“Another revealing example of the moral confusion of the Left has been its support for the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel. Why does the Left support the Palestinians against Israel?

The question is rarely asked. It is simply taken for granted. (To be clear, I am referring to support for the Palestinians against Israel, not support for a Palestinian state.) But the question should be asked because support for the Palestinians is inconsistent with the Left’s professed values. Just about every value the Left claims to uphold Israel upholds and its enemies, including the Palestinians, do not.

The Left speaks about its passion for democracy. Yet it is Israel that is a fully functioning democracy, as opposed to its Arab and Muslim enemies, including the Palestinians who have been led largely by terrorists, from Yasser Arafat to Hamas.

The Left claims to have a particular concern for women’s rights. Yet it is Israel that has as highly developed a feminist movement as that of any Western country. It is Israel that conscripted women into its armed forces before almost any Western country did. At the same time, the state of women’s rights among Israel’s Muslim enemies is perhaps the lowest in the world.

The Left’s greatest current preoccupation is with gay rights. Yet it is Israel that has annual gay pride days, while Arab and Muslim countries persecute homosexuals.

It is Israel that has an independent (and liberal) judiciary. It is Israel that has a Left-wing press. It is Israel that has been governed by Leftist, even socialist, parties. Israel’s enemies have none of this.

So, why isn’t the Left leading pro-Israel demonstrations?

Perhaps because women’s equality, independent judiciaries, liberty, gays, and a free press are not the primary concerns of the anti-Israel Left. The causes the Left speaks for are often noble-sounding covers for deeper concerns such as the weakening of Western, especially American, power in the world, the weakening of Judeo-Christian religions, the weakening of free market capitalism, and support for the ‘underdog.’

The Left tends to divide the world into rich and poor, strong and weak, and favorite and underdog rather than good and evil or right and wrong. Support for the ‘underdog’ is the reason given by Richard Falk, a leading Left-wing anti-Israel (and anti-American) activist, who, owing to his support for the Palestinians, was appointed the United Nations special rapporteur to the Palestinian territories: ‘In reality, Falk told the Forward, his criticism of Israel is [due to] … his posture as an American leftist, perennially dedicated to history’s underdogs — in his eyes, the Palestinians.’

In order not to recognize Israel’s moral superiority to its enemies, one must use a different moral yardstick. The Left does.

Two weeks after the July 2005 terror bombings in London that killed fifty-two and injured seven hundred civilians, the then mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, a prominent Leftist, defended the Palestinian use of suicide bombers. ‘In an unfair balance, that’s what people use,’ he said.”