The Revealing and Shocking in an Israeli Vision of the West

By Mamdouh Al-Sheikh

No fair-minded person denies that the global system, which was born from the womb of World War II, is a global system that has established the centrality of the West and made it codified inside and outside the Security Council. With the delay in the birth of a multilateral global system, the difference between our awareness of the extent of the West’s influence in international political reality, and our vision of the West theoretically and morally, is the difference between “what we can adopt” and “what we wish for.” The direct political assessment of what is happening in our region cannot ignore the “Western actor,” especially in light of the appalling Arab inability.

In the conflict—explicit or implicit—over Western support, which we have never received, for our just causes, questions arise: values, interests, and the extent of our accurate knowledge of the official, elite, and popular West. Exploration is not without paradoxes and shocks (and sometimes pleasant surprises), and what is happening today is an example of that.

One important piece of literature in this context is a policy paper titled “Geostrategic Factors, Not Humanitarian Considerations, Shape Public Opinion in the West” (Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, November 25, 2024) by Professor Hillel Frisch, professor of political science and Middle Eastern history at Bar-Ilan University. The most important point of the paper is that, contrary to what the American “progressive” media (such as CNN) would have us believe, “the educated English-speaking public is more interested in the geostrategic aspects of the conflict than in the humanitarian plight of the Palestinians.” The Zionist researcher based his paper on Google search statistics during the war, focusing heavily on the terms “Iran” and “Israel” rather than “Gaza” and “Palestinians,” especially among the American public. This finding proves that the Western public is more focused on the danger of regional turmoil and the possibility of a wider regional war than on human rights and humanitarian issues. The powerful liberal progressive media outlets (CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post) would have us believe that they view the conflict through a humanitarian and progressive lens. According to the Zionist researcher, these “progressive” outlets’ coverage of the humanitarian plight in Gaza is based on the assumption that the massive death toll outweighs geostrategic concerns. The researcher’s analysis of the statistics shows that “progressive and humanitarian concerns play a secondary role.” Even in November 2023, for every six searches related to Israel or Iran, there was only one search for the terms “Palestinians” or “Gaza.” If Google searchers actually focused on “humanitarian” issues, the ratio would be reversed. Western audiences focus on the danger of regional unrest and the possibility of a wider regional war, more than on human rights and humanitarian issues.. This is what one study concluded

The most important and dangerous conclusion written by the Zionist researcher is that this reflects the fact that "international politics in America is primarily the work of the elites." For Israel, these results are useful, and show that "contrary to the portrayal of the war in the leading "progressive" media, most educated English speakers around the world and America view the conflict through a realistic lens." The conclusion of the conclusions reveals the brutal nature of the researcher's moral vision, as he says that the results indicate that "Israel actually enjoys a greater degree of freedom in dealing with its enemies than is usually imagined."

The analytical methodology used by the researcher is not without weaknesses that can be examined in detail, and its author ignored reactions that contradict the statistics on which he relied (individually), and that the Gaza war actually affected the concept of the elite and its limits. After the conclusion of the study and my comment on it, and the cognitive (and moral) lessons remain, the perspective is purely Darwinian, and it reminded me of two incidents: a dialogue with the Zionist war theorist Martin van Creveld, in which he told his interlocutor that brutal crimes are part of the structure of history, and that Israel must strike the Palestinians with a terrible blow that will kill thousands to ensure Israel's security for years to come, and he stressed that this will not lead anyone to any international justice, as the West will turn a blind eye, as long as it is a crime aimed at preventing a greater crime! In the second incident, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations Boutros Boutros-Ghali strongly urged the use of lethal force against the "Arab Spring" to save the "national state", stressing that the West will forget... and the Zionist researcher, in the end, "preachs" to the Zionist decision-maker that the ceiling of brutality that the West can accept is much higher than it seems!