While the justifications for Israel’s violence have repeatedly changed from fighting nationalism to Marxism to radical Islam or whatnot, the underlying policies—occupation, displacement, territorial expansion—have remained consistent. The article questions the Western rhetoric on the ideological and moral justification of Israel’s crimes in Palestine and the wider region.
Throughout large parts of German society, it is almost impossible to have a rational debate about the human rights violations committed by Israel against Palestinians without hearing words like “antisemitism,” “radicals,” “spreading democracy,” and many other “moral” justifications for genocide—narratives that give the average Western mind a self-righteous sense of moral certainty without any deeper theoretical or historical foundation for understanding the matter. This short text hopefully offers a logical motivation to take a step back and rethink some of the supposed “facts” and assumptions that have become deeply embedded in Western society.
Yes, but …
Today, September 2026. Still. Hours could be spent listing the killing machines Israel is operating against the Palestinians, the displacement of civilians, and the continued occupation and seizure of more and more land in neighbouring countries—all of this happening on an almost daily basis. And yet, the main and most widespread response is still little more than: “Yes, but the Islamist radicals …” or “Yes, but October 7 …”Yet even this superficial and overly simplistic argument stems from a complete lack of knowledge and is backed by little more than moral chauvinism. A basic theoretical, historical, and chronological assessment of the political developments surrounding this “conflict” would be enough to take the first step towards a better understanding of the matter and, perhaps, towards rethinking the Western pattern of discourse surrounding it.
The first question that every German should ask before using phrases like “Islamist radicals” or “Hamas” to justify Israel’s genocide is perhaps whether they have actually researched the historical background of these terms and their relation to the matter as a whole.
A surprise for the German majority would be the fact that Hamas was founded in 1987, while the Nakba—the displacement of the native Palestinians during the establishment of Israel—took place in 1948. That alone should be the first blow to the “it is all because of Hamas” argument. This should be sufficient motivation to dive a little deeper into the historical development of Palestinian resistance movements and the ideas and concepts underlying them.
To make things simple and keep it short, I am going to focus only on the post-1948 phase, after the creation of Israel. First, the years of the peak of pan-Arab nationalism and “socialism” lasting until around the mid-1970s; then the peak of the leftist movements, lasting until the late 1980s; and finally, starting around 1987 with the creation of Hamas, the period in which Islamist movements began to play a more influential role in the overall picture.
Since this text is not intended to discuss and explain each of these movements in detail, but rather to examine the lasting Western strategy of using the identity of the opposing group to provide a “moral justification” for any war crimes committed by Israel, it is important to look at how this justification changed over time.
Jumping the Narratives
During the first two eras, the main justification was initially framed around fighting Arab nationalism, represented by movements such as the Ba’ath Party in Syria and Gamal Abd el Nasser in Egypt. Their ideology could hardly be framed in terms of “antisemitism” or “radical Islamist terror,” since radical Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood were actually banned and heavily suppressed under these regimes.
In Palestine, the main movement was the PLO, which also had a largely secular political background. The main justification for Israeli war crimes and occupation therefore had to correspond to the political identity of the opposing side. At this stage, the narrative was oriented towards “fighting Arab nationalism.”
Then, during the rise of leftist groups such as the PFLP, the Western justification for the crimes committed by Israel had to change accordingly, shifting towards the familiar language of “fighting communism”. The PFLP was highly secular and ideologically influenced by classical Marxism, while also having relatively little ideological similarity with the pan-Arab movements and frequently engaging in political disagreements with them. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the PFLP began to lose influence until it had largely moved away from its previous position. While Pan-Arab ideology retained some influence for a longer period, it gradually lost ground to the rise of Islamist movements such as Hamas. At the same time, other radical Islamist movements emerged in the region, such as in the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has no historical or ideological connection to the actual Palestinian cause but has sought to exploit the Palestinian issue for geopolitical purposes.
