The Israel-Palestine conflict is almost as old as the end of World War Two. And there doesn’t seem to be an end to the conflict. With the war in Syria on the border it certainly doesn’t become easier to solve. I won’t be able to definitively explain the reasons on why this conflict is still looming or how it came to be. Instead I will focus on how to move on from here and what has to be changed or acknowledged and from whom to achieve progress.

Double Standards

The first aspect is the demystification of Israel. In order to solve this conflict it is necessary to view Israel as a regular state with regular state interests and different parties with different interests. If you view it as God’s country or the country of the Jews than you won’t be able to solve the conflict, because then you can’t properly criticize Israel. I will now explain what I mean with that. It’s called double standard.

Take any disliked dictatorship. For this example we use South Africa during the Apartheid, because it fits quite well. If this dictatorship now occupies land which belongs to another country and starts colonizing it (settling people in the land), you would be quick to criticize it for this behaviour. Especially if the people in the occupied area are treated worse than the citizens of the occupying country. Now take the same behaviour but this time it’s not a dictatorship but a liberal democracy doing it. Would you criticize them in the same way? You might say Yes but you won’t. The reason is that you value a liberal democracy with a ground positive value while the dictatorship has a ground negative value before considering anything else. Therefore - in plain English - a democracy has to behave more illegaly and/or has to be fucked up more, before you will criticize it in the same way. That’s because you fear damaging the concept of a liberal democracy itself by criticizing a liberal democratic country for this behaviour. You probably know where this is going but imagine the democracy is Israel. All of a sudden it becomes even more difficult for you to criticize it in the same way you would criticize a dictatorship. That’s because Israel is not only a liberal democracy but also the Jewish state. Therefore you fear that by criticizing Israel you criticize the concept of a Jewish state and are therefore antisemitic.

Of course this is not scientific and you can have another opinion than I do on this matter but I think it is somewhat logical. The consequence is that many people in especially Germany struggle with criticizing Israel for such observable behaviour. In Germany another layer is added and that is the historic responsibility towards Israel which adds another hurdle for criticizing Israel.

This imbalance regarding the criticism of certain behaviour by states can be especially observed by conservatives in Europe and the US. For them it is incomprehensible how you could criticize for example the US and any criticism is assumed to be a criticism of democracy. Similar patterns relate to free trade agreements between the US and EU. Criticism of those is assumed to be a criticism of free trade as a whole instead of the specifics in the agreement.

Weirdly this balance is completely inverted when it comes to the left political spectrum. There it is predominantly Israel and the US taking the criticism while more authoritarian countries like Russia and Iran are almost not criticized. Doesn’t that disprove my theory? No, it’s just the other side.

Democracies and additional features like being a Jewish state or the sole democracy in the Near East still have a positive ground value. But instead of allowing more missteps and illegal behaviour, less is allowed, because these features are viewed as role model features. This means a democracy is held to a higher standard than a dictatorship - based upon expectation. You expect militant and somewhat illegal behaviour from dictatorships. This makes their actions not right but it is less scandalous than a democracy doing these actions. The virtues of Israel and the US are therefore their downfall. By being model states for democracy, they are under increased scrutiny, because the chances of correcting such illegal behaviour are higher in a democracy than in a dictatorship. Therefore it seems to be more efficient to criticize a democracy compared to a dictatorship.

These two main reasons for double standards should make it easier to understand why there are so many problems even talking about the conflict. When people belonging to different sides of the aisle talk with each other about the conflict and Israel is criticized, they interpret the criticism differently which leads to misunderstandings and accusations.

It is important to note that so far the occupied people are not part of these two sides. Because for them it doesn’t make a difference why they are oppressed or who does it. They suffer regardless.

Therefore it is necessary to eliminate the double standard before trying to solve the conflict. This means all parties participating in talks about the conflict must agree to only judge the actions, which are verifiable, and not other non-materialistic features like being a democracy.

Ground support for Anti-Israel hate

This brings us to another important point. The Palestinians are not angels. There is real hate towards Israel which in huge parts is truly antisemitic and doesn’t want to stop until Israel is destroyed. But this is not godgiven and nobody is born with this hate. So how did it develop and why does it continue to build?

This question is truly hard to answer comprehensively. Therefore I will focus on a few points which can serve as an example. I my opinion the best way to try an explanation is to take a newbo