When you see the "diligence" of an Israeli with the audacity to appear in Western media and try to justify their government's actions, watching them spectacularly fail to defend their position or respond to their interlocutor, you notice that it does nothing to soften the cutting criticism of Israel on every media outlet, even those that were once bastions of Zionism. It is at this moment that you release: the massive reservoir of global sympathy that Israel accumulated over the years has run dry.
For eighty years, Western Jews, both European and American, could draw from a global reserve of sympathy that shielded them and legitimized virtually any retaliation in the name of self-defense. Since the end of World War II, they have made use of the sympathy for the Jewish people as victims of persecution and the genocidal campaigns across Europe, particularly the Holocaust, in which the German Nazis murdered six million Jews.
This sympathy was not spontaneous or fueled by individual efforts. It was methodically and intelligently built. Behind this effort stood some of the brightest and wealthiest minds in the United States and Europe. To be fair, their suffering cannot, and should not, be trivialized, speaking here purely humanitarian terms. Global Zionism, however, was organized and systematic. It became a model studied by other minorities: a perfect case of successful strategic advocacy. With skill and professionalism, it leveraged Jewish suffering and rendered it a protective umbrella that shielded the State of Israel since its founding.
That reserve was enough to justify, excuse, and cover for everything Israel has done since 1948. Indeed, it continues to stockpile emotional capital, exploiting every possible opportunity, including the Arab world's own professional failings, which prevent it from breaking down the media barrier and exposing Zionism’s opportunism and cynical manipulation of Jewish suffering.
Zionist organizations mobilized immense resources, turning that reserve into a surplus that empowered them to threaten anyone who dared question them or sympathize with the Palestinians.
Here is the twist: this reserve has been drained with remarkable speed. No one could have predicted that the accumulated achievement of eighty years would be depleted in just two. However, that is exactly what happened- after Netanyahu began what the world initially saw as a legitimate response to the attack of October 7, after social media broke through the fortresses, barriers, and walls that Zionism had built over eighty years to obscure the massacres Israel was committing.
Today, Netanyahu and the Israeli right have stripped all Israelis- be they civilians, journalists, or soldiers- of their moral and financial cover. The reserve of sympathy has run out, and it cannot shield them from this unprecedented global wave of anger. Even the once-frightening accusation of antisemitism has lost its force and gone bankrupt.
The scenes shared on social media, live raw footage from inside Gaza, expose Israel’s horrifying brutality: starvation, indiscriminate killing, and devastation that has overshadowed even the Holocaust, long the most powerful symbol of Jewish suffering.
Today, anyone who tries to defend Israel hears the same stark response:
“Your moral credit is no longer enough to justify your crimes.”
