Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: no-win situation

Tuesday, October 24, 2023

Hating those who have sympathy for Jews: The most extreme Arab zero-sum thinking is now embedded in the West

Two weeks ago, pop star Madonna posted on her Instagram:

What is Happening in Israel is Devastating.. Watching all of these families and especially children being herded, assaulted and murdered in the streets is Heartbreaking.
Imagine if this was happening to you??
It’s Un-fathomable.
Conflicts can never be resolved with violence. Unfortunately Humanity does not understand this Universal truth. Has Never Understood it. We live in a World Ravaged by Hate.
My heart goes out to Israel. To Families and Homes that have been destroyed. To children who are lost.
To Innocent Victims who have Been Killed.
To All who are Suffering or who will suffer from this conflict.
Im Praying For you. I am aware that this is the work of Hamas and there are many innocent people in Palestine who do not support this terrorist organization. This Tragic attack will only cause more suffering for everyone
Let us all Pray. For Israel. 🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱For Peace. ♥️ For The World.

Immediately, her IG was filled with anti-Israel invective, saying not only that she was not mentioning Palestinians but that she must be anti-Palestinian for posting something expressing sympathy for Israeli civilians who had been slaughtered..

After she also expressed sympathy for all victims at a concert in London, as well as the young Palestinian boy who was horrifically murdered in Chicago, Haaretz reports, "Her remarks set off an explosion on social media, with hateful comments expressing doubt about her skills as a mother and calling her 'Kabbalah bitch.' Since then, Madonna’s security detail has been upgraded."

This incident indicates that the most extreme form of Arab zero-sum mentality about Israel has infected the West. If people are sympathetic to Jews, the thinking goes, they must hate Palestinians. You have to choose a side and put all your energies into opposing the other side.

This is why so many anti-Israel demonstrations were organized and held within 24 hours of the news of Black Shabbat. Israel-haters believe that anyone expressing any humanity towards innocent Israeli civilians is the enemy and therefore it must be countered with a huge anti-Israel publicity campaign. To the zero-summers, there can only be one victim who can elicit sympathy; if people feel sorry for Jews then they are by definition anti-Palestinian.

This is mainstream Palestinian thinking, and before the Abraham Accords, it was mainstream Arab thinking as well. One of my favorite examples came from a Gulf News article by a UAE political science professor in 2006 that argued that - despite southern Lebanon having been decimated by war with Israel - it was a victory for Arabs:

Logically, when Israel is in a worse condition, which is the case now, Arabs are definitely better off.

Although Israel was not routed in the battle, it surely seems defeated and frustrated. It is also living in a state of doubt and comprehensive review of its military and political performance during the war.

The equation of victory and defeat between the Arabs and the Zionist state has always been and will remain zero equation.

This mentality permeates all levels of Palestinian society. Anything that is good for Israel - like the Abraham Accords ot the US Embassy in Jerusalem - is considered obviously bad for Palestinians, even if it does not affect Palestinians at all. The extreme anger at UNRWA plans to teach about the Holocaust in their schools is one obvious example of this quite sick mindset.

Most scholarly papers on zero-sum thinking look at the fallacy that it applies to economics - that if someone makes money, then others must be losing. The idea that all boasts can rise in a growing economy is not considered.

But the Palestinian mentality that there is a limited supply of world sympathy and feeling bad about dead Jews takes away from being pro-Palestinian has taken hold in the West. Palestinians must corner the market on victimhood and tears.

As the case of Madonna shows, the psychosis is so embedded even in the West that anyone who feels sorry for victims of a massacre becomes the enemy and must be attacked.

Similarly, the massacre itself is a victory because it hurt the enemy - "winning" trumps morality. Israel haters welcomes the massacre as schadenfreude even as they claimed that what Palestinians experience every day is worse.

If Western nations are adopting this backwards thinking, they are in danger of turning into third-world nations themselves.

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