Naftali Bennett Should Tell His Children Why Israel Is So Widely Resented

Oh, cry me a river!

Rather than simply presenting the incident as evidence that Israelis are victims of irrational hostility, perhaps Bennett should use the opportunity to explain to his daughter why Israel has become the object of such intense anger and resentment in many parts of the world.

If I were advising Bennett, I would suggest that he tell his daughter and his other three children something like this:

• People do not wake up one morning and become hostile toward an entire population for no reason.
• When I served in the IDF, I’ve killed lots of Arabs (in Lebanon and Palestine), and there’s no problem with that.
• Palestinians have lived for decades under occupation, military control, restrictions, displacement, and unequal treatment.
• Palestinian and Lebanese children and civilians have been killed in Israeli military operations, including during the current war.
• Some Jewish settlers have attacked Palestinians, burned homes, destroyed property, and stolen livestock and other possessions.
• Israeli soldiers and settlers have, in some cases, committed serious abuses against Palestinians with little or no accountability.
• Israeli forces and settlers have killed foreign nationals, including American citizens.
• Israel has detained Palestinians and even US citizens without ordinary criminal charges or trial under administrative-detention and security laws.
• Much of the world has watched images of Palestinian children killed and families displaced, including civilians sheltering in tents and other makeshift facilities.
• There have also been disturbing incidents involving harassment and attacks against Christians and Christian religious sites in the occupied Palestinian territories and occupied south Lebanon.
• Israeli forces and settlers have been accused of damaging or desecrating religious sites and symbols.
• Palestinians see Israel's treatment of them as a continuation of a cycle of dispossession and suffering that Jews themselves experienced throughout history.
• Images and videos of soldiers or settlers looting Palestinian property have circulated widely on social media, further fueling outrage.
• And when people repeatedly witness suffering, destruction, and what they perceive as impunity, resentment is hardly surprising.

None of this justifies discrimination against an Israeli child—or hatred of Israelis or Jews because of their identity. An ice-cream vendor should not punish a child for the policies of a government. Collective blame is wrong, regardless of who is being blamed.

But if Bennett wants his children to understand why some people have come to resent Israel, he should not teach them that the answer is simply irrational hatred. He should also teach them about the policies, military actions, occupation, settlement expansion, civilian deaths, and alleged abuses that have shaped Palestinian and international perceptions of Israel.

And Bennett should be equally honest about the crimes committed by Israel and the IDF use of Palestinian civilian as a human shield, which is prohibited and defined as a war crime under US and international law. Source: Wikipedia

The answer to antisemitism is not to deny legitimate criticism of Israel, just as the answer to anti-Palestinian racism is not to deny the suffering of Palestinians. Israelis, Palestinians, Jews, and Arabs all deserve the same standard: civilians are civilians, human rights are human rights, and collective punishment is wrong no matter who carries it out.

If Bennett wants to explain why an Israeli child might encounter hostility abroad, he should begin with that uncomfortable truth.

Mahmoud El-Yousseph is a Palestinian freelance writer and retired U.S. Air Force veteran. He writes about U.S. foreign policy, Middle Eastern affairs, and justice.