A key factor in the decision by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to withdraw Israeli forces from Beit Jala was reportedly the desire to avoid being drawn into the "trap" of entering Bethlehem due to the "international sensitivity" of a military incursion into that city. After the IDF entered Beit Jala to prevent shooters from hitting homes in the Jerusalem suburb of Gilo, Palestinian gunmen began lobbing mortal shells and heavy-gauge long-range bullets from the birthplace of Jesus. They, too, were sensitive to the historical and more significance of their launching pad. They wanted to provoke our violent reaction.

International sensitivity to events in the Mideast is being amply demonstrated these days. Where shall we look first?
 Helsinki? Finnish Foreign Minister Errki Tuomioja equates Israel's policies toward the Palestinians with the Nazis toward the Jews: "Israel's actions are especially difficult to accept," he said, "because the Jews, more that anyone else, should know how horrible it is for a whole nation to be persecuted. It is very troubling that the policies of the Israelis against the Palestinians are similar to those which victimized them in the 1930s."
 Paris? French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine compares America's low-key involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian fighting to "the indifference of Pontius Pilate, "who - the New Testament tells us - "washed his hands" to avoid action that could prevent the crucifixion of Jesus. The implication here is that the Israelis are playing the role of crucifiers, and the Palestinians the role of Jesus.
 Washington? The State Department accuses Israel of "violating international agreements" by acting to prevent fire on citizens in its capital. As if the Palestinians have adhered to any agreement, beginning with the rejection of violence and terror. And State is now investigating whether Israel should be denied military hardware because aircraft and weapons purchased from the United States were used to attack Palestinian terrorists and their facilities.
 Durban? Ah, the racist conference. At last we're getting to the sensitive stuff. Israel, the NGO human rights forum said, was guilty of "systematic perpetration of racist crimes including war crimes, acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing." It called Israel "a racist apartheid state in which Israel's brand of apartheid as a crime against humanity has been characterised by separation and segregation ... and inhumane acts." Zionists are equated with Anti-Semites, because, it was argued, Israeli (Zionist) actions are against the (Semitic) Palestinian people.

The spectacle of dictators and terrorists and junta leaders accusing Israel of genocide and racism and apartheid might be laughable if it weren't for the fact that their lies threaten to find their way into the legal and historical legacy of civilization. More grotesque are the self-declared enlightened nations that listen politely and applaud. The foreign ministers and "human rights activists," the governmental and non-governmental delegates who go along with this charade as if its diplomatic business as usual-they are the Pontius Pilates, washing their hands of responsibility for the next Holocaust in the making, the one in which Israel-the Jew writ large-is cast to play the starring role.

To be fair, there are a number of European and even third world nations that recognize the machinations in Durban for what they are: a hijacking of a conference that should have been a landmark effort to join forces to combat intolerance and persecution. Instead, driven by the "automatic majority" of have-not nations for attacking those who have, the diplomatic ground is being prepared for branding the Jewish State and its leaders as war criminals and racists. Indicted in the documents that will climax a weeklong orgy of Israel-bashing, Zionists will be distinctly isolated, boycotted, shunned by all sincere and sensitive folk who care about human rights, except, of course, the rights of Jews to live securely in a land of their own. And for this distinction we should be grateful.

Just as former Israeli Prime Minister Barak revealed the true face of Yasser Arafat when he offered peace proposals so generous and far-reaching that they cost him the next election, proposals Arafat flatly rejected without so much as a counter-offer, Durban exposes the true nature of the anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist opposition: denial of the fundamental right of a Jewish State to exist in any size, within any borders.

Israelis deeply appreciate the principled stand the United States is taking with (dis)respect to Durban, and the tacit understanding that the Bush Administration and Congress is showing for Israel's war against terrorism. Durban offers a clear choice between the dictatorial values of Arafat and Castro, rooted in military force and revolutionary struggle, and the values of democracy and peace seeking traditionally upheld by Israel and America. For this clarity, we thank Durban. Durban shows us who are our friends.

When Islamic mobs burn American and Israeli flags, hang Bush and Sharon in effigy, call our nations big and little Satan respectively, when their terrorists blow up U.S. and Israeli embassies, we will take it as a compliment, proud to have such common enemies. Their viciousness validates the justice of our shared cause. And when Palestinians send bombers and snipers to destroy innocent lives, or use the birthplace of Jesus to fire mortars and rifles at our capital, we will worry less about the sensitivities of our hypo-critics. Those who brand us as a racist, genocidal, apartheid state simply invalidate their right to our attention. Our future survival depends on what we do, not what they say. We will act according to our own high moral standards, not their falsely pious phrases.

Israel rightly should remain concerned with what the United States thinks. With America, more than any other nation, Israel shares a common sensibility. Israel, like America, is slow to go to war, cognizant of its terrible price. But when Israel finally fights, like America, we go all out to win. Durban shows us the ugly alternative to Israel's embattled democracy. Durban shows us why we need to defend ourselves at all costs. And Durban shows us on whom we can depend for our defense. And, with all due respect to our true allies, the answer is: only ourselves, and, for those who believe in a spirit of historical justice transcending and silencing the mockery of the ignorant, the Rock of Israel.

Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.

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