Afrasianet - Dr. Abdullah Maarouf - No observer doubts that we are experiencing a wave of real sharp and unprecedented shifts in Western public opinion towards Israel, especially after more than twenty months of the war of extermination in the Gaza Strip in full view of the world.
These transformations are taking place primarily by the younger generation in Western countries. Although in the past he showed principled sympathy for the Palestinian cause in a way that exceeds that of older generations, this sympathy today has turned into a wave of open and declared hostility to everything that Israel represents and its replacement project in the region, until it reached the unprecedented scene witnessed by the Glastonbury concert in Britain, when thousands of young Britons chanted behind rapper Bob Vaillan: "Death to the IDF".
This appeal went beyond the idea of public sympathy for Palestine in well-known appeals in the West, such as: "Palestine is free" or "from the river to the sea." Palestine will be free", which was not explicit in showing its hostility to the Israeli project, despite repeated Israeli attempts to criminalize these calls, turning the new call into a declaration of open hostility with the Israeli occupation army, up to the mention of the word "death", with all its meanings and dimensions.
What is remarkable about these developments in the recent appeals is that it was keen to adhere to the declaration of hostility specifically to the Israeli occupation army, which now represents the narrative of absolute violence and war crimes that have smelled throughout the world, despite Israel's insistence that these recent calls include all Israelis.
Israel is currently living in a state of real panic that goes beyond what we have known about it in the past decades of constant attempts to project the role of the victim under the name of "anti-Semitism", as the narrative of Israeli oppression in the last century was hidden even in Zionist media propaganda behind the headlines of Israeli success and superiority as "the only democracy in the Middle East" and "a bright spot in a dark ocean."
And other slogans that at that time did not reflect a real Israeli concern about its place in the Western world, peoples and governments. Israel believed that over the years it had succeeded in changing Western popular convictions about Israel through its enormous power and media power.
However, recent developments have indeed terrified Israel, because today it sees the entire media system it has built over seven decades crumbling and collapsing in a few months, with the same tools that Israel and its arms excelled in using: the media.
With one difference this time, the media we are talking about today is no longer the directed media that can only be achieved by spending millions of dollars and through specific companies and institutions, but rather the free open social media that has become a tool that kills Israel.
Therefore, today we see a good number of research and media centers affiliated with and supporting Israel, directly or indirectly, becoming panic with the publication of the new image of Israel to the Western peoples.
In this regard, we see important think tanks such as the Harris Institute for Market Studies and the Center for American Policy Studies at Harvard University in the United States constantly measuring American public opinion regarding Israel and the American public's perception of it.
These findings are constantly published, which are immediately reflected in the Israeli media, which analyses them in depth.
For example, a study conducted by the two institutes at the end of October 2023 on the eve of the beginning of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, which showed at the time that public support for Israel among the American people was 84% compared to only 16% for Hamas.
Although this result seems generally satisfactory to the Israeli policymaker, the Israeli media that covered this poll ignored this percentage to focus on the result of American youth, which was very different from the general total of all American people, as this percentage was 52% pro-Israel versus 48% pro-Hamas, a percentage that the Jerusalem Post considered a serious alarm at the time.
What caused more terror in Israel over the past few weeks was the significant narrowing of the difference, as the poll conducted by both institutes at the end of last June showed an increase in the percentage of American general support for Hamas to reach 25%, with the percentage of support among American youth remaining almost the same as it was twenty months ago.
The question here is: How does Israel view these results and polls and how do they deal with them?
In fact, Israel and all its components take these fundamental changes in Western perception of them very seriously. This seems to have necessitated Israeli propaganda shifting from defense to attack anything that could even fleetingly indicate support for the Palestinians in this conflict.
Therefore, we have seen the stick of "anti-Semitism" raised again and provocatively, as the labeling of anyone who criticizes Israel as "anti-Semitic" has become common in Israeli official and media circles, even if this critic is one of the strongest former defenders of Israel in the aftermath of October 7, as is the case with the well-known British journalist Piers Morgan, or even if this critic is a UN organization or a prominent figure of its leaders, as is the case with UNRWA, or Al-Amin. UN General António Guterres, or UN Human Rights Rapporteur for Palestine Francesca Albanese, among others.
Israel interprets this growing hostility among Western societies as an extension of the old state of hatred experienced by Jews during the twentieth century in Europe, and during World War II in particular.
This explains the exaggerated Israeli reaction against this wave, and this proves that it believes that the wave of hostility to Israel today is not just a passing wave, but reflects a profound strategic shift in Western society, as indicated by the report of the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency earlier this year, which went further, stigmatizing half of adults in the world as anti-Semitic, in an extensive study that dealt with the countries of the world in detail submitted by the two bodies to Israeli President Herzog.
It is interesting here that this study reached the conclusion that hostility to Zionism hides within it anti-Semitism, and thus the study mixed the concepts of Judaism, Zionism, Semites and Israel to make them one thing, which made it see that the solution is pressure to classify hostility to Zionism as anti-Semitism, just as it considered that the call: "Death to the IDF" does not refer to the occupation army, but to Israeli society as a whole.
In doing so, Israel and its government today fall into a strategic mistake that will cost it a lot, as with this level of panic it shows from any criticism or sharp appeal against it or its army, it proves that Israel is not a state that has an army, but an army that owns only a state, thus stripping its people of the status of "civilian" from where they do not know, this is first.
Israel also falls into the trap of quibbling, as the frequent repetition of accusations of "anti-Semitism" made Western peoples begin to overcome their old pathological fear of this accusation, out of boredom with it.
The phrase "Death to the IDF" unexpectedly found strong voices in Western societies defending and belittling it, unlike Israeli propaganda, as did the British broadcaster James O'Brien and the British journalist Jeremy Finn, and others who directly and indirectly downplayed the importance of this appeal in contrast to the gravity and magnitude of the war crimes committed by the occupation army in the Gaza Strip.
This can also be seen in the spread of this call in many videos from different European capitals in which the appeal appears written on the walls, whether physically or with artificial intelligence, in reference to the weariness of Western peoples with the old methods that Israel has long used to intimidate and suppress its opponents in the Western world.
A quick review of the material published in the Israeli media or through Israeli media, political or research platforms shows us the extent of the panic that Israel is experiencing today because of the ongoing rug being pulled from under its feet among Western peoples, as Israel realizes that a strategic shift in the popular mood in the West is the key to changing policies towards various issues, through comprehensive changes through elections, which may eventually turn into results that Israel does not want to see.
Zahran Mamdani's victory, which Israeli propaganda accuses of anti-Semitism, in the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City is one stark example of what the coming months and years could come about.
Therefore, the Israeli confusion in dealing with this issue should be the key for defenders of the Palestinian cause, especially from the Arab and Muslim communities in Western countries, to reach new segments that did not know in advance what was happening in the Palestinian territories or even where it was located, which is the duty of time.