Sometimes, even in these cynical times we live in, we run across individuals who have a consistent attachment to their principles and stand by them shine or rain. One of them is Spanish journalist Pilar Rahola. Let me share with you an excerpt of an interview Mrs Rahola gave to the Israeli newspaper Ha'Aretz in 2008:

"I don't see myself as a defender of Israel," she points out, "but as a defender of the truth. I have a great deal of criticism of various decisions of the Israeli government. I don't like what Israel has done over the years. But there's a very big difference between rational criticism of the government, of various activities of the government, and unbridled and criminal attacks against Israel's very essence." ...

In the conflict in the Middle East ... most European intellectuals stop thinking and only repeat empty cliches. This anti-Israel bias of both the left and the media is a disguise for anti-Semitism. No other country is the target of such hatred and of such belligerent criticism. No other country receives repeated threats to its existence from other members of the United Nations, while the world remains silent. The reasons for that can be found in both distant and recent history. ...

... our deviant way of dealing with [guilt about the Spanish inquisition and the Holocaust] is to attack Israel, of all countries. Because the worse Israel is, the less guilty we are. The attacks against Israel are our way of clearing our conscience, and that's something I definitely can't accept. ...

Meanwhile, unfortunately, anyone who is not anti-Israel immediately becomes suspect."

When I re-read recently this piece I was thunderstruck with how right it feels and how right it looks, not to mention how much sense it makes. Is this the only reason Europeans are so prone to have anti-Israel biases? Of course not, but it helps to understand the deep connections between European cultural anti-Semitism and the European left obsession with Israel.

I still vividly remember the incident, so far back that Arafat was still alive, in which two Israeli reservists got lost and ended up in Ramallah, they were taken into custody and after being tortured by the police and killed, their bodies were dumped out a window so the crowd could dismember them and use their blood to paint themselves. You might remember that the RAI was the only news outlet able to retain their film of the event, but that they apologized and took the film off the air after the Palestinian Authority threatened the lives of all Italian journalists in the West Bank. Can that kind of hatred be the product of normal interaction? I don't think so...trying to cover your own guilt, as Pilar Rahola suggests, sounds more like an explanation. The hatred is not for the other, but what we did to the other; and that is why that hatred is unrelenting...

Golda Meir once said that she could forgive the Arabs for killing Jews, but she would never forgive them for making "us" kill them. So what happens if you don't forgive? You either learn to live with the guilt or you rationalize your actions and justify them. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, while living as a guest of Adolph Hitler in Berlin, in one of his broadcasts to the the Arab world, said that "One day the world will know that what the Germans are doing with their Jews is the right thing to do"

For now, I tip my hat to Pilar Rahola and her convictions. Even if I don't share her opinions 100 % (who does?) I do feel a kinship with somebody who is willing to stand up for Truth. Thank you.