I support Israel's right to defend itself. BUT...

Exposing the ugly head of those who pretend to support Israel's existence

Since the October 7th massacre, Israel has been engaged in a war to eradicate Hamas, the terror organisation that rules the Gaza Strip. Following the horrors of October 7th, there has been an unprecedented level of support by Western media and Western countries for Israel’s right to defend itself.

The Israeli military is doing what’s required of him in order to achieve its mission, that is, to eradicate Hamas, demilitarise, pacify, and deradicalize the Gaza Strip. That is a noble, moral goal, given the horrific circumstances of October 7th. Almost everyone in the West agrees with that. But war is unpleasant. Thousands of Gazans have been killed, including many children. These harsh images make it difficult for people who have initially been supportive of Israel to continue to be supportive.

One comment I constantly hear when listening to Western media goes somewhere along these lines: "I support Israel's right to defend itself. But..."

This Piers Morgen clip is an example of that:

The “but” means that they don't really support Israel's right to defend itself.

It's like saying that the idea of Israel being able to defend itself is "good in theory", but when it comes to practicing the theory, it's terrible. You can't divorce practice from theory. You can’t say that an idea is a good idea, but its application is catastrophic. As Piers Morgen says here, the idea that Israel has a right to defend itself leads to “an extraordinary slaughter”. What good idea leads to something like that?

A theory is good only insofar as it leads to good results.

You cannot support an idea without accepting its consequences, i.e., that there will be lots of deaths in a war. If you would really accept the idea that Israel has a right to defend itself, then you would have realised that these deaths are a result of Hamas’s aggression and, therefore, their responsibility. That is, you would have learned that these deaths are not a moral claim against Israel.

Therefore, I ask all of those who add the "but" to simply be honest and just say that they don't support Israel's right to defend itself, which means that they don't support Israel's right to exist.

The meaning of a country’s right to self-defence is that it would be free to take all actions necessary to ensure its existence.

And because Israel is the only country in the world that they would dare say something like that to, I would add that this notion entails a scent of anti-Semitism. According to these people, Israel is the only country in the world that doesn't have the right to defend itself. Therefore, it’s the only country in the world that doesn’t deserve to exist.

Every person who utters that “but” should be exposed to the true evil of that idea immediately. It seems like a normal, sensible thing to say to seem unbiased. The truth is that it’s anti-Israel (or, in the worse case, anti-Jewish) bias, aimed at uprooting a fundamental moral principle underlying the justice behind Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Either you support Israel’s right to defend itself, or you don’t. You can’t have both. Either you support the only free nation in the Middle East’s existence, or you wouldn’t mind (or are willing to) seeing its annihilation.