Mick Hartley

A JC leader – Israel’s isolation is not a new phenomenon – it follows an old pattern:

We are talking here of massacre, and a cover-up, of genocide,” wrote one Evening Standard columnist of Israel’s actions. The Guardian editorialised that the incident “already has that aura of infamy that attaches to a crime of especial notoriety”, while The Times’ war correspondent declared: “Rarely in more than a decade of war reporting from Bosnia, Chechnya, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, have I seen such deliberate destruction, such disrespect for human life.”

These words, though they could be mistaken for commentary on today’s war in Gaza, date back more than two decades. They were written in response to the “Jenin massacre” in 2002. At the time, much of the Western media – foremost the British – uncritically embraced what was, in fact, a Palestinian fabrication. Yet these journalists described in lurid detail atrocities that never occurred.

The claims of a massacre centred on the refugee camp just outside Jenin that was a launching point for dozens of Palestinian suicide bombers. After incendiary reports in the press – notably the Guardian – about hundreds killed in a brutal assault by the IDF, it was eventually admitted by the UN that no such massacre had ever taken place. Not that the Guardian ever issued a correction or an apology. See Adam Levick's article at Camera UK for details.

Back to the JC:

To understand Israel’s current isolation, one must return to the aftermath of the Oslo peace process. Just 15 months before Jenin, a Labour Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, had offered Yasser Arafat everything the West claimed would bring peace: a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, a capital in East Jerusalem, and sovereignty over Muslim parts of the Old City. Arafat rejected the offer and launched a campaign of terrorism that killed over 1,100 Israelis.

Despite this, it was Israel, not the Palestinian leadership, that was blamed for the violence. Suicide bombings were rationalised either as a response to Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount – as though such a visit could explain, let alone justify, mass terror – or as a desperate struggle for the very sovereignty Arafat had just refused to accept peacefully. Then, as now, Israel was accused of war crimes, massacres and genocide – irrespective of facts or causality.

Three years later, Israel made another concession, which earned it only more terror and condemnation. In 2005, it withdrew entirely from Gaza, removing all soldiers and civilians, alive and dead. With no partner for peace, Ariel Sharon’s government effectively handed Palestinians the opportunity to build the state they claimed to seek.

Instead, they elected Hamas. The jihadists threw Fatah officials from rooftops (those who survived fled to the West bank via Israel) and built a terror hub instead of a state. The result: suicide bombings, rocket fire, terror tunnels and eventually, October 7.

And here we are. Same old same old. It's always, and only, Israel's fault. The Palestinians have no agency, but merely respond to Israel's supposed brutality.

This war has simply amplified a pattern established decades ago. What we are witnessing is not a break from the past, but its culmination.

This reaction does more than isolate Israel and fuel anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment – it undermines peace itself. The message to Israelis is unambiguous: territorial withdrawal brings neither security nor legitimacy, but more terror and global censure. When even full evacuation leads to escalation and condemnation, the incentive to take further risks for peace disappears.

Conversely, for Hamas, the lesson is also clear: atrocities can shift diplomatic ground. The more brutal the provocation, the greater the pressure on Israel and the louder the calls for Palestinian recognition.

It helps, of course, that the press here, notably the BBC, put all Hamas news reports in the headlines – from the Al-Ahsi hospital bombing to the supposed IDF Gaza aid shootings. Corrections come later in small print, if at all.

In this way, the West’s reaction doesn’t just misread the conflict – it helps perpetuate it.