“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.
What really occurred was a pitched battle in Jenin, a city riddled with booby traps and a base for terror. In the preceding 18 months, over 60 Palestinian bombings and suicide attacks had killed more than 90 Israelis and injured hundreds more. At least 30 of the bombers came from Jenin. During the fighting, 23 Israeli soldiers and 52 Palestinians were killed, the vast majority of the Palestinians were terrorists. There was no massacre, but the pattern was set: a rush to accept even the most horrific lies about Israel, instant historical revisionism, and blame-shifting.
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.
Despite this constant threat, Israel spent nearly two decades trying to avoid reoccupying Gaza. Yet whatever steps it took to defend itself, even preventive and non-violent, were labelled crimes. A naval blockade and strict border controls aimed at stopping weapons shipments were falsely portrayed as illegal and blamed for humanitarian catastrophes that never materialised. International law was reinterpreted uniquely for Israel, including the claim it still occupied Gaza, despite the fact that occupation, by definition, requires boots on the ground.
Each time Hamas and other jihadist factions initiated major conflicts, the West reliably condemned Israel’s response as “disproportionate,” an accusation typically based on civilian casualty figures provided by Hamas and accepted without question. Israel’s efforts to minimise civilian harm in wars it did not start were downplayed or ignored, while Hamas’s use of human shields – and human sacrifices – was omitted. In other words, what we are witnessing today is not new, only more extreme in scale and intensity.
There are, of course, serious questions one can raise about Israel’s conduct: rhetorical excesses after October 7, poor public diplomacy, the role of far-right ministers in the Natanyahu government, and controversial decisions, such as temporarily blocking aid deliveries to weaken Hamas’s grip on Gaza. These are legitimate matters for debate, as is the suffering of Palestinian civilians, regardless of Hamas’s responsibility for it. Calls for a ceasefire are understandable.
But do these factors explain why Israel is losing Europe’s support? For those familiar with the long history of media (mis)coverage, NGO hostility, UN bias, lawfare, and the radicalisation of parts of the far left and growing Muslim electorates, the answer is no. 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.
In this way, the West’s reaction doesn’t just misread the conflict – it helps perpetuate it.
