The Real Reason Nations Rush to Condemn Israel

The scene repeats itself with disturbing predictability. Israel defends herself against genocidal terrorists, and within hours, the “civilized” nations of the world line up to condemn her. Recently, the UK, France, and Canada issued a joint statement demanding that Israel end its military operations in Gaza and establish a Palestinian state – effectively rewarding Hamas terrorism with the ultimate prize they seek. These nations – built on centuries of Jewish blood – suddenly discover their moral compass when Jews fight back. They accuse Israel of war crimes while ignoring the actual war criminals. They demand restraint from the victims while excusing the perpetrators. Hamas even thanked these three countries for their statement, proving Netanyahu’s point: “When mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers thank you, you’re on the wrong side of justice.”

This pattern is not new. For over seventy-five years, since Israel’s rebirth, the same script has played out. When Christian Phalangists massacred Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila, the world blamed Israel. When Syria slaughtered 40,000 of its own citizens in Hama, the headlines quickly returned to Israeli “investigations.” When Arabs behead Christians in Nigeria or commit genocide in Darfur, the silence is deafening. But when Israel builds a house in Jerusalem, the United Nations convenes emergency sessions.

Why does this happen? Why are the nations of the world obsessed with condemning Israel for atrocities she does not commit while ignoring actual massacres happening everywhere else? Why do they apply one standard to Israel and another to everyone else? Why does Jewish self-defense trigger such visceral rage among peoples who committed far worse atrocities throughout history?

The answer, explains Rabbi Ouri Cherki, lies in understanding the hidden conversation that has existed between Jews and the nations for thousands of years.

For millennia, Jews lived among the nations of the world as a distinct and separate people. They inhabited ghettos—not necessarily physical ones, but mental and cultural boundaries that kept them apart from non-Jews. Meanwhile, the non-Jews managed the world. They did so poorly, committing countless injustices and atrocities. The Jews, for their part, lived according to higher moral standards, but simply by existing, they projected a silent critique of how the nations conducted themselves. The nations sensed this judgment.

From their perspective, there was no justification for criticism from a minority that shut itself away and didn’t have to face the challenges of governing a state. “If the Jews had their own country,” they reasoned, “surely they would behave just like everyone else.”

Then, one day, the Jews established their own state. This created a global anxiety: what if the Jews succeeded in building a moral nation? If they did, it would cast retroactive judgment on the behavior of the nations throughout history. To dispel this anxiety, many countries, backed by the media, have tried—at any cost—to prove that Israel is not moral. This effort requires enormous energy and results in complete blindness to reality.

King David captured this dynamic perfectly in his psalms: “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His anointed” (Psalm 2:1-2).

The nations rage not merely against Israel, but against the Divine plan itself. Their fury is spiritual before it becomes political.

The Sages understood this dynamic. They taught that when God offered the Torah at Mount Sinai, He first approached all the other nations of the world. Each nation rejected the Torah when they learned what it demanded of them. The Edomites refused when they heard “You shall not murder,” for violence was their way of life. The Ishmaelites rejected “You shall not steal,” as thievery sustained their economy. Nation after nation turned away from Divine law because it conflicted with their nature and interests.

Only Israel accepted the Torah, declaring “Na’aseh v’nishma” – “We will do and we will understand.” This acceptance created a permanent tension between Israel and the nations. Israel became the living reminder of what the nations could have been but chose not to be.

The fear is not that Israel will fail morally – the fear is that Israel will succeed. If Israel proves capable of building a just society while defending itself against enemies, it validates the Jewish claim to moral distinctiveness. It suggests that the nations’ rejection of Divine law was a choice, not an inevitability. It implies that their centuries of persecution, crusades, pogroms, and holocausts were not unfortunate necessities of governance, but moral failures that could have been avoided.

This explains the desperate attempts to prove Israeli immorality. Every Israeli military operation becomes a “massacre.” Every defensive measure becomes “collective punishment.” Every construction project becomes “illegal settlement activity.” The nations need Israel to be immoral because Israeli morality judges their own history.

The nations rage because they cannot accept what Israel represents: the possibility of a people living under Divine law, maintaining moral standards while exercising power, and surviving despite overwhelming odds. Israel’s existence is a standing rebuke to every nation that claims morality is impossible in the face of real threats.

The double standard against Israel is not mere hypocrisy—it is deliberate spiritual warfare. The nations are not trying to hold Israel to the same standard as other countries; they are trying to destroy the very standard that Israel represents.

The moral bankruptcy of these three nations reveals itself in their historical treatment of Jews. Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, then betrayed it by slamming the door on Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis. They handed Jewish land to Arab monarchs and interned Holocaust survivors in Cyprus like criminals. France collaborated fully in deporting over 75,000 Jews to their deaths, shoving them into cattle cars from the Vel d’Hiv while Parisians watched. Today, French Jews face stabbings in the streets and require military protection at synagogues, yet France presumes to lecture Israel about morality. Canada’s legacy is equally damning—they locked out Jewish refugees during the Holocaust with the official policy “None is too many,” sending the ship St. Louis back to certain death. Now Canadian universities have become Hamas recruitment centers while their Parliament hosts terrorists and calls it diplomacy.

These nations abandoned the Jews when they were stateless and now seek to punish Israel for defending her state. Their moral lectures ring hollow when delivered by countries built on Jewish graves.

But Scripture promises that these efforts will fail. The nations will rage, but God will laugh at their schemes. Israel will endure because her mission transcends politics—she exists as the living proof that a nation can govern itself according to Divine law.

The next time you witness the world’s obsessive focus on Israel, remember King David’s words in Psalm 2. The nations rage because Israel represents everything they rejected when they turned away from Divine law. Their condemnation of Israel is really condemnation of themselves.

Israel is not the broken, stateless Jews of 1942. We are the sovereign people of Israel—armed, aware, and unapologetic. The nations’ threats are meaningless, their sanctions impotent, their moral lectures garbage. Israel possesses what these nations will never have: a covenant that transcends politics and a God who laughs at those who rage against His people.