“ANC spokesman Yonela Diko labelled Zille a “Jew supporter”: “We are appealing to her. Although she sides with the Jews we side with Palestine.”

That gem of political comment from the governing party was taken from a Cape Argus article (22 Oct) headlined “ANC slams Zille for not welcoming organisation”. What organisation you may ask? It was Hamas, kissing cousin to Islamic State, Boko Haram, al Shebaab, al Quada and many others of a like mindset, which the ANC in comradely revolutionary fervour welcomed recently to South Africa with due diplomatic honours.

Embarrassingly crude and stupid though the ANC’s comments and position are, they are not alone in the global village which we all inhabit. But before we go there, a brief diversion is necessary.

As everyone is aware by now there has been a concerted effort by Palestinians predominantly, assisted in places by Israeli Arab supporters, to bring terror to Israeli streets through suicidal knife, axe and cleaver attacks on ordinary Israeli citizens. The “knife attacks” to use a generic term, have been reinforced with random car rammings at bus stops and other concentrations of people.

To “explain” this phenomenon Western social justice warriors have invoked the usual exculpatory litany of accusations against Israel:

Israeli “defilement/provocations” on the Temple Mount,

Resistance to “occupation”, “settlements”, “checkpoints”, the “apartheid wall” and so forth

Israeli “brutality” (that is, the alleged absence of due process when dealing with murderous youths armed with a lethal instrument intent on killing as many Jews – not Israelis – Jews, as possible before joining the ranks of glorious martyrs),

Netanyahu’s alleged  “intransigence” or, as a last resort,

Frustration with the “lack of progress” to the mythical “two state” solution.

The most superficial examination of these claims reveals their absurdity and dishonesty. The behaviour we see daily on the streets of Israel has been a feature of the Arab response to Jewish migration to the Middle East for a century. It has nothing whatsoever to do with “occupation”, “settlements” and the rest.

The primitive but lethal terror stalking Israeli streets is simply a variant of the manner in which Jihadist groups all over the region have been slaughtering fellow Muslims for decades. The same treatment has been meted out to Christians, Western hostages, Yazidis and other unfortunate minorities, all of whom have borne the brunt of Islamist rage, grievance or frustration with whatever new “provocation” has engaged their passions.

These so-called “rational” reasons, advanced alike by professional and funded apologists like BDS and the other “pro-Palestinian” groupings together with an army of Western fellow-travellers concentrated in the media and academia, are designed to obscure the uncomfortable and much more intractable truth – both from themselves and the rest of the world.

That truth is that much of the Islamic Middle East-North African region has become mired in a nihilist, xenophobic, violent political and social culture which brings death and misery to millions of fellow Muslims and threatens Israel and the rest of the West with a new Dark Age. The most immediate tangible manifestation, besides the random terror on the Israeli public, are rivers of migrants flooding the frightened countries of Europe.

There is no difficulty in finding out that truth, or a reasonable approximation thereto, on which so much effort and so many lies have been expended denying. It does not require conspiracy theories, secret codes, Illuminati, sinister cabals and the like. All it takes is the news, a bit of serious history and the open, unambiguous expressions of motivation and intent by the players themselves. And, of course, a modicum of integrity, moral courage and commonsense. 

We can start with expressions of motivation and intent. Here is one, in line with an endless stream of similar incitement from Islamic clerics or secular leaders on an almost daily basis. This what one such cleric had to say recently http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/5098.htm.

“My brother in the West Bank: Stab! My brother in the West Bank: Stab the myths of the Talmud in their minds! My brother in the West Bank: Stab the myths about the Temple in their hearts!...Listen to what the Jews are saying to one another: Stay at home or go outside to your death.... The world will say that we are terrorists, that we incite. Yes!...Oh Prophet of Allah, incite the believers to fight." Why? Oh America, oh Crusader aggressors, oh Arab Zionists, oh Zionists from among the criminal Jews: Are we aggressors? You have come of your own volition to be slaughtered on our land.” For the full flavour go to the video itself.

Maybe that’s just “rhetoric” from a deranged cleric – Israel and other places have nutters of their own. Except, of course, it is being played out daily on Israeli streets, bus stations and malls. Except that this is what Mohammad Abbas (the moderate peace partner!) has to say:

“Al-Aksa is ours and so is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They have no right to desecrate them with their filthy feet. We won’t allow them to do so and we will do whatever we can to defend Jerusalem,”. “Each drop of blood that was spilled in Jerusalem is pure blood as long as it’s for the sake of Allah. Every shahid (martyr) will be in heaven and every wounded person will be rewarded, by Allah’s will.”

That is nothing new. Not only will every “martyr” be rewarded by Allah but so will his or her family by the Palestinian authority with money supplied from elsewhere. And not only money but kudos and state honours. And, of course, in the context of the Arab-Muslim-Persian Middle East, Abbas is a moderate. It is possible to continue page after page with similar or worse examples of genocidal statements and actions and the most virulent anti-Semitism since the 1930’s.

Taken together with what has actually taken place over the past few years in the region, the conclusions are inescapable – unless your investment (emotional or ideological) in an alternative narrative is so overpowering that you simply exclude such information and reasoning from your cognitive processes. The avenues for denial are plentiful.

On Hard Talk (BBC) last night, Stephen Sackur challenged his guest, Lapid, head of an opposition party in the Knesset, to justify calls to Israeli police to use deadly force when confronting a knife-wielding assassin. When Lapid replied that deliberate murderous terror justified such a response, Sackur asked whether there were any Israeli murderers and whether the Israeli police would be expected to use deadly force against a Jew under similar circumstances?

The answer to Mr Sackur is, of course, “yes” and “yes”. A more pertinent question would be whether he would ask such a question of any guest other than an Israeli?

Once again pages and indeed books have been expended on the systematic and, let’s be quite clear, deliberate distortion of news and commentary on the Arab-Israeli conflict by Western media.

They have become more than apologists for the Jihadist movements of the region, one of which goes by the name Hamas and which includes the broader Palestinian “resistance” in general; they have become their enablers and facilitators, indeed their accomplices. They should be held at least co-responsible for the attendant misery and threat consequent upon their actions.

I would briefly like to pose and answer the question: in the midst of all this insanity, cowardice and dishonesty, is there any hope? The answer as always is yes. Not everyone participates in the collective delusions and reality cannot be forever denied. But it will require stout and balanced hearts which are in short supply in the Western establishment right now. There are those, mostly within Israel, who are working against enormous odds to bridge the cultural-political abyss between Israelis and Palestinians. It seems hopeless and many well-intentioned Israelis believe it is an exercise in futility and self-delusion.

And so it is, as long as the West plays along with the fake narrative of victimhood and resistance. In that case nihilism will continue as a strategy of continuous warfare in a zero sum political universe. In such a process all bets are off and the unthinkable can very well come to pass.

The alternative to nihilistic anarchy is not Utopia: it is the difference between the excesses and mistakes of a functional democratic order under mind-numbing stress and the violence unleashed by apocalyptic visions of victory and redemption. It is time the West had the intelligence to understand the difference and the courage to chose.

Mike Berger