It is taken for granted that both people and societies have retained the ability to protect themselves. But if you look at the reaction after the liberation of the hostages in Nuseirat, you are tempted to conclude the opposite: We no longer value our own lives. We are for the others, even when they hold hostages among civilians for eight months. Their lives outweigh ours.

That is the underlying message in the condemnation of Israel. When we don’t give them the right to save their own, we’re really talking about ourselves. It’s an eerie insight from the Wall Street Journal’s editorial writer:

Hamas started the war with a massacre, taking hostages and hiding them in a civilian area with many people. When Israel came to free them, Hamas responded with heavy fire, including rockets – yet people still condemn Israel. It makes us wonder if the West has lost the moral judgment and self-preservation necessary to defend itself in a world of killers. Hamas could not have survived without its supporters around the world.

The Norwegian government, the media and the humanitarian complex take the side of the killers and criticize Israel for a disproportionate difference in the number of victims on the side of Palestinians and Israelis.

We have to ask: Is Norway a society that could fight a war against an enemy like Nazi Germany – and win? The answer is negative. Our consensus elite does not question Hamas, but buys into the demand that their lives should weigh as much as those of the Israelis, even when they brutally murder 1,200 Israelis and kidnap 240. They use hostages as bargaining chips and involve their own civilians. Then they cannot invoke the right to protection.

It is the sounding board of this self-abandonment that resonates strongly in the condemnation of Israel’s existential war. When we condemn Israel, we are in fact denying ourselves the right to defend ourselves.

How dare Israel save its own citizens? Did they not know there would be casualties? The BBC asked if Israel warned that the rescue operation would come. Do you think so? A tip for terrorists? Maybe read up on your human rights too?
At every turn of events, the media and the government and the human rights regime have said to Israel: How dare you defend yourselves!

Israel is distancing itself from us. They are watching us from a distance and know that we are about to get ourselves into a terrible mess here in Western Europe.

Precisely because Israel has had to defend itself since the 1930s, they know what it’s all about. They are in no doubt that it is their lives that are at stake.

The ultimate luxury

Europe has given itself the luxury of being able to afford to give freedom away. They have invited millions of strangers into their house, and the degree of condemnation of Israel is commensurate with the degree of self-abandonment.

This means that Israelis know something about Europeans that we no longer understand ourselves. That’s why Israeli ambassador Israel Katz was able to say to Pedro Sánchez after his government had recognized Palestine: Perhaps you long to return to Al-Andalus?

When cultures give up on themselves and stop fighting – lose the drive for self-preservation – things go downhill fast. Fighting for others can camouflage the fact that you are actually committing suicide.

Because we reject self-defense, we also lose our sense of heroism.

Arnon Zamora was one of the leaders who spearheaded the liberation of the hostages on Saturday.

The IDF mourns the loss of the head of the Israel Police’s National Counter-Terrorism Unit (Yamam), Chief Inspector Arnon Zamora.

Arnon is an Israeli hero who loved and protected his country. He led the force that rescued the four hostages from the central Gaza Strip and brought them back to Israel.
The IDF honors his memory.

The IDF expresses its deepest condolences to Arnon’s family during this difficult time. May his memory be a blessing.

We have forgotten this ability to live as heroes. We do not see what it is all about. Once we sang: “Die if you must.”

But we have forgotten that there is something worth dying for. We think it’s always the others. The Palestinians. Or Ukraine. Never ourselves.