Echoes of medieval myths and the new blood libel against Israel

IDF SOLDIERS react with tears and horror, visiting the scene of the October 7 Nova festival massacre, this week. The tale woven by those who seek to demonize Israel as the aggressor is an inversion which serves the interests of those who wish to see the Jewish state annihilated, says the writer.

In the grand theater of the grotesque that the Middle East conflict never fails to be, the latest act of absurdity comes not from the expected quarters of extremist propaganda, but rather from the hallowed halls of the United Nations.

Here, amid a backdrop of undeniable atrocities committed by Hamas – ranging from the sexual violence against women and children, a fact admitted by the brutes themselves, to the grim specter of hostages still in chains – we are treated to the fantastical narrative that the IDF, in its pursuit of justice and return of its beleaguered citizens, has somehow mirrored these barbarities.

The resurgence of blood libel

The charges? Sexual abuse against Palestinian women and girls, allegations as unfounded as they are scurrilous, arriving suspiciously devoid of evidence, yet replete with the venom of ancient prejudices.

This sordid tale would be laughable were it not so insidiously familiar to those who keep an ear to the ground of history. The blood libel, that most medieval of slanders, seems to have found new life in the mouths and minds of those who would see the Jewish state not just delegitimized, but demonized.

And yet, these baseless accusations against the IDF are not the product of fringe fanaticism but are being peddled at a time when the United Nations itself stands accused, its personnel implicated in the very embrace of Hamas, an organization whose raison d’etre is the annihilation of Israel. The irony would be delicious if it weren’t so bitterly toxic.

Amid the tumult and the tragedy stands an army – the IDF – which, by every conceivable metric of modern warfare ethics, outpaces its contemporaries in a dance of restraint so choreographed, that it would leave the most hardened cynic pausing for thought.

IDF warnings to civilians 

Wielding a might that could, at any moment of its choosing, reduce Gaza to nothing more than a footnote in the annals of history, IDF opts instead for a path less trodden. With technological prowess that rivals, and indeed surpasses, the greatest of global powers, Israel has demonstrated time and again a forbearance that belies the caricature of the bloodthirsty aggressor.

This is a military that dispatches warnings before it dispatches its ordnance, a practice so steeped in the consideration for civilian life that one might mistake it for a nation at peace, rather than one perpetually under siege.

An Israeli soldier walks in what the military described as a Hamas command tunnel running partly under UNRWA headquarters, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in the Gaza Strip, February 8, 2024. (credit: DYLAN MARTINEZ/REUTERS)

An Israeli soldier walks in what the military described as a Hamas command tunnel running partly under UNRWA headquarters, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in the Gaza Strip, February 8, 2024. (credit: DYLAN MARTINEZ/REUTERS)

And yet, against this backdrop of judicious power and ethical warfare, a narrative as old as it is vile has been resurrected with a vengeance. The blood libel – that most enduring of slanders against the Jewish people – has found new expression in the accusations levied against the IDF. These claims, as unsubstantiated as they are pernicious, are not the rantings of the fringe but are being amplified by a press drunk on antisemitism.

THE TALE being woven by those who seek to demonize Israel, casting it as the aggressor, is not just a distortion of the truth; it is an inversion that serves the interests of those who wish to see the Jewish state not merely criticized, but annihilated.

That such a narrative gains traction, even as Israel’s actions stand as a testament to a desire for peace rather than conquest, speaks volumes about the prejudices that continue to cloud the judgment of the international community.

What we witness here is not just the recycling of the blood libel for the digital age but a more pernicious turn: a concerted effort to mask the atrocities of Hamas with the veneer of victimhood, by projecting their own vile practices onto the IDF.

Reality inversion occurring in front of us

This strategic inversion of reality serves a dual purpose. It vilifies the Israeli defense apparatus while simultaneously whitewashing the sins of Hamas, all under the aegis of international sanction, no less.

It requires a peculiar brand of moral myopia to ignore the context in which these allegations are unfurled. The United Nations, ostensibly the world’s moral compass, finds itself compromised, its impartiality in tatters, as some of its own are revealed to have consorted with terrorists.

In any sane universe, this revelation would prompt a period of introspection, a reassessment of biases that might have allowed such a breach of ethics. Yet, instead, we are fed the reheated leftovers of medieval antisemitism, dressed up as concern for human rights.

The audacity of such claims, made in the absence of evidence and against the backdrop of Hamas’s acknowledged barbarism, would make for a farce of the highest order if the stakes were not so tragically high.

Shedding light on justice and truth

This is not merely an issue of misrepresentation or misinformation; it is an assault on the very possibility of justice and truth in discourse. When allegations of such gravity are levied without substantiation, and by entities compromised by their associations with terror, we must ask ourselves what has become of the arbiters of international justice.

In the face of such slander, Israel continues its grim task of defending its citizens and striving for the return of those held captive by a terror group whose cruelty is matched only by its hypocrisy.

Meanwhile, the world is left to ponder the ruinous path on which lies and libel might lead us, should we fail to confront them with the unyielding light of scrutiny and reason.

The time has come to discard the shackles of bias and embrace a more rigorous pursuit of truth, lest we allow the specters of old hatreds to define the contours of a conflict that demands far more of us.

The writer is the director of Forward Strategy Ltd.