The Israel/Palestine Integrity Test

On March 23rd, 1775, as the might of King George III’s army threatened to crush the American colonies, Patrick Henry persuaded the Second Virginia Convention that freedom was worth fighting, and even dying for:

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Just over a year later, Thomas Jefferson declared that the newly established thirteen United States of America would be a nation of equals, free from imperial rule or foreign control:

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.

And a few decades after that, moved by the continued injustice of slavery, Henry David Thoreau called on each individual to oppose injustice, a call that later inspired Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King:

… [one must not forget] those cases to which the rule of expediency does not apply, in which a people, as well as an individual, must do justice, cost what it may […] I quarrel not with far-off foes, but with those who, near at home, cooperate with, and do the bidding of those far away, and without whom the latter would be harmless.

These men didn’t limit these fundamental rights to a certain kind of man living on a particular piece of land, they didn’t require a particular political persuasion or skin tone, they didn’t base them on religion or sexuality or language (even Jefferson’s use of the word “man” could be excused as a relic of its time).

Their words inspired a previously unheard-of society, built on the promise of justice and equality for all. They formed the foundation of Western civilisation as we know it today. It just took a few more centuries of blood, sweat and tears to get there.

Because it turns out, that living up to your values is harder than writing them down.

Sadly, if you listen to certain corners of the internet, these lofty values are in grave danger.

Last year, in The Telegraph, Zoe Strimpel warned that pro-Palestinian protesters want to “destroy Western civilisation.”

A month earlier, in Western Self-Hatred and the Offering of Israel, Israeli scholar, Tomer Persico, argued that The Jewish State is being used as “a Western totem, portraying the malevolent spirits of the West’s entire history.”

And just last week, Douglas Murray claimed that criticism of Israel betrayed “a strain of anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism […] which [he] cannot sign up for and will not.”

And if by “Westernism” you mean that Westernised countries should be able to do whatever they want, this might even make sense.

Almost everybody, including those of us who criticise Israel’s actions in Palestine, would rather live in Europe or the United States than Iran or Afghanistan or pre-obliteration-Gaza.

We want societies where we won’t go to jail for listening to Spotify or praying to the wrong God, we agree that women should be free to get an educationand feel the wind in their hair, we believe that everybody has the right to love who they choose without risk of persecution or execution.

It’s just that, and maybe this is the source of the confusion, we also believe in upholding Western values.

We believe that all people are created equal and that it is beyond hypocritical to expect the Palestinians to consider peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery when we wouldn’t do the same.

We believe that all people have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that they don’t lose that right even if they had the temerity to be born on a piece of land that someone decided they have a God-given right to control.

We believe that all people will cry, “Give me liberty or give me death,” when they are oppressed and dehumanised and that we should at least try resisting the urge to oppress and dehumanise them before we bomb them into oblivion.

We don’t limit these rights to a particular kind of person living on a particular piece of land, we don’t require a specific political persuasion or skin tone, we don’t base them on a person’s religion or sexuality or which language they speak. These values are the bedrock of Western society. And as the beneficiaries of these values, we owe more than lip service to them.

After all, these are the same values that (eventually) united the West in opposing Hitler (although if we’d lived up to them sooner, we might have averted the Holocaust).

The same values Martin Luther King upheld when he said, “God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men, and brown men, and yellow men; God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race and the creation of a society where all men will live together as brothers,” (although he still had to die before people recognised him as a hero instead of a threat).

The same values that all of Western civilisation rests upon (although today, millions of people have become convinced that it’s “deranged” to oppose a president who gleefully betrays them).

So no, it is not “anti-Western” to criticise a country that has spent decades imposing military occupation on millions of innocent people while denying them the right to due process, freedom of movement, and self-determination.

It is not “anti-Western” to criticise a military that commits horrifying atrocities in service of a goal that they themselves admit is impossible.

It is not “anti-Western” to criticise politicians for breaking United States (and international) law as they do the bidding of those far away, and without whom the latter would be harmless.

It is the very definition of pro-Westernism to call on Western governments to uphold Western values when they fail to do so. Not selectively, but consistently, not in a few centuries, but now.

Because if we can’t do that, if we actively support people who betray our values, we have become something less. We have become something worse.

The paradox of Western values is that they’re important precisely because they’re so difficult to uphold.