When Ronan Hale stepped up to take Ross County’s penalty against Celtic at the weekend, the opposition supporters, massed behind the goal, were doing there best to distract him. The tactic worked; Schmeichel, saved the penalty. The third official, however, spotted that the goalkeeper had moved well over his line, so the penalty was retaken and this time Ronan scored. There was nothing remarkable about the away crowds’ antics behind the goal. Unlike other sports, in tennis or snooker, where the spectators are urged to be silent at critical points, shouting chanting and waving flags, to influence the play at football matches goes with the territory. There is nothing extraordinary about that. What was extraordinary and incomprehensible was the giant flag being waved constantly behind the goal. It was not a flag with the Celtic colours, or their crest, nor was it the Irish tricolour which relates to the clubs’ historic roots or was in any way connected with football at all. It was flag of Palestine in support of a war several thousand miles away.
It would be hard to explain to a visitor from Mars what was going on here. If it was possible to interview the individual hoisting the flag or their compatriots and ask what it was about, I guess they might be at a loss to know what to say. Like the protestors chanting “From the river to the sea…” who weren’t sure which river or which sea, they might not know what it was actually about. Did they know that they were taking sides in a war where innocents were being killed, homes destroyed, women and children massacred, bodies mutilated, babies sacrificed and it was happening in real time? Did they know that this was the eve of the event that triggered the war? Did they possibly understand or have empathy for those who would see this display as the worst sort of outrage? Did they know that they were effectively supporting terrorism and barbarism? Did they actually know the difference between football and war?
Our Martian friend wouldn’t be able to get what the flag meant, but we do. We see it on our Streets every Saturday. We know, in the current state of affairs it doesn’t simply embody the hope and pride of a nation or people, it carries a much more specific narrative, it stands for the oppressed people of Palestine in their battle against their Zionist oppressors, the fascist Israeli state, which practices apartheid and genocide, wilfully destroying schools, hospitals, places of worship and the deliberate targeting of civilians. It looks to the final triumph over the Jews articulated by Iran’s spiritual leader when he said “Israel won’t last long” then from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea Palestine will be free. In today’s context that is what the flag says. But I wonder if the flag waver knew that.
That’s the worrying thing. Do people actually know what is going on before they nail their colours to the mast or it is little more than a display of virtue or a fashion statement? Or does it represent something deeper and viler, a visceral hatred of the Jews. To the visitor from Mars this would be even harder to explain. Why are the Jews of all peoples so consistently hated throughout the centuries? There is no convincing logical reason for this odium. The faults that can be laid at the state of Israel are common to all nations and often to a far greater extent. How many civilians were killed in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? What about Libya, what about Russia and China and Syria and Sudan? Why are the jews so hated? Could it be envy of their success? That such a small nation could outstrip its neighbours in just about every achievement and in such a short time. Or could it be that they have a story as victims that surpasses any other and there is envy of victimhood? “Why do they always claim the high spot on this chart with their holocaust?” It could be both of these as well as the other issues over land, but I suspect there is something much deeper that is going on. There is a supernatural element and here the Bible throws its light on the case. It is not in our gift to know how things will work out in human history, but it seems clear that the Jews remain a people special to God and it should not surprise us that the epicentre of the world’s conflicts should settle on the Jews and the tiny land of Israel.
I wonder if the flag-waver really knew what he was doing.
Restless Spirit 
I’m hoping a book I’m just about to order may go some way in answering why Jews are hated so much. Dan Stone’s The Holocaust – An Unfinished History.
It was recommended by Sam Harris, whose podcasts below I highly recommend.
– The Bright Line Between Good and Evil
– Campus Protests, Antisemitism, and Western Values
Are you blind to the atrocities the Jewish nation is committing against Muslim and Christian populations, including children, in Palestine?
How do you explain that your charitable Christian heart does not ache at their deaths? Are you so blinded by your unconditional support to the jews that you try to water it in the crimes of other nations?
Do you not think that they have enough advocates despite the genocide they are performing?
Shame on you.
Before I can answer your question I would need to know: where I have expressed an unconditional support for Israel, what specific atrocities I am blind to, how you know that my heart does not ache at the deaths and how you define the word “Genocide”
In the absence of your response, let me try and answer the accusation which I think you are trying to make and what you believe I should be ashamed of.
I am not, and I think it is would be extremely difficult for anyone to be, blind to the horrors that have been visited upon the people in Gaza and in the West Bank. We see it almost everyday, in graphic detail and I am certainly not insensitive or uncaring. I,like most people, with any degree of humanity, am deeply disturbed and distressed by the images. I also find it highly offensive that you, without knowing me, have pre-judged me in this way.
This is a war and wars are unspeakably horrible. I don’t need to have been directly involved in one to know that. I would also hesitate from taking sides, because inevitably evils are committed by both parties, but sometimes you have to make a judgement. Is this is a just war or not? I am convinced that it is. I do respect, but don’t share, the pacifist view that all wars are unjust but I think it is the first priority and responsibility of any government to do what it can to protect its own people from those who want to destroy them. Sometimes that means taking the agonising and costly decision to launch a direct attack on the enemy.
You will possibly not agree with me on this, but I believe that the Israeli government is completely justified in executing a war against their enemies, Hamas and Hezbollah. Not to do so would be a flagrant failure in their first responsibility to their own people. Their enemies operate under a different moral framework. They value the death of Jews above the lives of their own people. They are happy and seem perfectly willing to sacrifice their own, their women and children and old men on the altar of their cause – the annihilation of Jews. You may not see that for what it is, heinous, despicable and irredeemably evil, but I do. How can anyone not utterly despise a regime who deliberately puts their weakest in harm’s way, who protects their fighters in caves in the ground while leaving their women and children exposed, who deliberately locate military command centres and ammunition dumps under schools, churches mosques and hospitals who even, if the reports are true, bomb their own people escaping from the conflict stores? They are the ones who are answerable for the nightmare of Gaza.
I also wonder if you realise what the word “Genocide” actually means. In the term coined by Raphael Lemkin for the genocide convention it defines the intention to deliberately destroy a people. Blaming Israel for the deaths of Palestinians is a complete inversion of reality.