Are Jews and Israel Winning or Losing? The Answer May Surprise You

There’s so much bad news about Jews these days it’s tempting to throw our arms in the air in despair.

The latest outrage came from a concert in Glastonbury where Israel-hating artists led explicit calls for violence.

“What happened on the stages of Glastonbury yesterday was not just disgraceful; it was sickening, dangerous, and chillingly reminiscent of a modern-day Nazi rally,” Jim Berk, CEO of Simon Wiesenthal Center, said in a statement. “When Bob Vylan chanted ‘Death, death to the IDF’ and Kneecap urged fans to ‘start a riot’ outside a court where one of their members faces terrorism-related charges, it was public incitement, not performance.”

This blatant and public expression of Jew-hatred continues a pattern we’ve seen since Oct. 7, 2023 and the ensuing Gaza War, with global animosity towards Jews and Israel growing by the day. We’re seeing an “open season on Israel” attitude where haters feel they never have to pay a price for their hate. In fashionable progressive circles, there’s nothing safer than to utter “Free, free Palestine.”

And we must be candid here: Jew-haters have feasted on the Gaza War, their gift that keeps on giving. Never mind that Hamas, which uses its own people as human shields, should be held ultimately responsible for the tragic Palestinian casualties. Hamas knows that as long as Palestinians die in a war with Israel, the Jewish state will always be blamed and Jews will always be on the defensive. Fairness has nothing to do with it.

When we complain that Palestinians are so brilliant at PR, we forget that so much of their PR success is rooted in casualties at the hands of Israel.

But something historic and extraordinary has shifted in recent months that threatens to disarm and disgust Jew-haters everywhere. What would happen, for example, if the future saw fewer and fewer Palestinians die in wars with Israel? And if Israel faced fewer and fewer situations where it was forced to kill its enemies, even in self-defense?

What so many people are missing in the Diaspora, because Jew-hatred is raging, is that the situation in the Middle East has changed radically.

“Especially over the past 10 months, Netanyahu has impressively followed through on his aim to remake the face of the Middle East,” David Brooks, a longtime Bibi critic, writes in The New York Times. “He’s degraded Hamas and Hezbollah, two of the vilest terror regimes on the planet. He has made the Iranian theocracy look pathetic and decrepit. Israel has demonstrated its vast military and intelligence supremacy over its enemies, establishing total freedom of the skies over much of Iran.

“It has shown that its agents can penetrate enemy organizations and find and kill their militant leaders. Netanyahu’s actions have contributed to the toppling of the Assad regime in Syria and have helped the legitimate Lebanese government regain control of its own territory.

“The Axis of Terror is in shambles.”

The very idea that “The Axis of Terror is in shambles” represents a historic shift and a historic opportunity. It means, among other things, that it will get harder and harder to suck Israel into wars where it will be forced to defend itself and kill civilians and nourish the global beast of Jew-hatred.

Don’t get me wrong. Dead Palestinians or no dead Palestinians, Jew-hatred is not going anywhere. If Jew-haters have shown us anything, it’s the ability to pivot and find any excuse to hate Jews and malign the Jewish state.

But consider a stunning scenario that may make the lives of Jew-haters miserable; a scenario that no longer gives to haters the Israel that kills but the Israel that Arab nations value.

Start with a key fact that is not in dispute: Israel offers enormous resources to improve the lives of the peoples of the region, from water technology to food security to agriculture to high tech to AI to energy to medical advances to myriad other areas that can make a real difference to people’s lives. The Abraham Accords represented the beginning of that new scenario: A view of the Jewish state not as something that must be destroyed but as an ally that can benefit societies.

The promoters of terror against Israel will not go away. They are surely planning and dreaming of a comeback. But given that their “axis” is now in shambles, the region has a unique opportunity to create a new axis based on mutual benefit.

So while it looks in the Diaspora that Jews and Israel supporters are indeed losing, the situation in Israel and its region tells a different, more hopeful story. Certainly, the intractable Palestinian conflict will still be a dark cloud, as will the internal divisions in Israel.

But we can’t underestimate the new reality that has presented itself. If Israel plays its cards right, it can become a star nation of the Middle East, bringing hope and a better life to many of its neighbors. I’m salivating at the prospect of the cognitive dissonance that would hit Israel haters everywhere, from campuses in the U.S. to concert stages in the U.K., when they realize they’re spewing their hate for a country whose value more and more Arab nations are recognizing.

Yes, we’re still far from that day, but we should aim that high. Creating good news while recognizing bad news is also the Jewish way.