephardic Jews”, and is the founder of the Coalition of Homeowner Associations-Council District 5. For the past 20 years, Dr. Selz has been a volunteer with Israel’s Sar-El program, working on an IDF base for one-two weeks each year. Since the massacre on October 7, 2023, Dr. Selz has joined the more than 30,000 people from 70+ countries who have volunteered in Israel in various capacities. Thus far, she has spent 13 weeks in Israel volunteering with the IDF, working on a medical supply distribution base.)