The “Traumatized Israel” Trope

Like a grotesque, multihued gargoyle, post-October 7 anti-Israelism comes in many ghastly colors. There are the ghouls who shriek that images of Hamas massacring their way through kibbutzim are all a Mossad fake. There are the vapid Western students who chant about rivers and seas that they can’t locate on a map. There are the media pundits who swallow Hamas propaganda, while casting doubt on every claim of a democracy fighting for its life.

And then there’s something less overt, but more insidious: the cold, moralistic judgment of liberals who condemn Israel for its alleged callousness — one that renders the Jewish state beyond the civilized pale.

Take, for example, a mid-February New York Times report about a left-wing reservist, Doron Shabty, fresh out of fighting in Gaza. “Mr. Shabty, 31, said he felt no sense of revenge, even if other soldiers did, nor did he justify every act of the Israeli military, expressing sorrow over the many thousands of Gazans killed in the fight against Hamas,” the Times reported.

The implication — backed by no evidence — that doves such as Shabty were the exception was made explicit a few lines later, “Four months into the war, with mounting deaths, hostages still held by Hamas, and no clear victory in sight, their own pain has numbed many Israelis to the suffering of Gazans, let alone the pain of the Palestinian citizens of Israel itself.”