A Free Israel Is A Free Palestine

Twelve-score and eight years ago, thirteen colonies brought forth on the American continent, a new nation. The declaration of its independence began with these timeless words:  

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

But sadly, for some men, these self-evident rights required some patience.

Black men had to wait eighty-seven years for liberty and over a century more for life without segregation. Gay men couldn't truly pursue happiness until they won a twenty-year fight for marriage equality. And women, well, the idea that women are created equal didn't start to catch on until the 70s.

Time and time again, marginalised groups have to struggle for rights that are supposed to be unalienable. And the worst part is knowing that the struggle is unnecessary. After all, as James Baldwin explained back in 1979, the injustice of inequality is also self-evident:

Every white person in this country, I do not care what he says or what she says, knows one thing [...] they know they would not like to be black here.

If they know that, they know everything they need to know.

Thankfully, in 2024, we're past all of that inequality nonsense. Black people are equal enough to become President of the United States, gay people are so equal they can get married, and women are so equal they...well, they can be Vice President. Let's not get too crazy.

But sadly, at least according to some people, this new egalitarianism still doesn't apply to Israel:

“Israel is being subjected to obscene double standards,” claims Spiked Online.

“If you [...] didn't set up a tent when Bashar al-Assad was killing six times the number of people in a decade that Israel and all of its enemies have lost in seventy-five years of war, then you are an antisemite,” sneers Douglas Murray.

In fact, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance even includes “applying double standards [of Israel],” in their “working definition of antisemitism.”

And while some might argue that refuting a genocide charge by claiming that “other countries do it too,” is scraping the bottom of a very shallow barrel, maybe Murray and Co. have a point. Because I've noticed some double standards myself.