At this point, the Western media machine increasingly moved away from justifying Israeli war crimes through narratives such as “fighting Arab nationalism” or “stopping communism.” Instead, the focus shifted towards the radical, conservative, and religious character of the new main opposition. This allowed the identity and ideology of the opposing groups to become the basis for a new narrative—one that could continue to convince Western audiences of a moral high ground for the violence and crimes committed against Palestinians.
Never-changing method
Even today, including in foreign policy, Israel has not changed its main strategy of spreading a whitewashed moral justification for its expansionist policies, backed by its theoretical ideology and practical actions, as well as by very clear statements from its highest-ranking officials and ministers.
For example, back in the days of the Ba’ath regime in Syria, and even in the years before it, Israel used the mentioned “Arab nationalism” justification for permanently occupying and attacking Syrian territory. Now, since the fall of the Ba’ath regime, it has rapidly continued its expansion into Syrian territory, advancing as far as the outskirts of the capital, Damascus. Of course, this refers only to the situation at the time of writing, since these advances have continued almost on a daily basis. And of course, this time the justification for these actions is even easier to sell to the Western mind, since Israel can now point to Syria’s temporary president, his extremist and radical ideology, and his documented terrorist background.
Here, I must make my position clear: I am firmly opposed to al-Sharaa and the people surrounding him. I also believe that Syrians bear responsibility for accepting such a group of people to lead the country, even temporarily, because this has made it easier for Israel to justify its war crimes and expansion and to sell this narrative to the average, politically blind Western mind. But when observing the situation more logically, we can see the same pattern in the media and political narratives used by Israel: the justification for the same actions changes according to the identity of those on the other side.
Israel is even now using the argument of stopping Turkish influence in Syria as another justification for its daily expansion inside Syrian territory. This is particularly awkward, considering that Israel and Turkey have had mostly normal diplomatic relations. Another aspect worth mentioning is that this Turkey-backed figure was put into office in Syria largely through the efforts of Donald Trump. From the perspective of a purely logical observation, it is difficult to believe that the US would place a man in office in a neighbouring country of one of its most trusted allies, Israel, while leaving even the slightest possibility of a conflict of interest.
After a short logical observation, one could think that Hamas and its extremist ideology are the result rather than the cause. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the cause of a problem cannot be born 40 years after it began. Hamas and its radical ideology are rather the result of decades of occupation, mass displacement, and oppression.
A similar analytical concept could be applied to the region as a whole. If the Syrians had chosen a “normal” figure to lead the transitional period after the collapse of the Ba’ath and Assad regime—literally anyone from any political party or ideological background—even a military council might have done a better job. Just somebody who was not a notorious terrorist like al-Sharaa, and who did not belong to an “Al-Qaeda”-like group such as HTS. That alone could have been enough to dismantle the tools Israel is using to justify its advance into Syrian territory, which is unarguably a clear violation of international law.
And, to keep logically assessing the current situation, one could also wonder: Nobody profited more from the violent actions of Hamas than Israel. No one profited more from the existence of Hezbollah’s militia in Lebanon and its relationship with Tehran than Israel. And accordingly, no one would profit more from the terrorist background of al-Sharaa than Israel. And now we have all these “still uncertain” rumors about Netanyahu knowing beforehand that something big would happen on October 7. At this point, I think I would simply leave that here as a possible exercise in logical retrospective self-debate for each reader to consider independently.
At the end of this very simple, chronological, and broad assessment of the historical and theoretical development of Palestinian movements, and of the corresponding methods of Western justification, some logical questions should be asked: How truthful can this method of justification and reasoning really be if it has repeatedly changed throughout modern history to fit Israeli actions? How is it possible to call even an extremist and radical movement the root of the “conflict” when it had essentially no effective or major role in it until relatively recently? These questions should hopefully serve as a motivation to read, analyze, and research before forming a definitiveopinion on this or any other political matter.
