Western support for Israel’s high-tech genocide, justified in the name of the Holocaust, exposes the blatant hypocrisy of so-called ‘liberal values.’ The stakes of the current conflict extend beyond Palestinian liberation, challenging the deeply ingrained colonial mindset of the West at the heart of both global and domestic systems of oppression.
For over a year now, Israel’s relentless bombardment and military operations in Gaza have been supported not only by diplomatic backing but also by military assistance and distorted media narratives all over the “collective West.” Often, this unconditional support is explained through two conventional arguments: a historical guilt tied to the Holocaust, depicting Israel as a perpetual victim of “Islamic terrorism” and/or antisemitism, and shared values between the West and Israel. However, these explanations fall short of explaining the depth and persistence of Western complicity. A third and more convincing hypothesis suggests that Israel is fulfilling the same colonial and racist impulses that Western powers were forced to restrain after decolonization.
The Holocaust Guilt Argument: A Flawed Explanation
The idea that the West supports Israel because of guilt from the Holocaust is often cited as a driving factor. While it is true that Western nations, particularly the United States, were initially sympathetic to the establishment of a Jewish state in the wake of World War II, this narrative of guilt does not explain the breadth of support Israel continues to receive today.
Before 1967, U.S. support for Israel was more restrained and pragmatic, reflecting broader Cold War interests in the Middle East. While the U.S. recognized Israel immediately in 1948, its aid and support remained relatively limited, balancing its ties with Arab nations. The U.S. did not view Israel as a strategic ally before the Six-Day War. During the 1950s and early 1960s, the U.S. was cautious about deep involvement in the Arab-Israeli conflict and sought to maintain relationships with oil-rich Arab nations that were key in its geopolitical strategy against the Soviet Union.
During the Suez Crisis of 1956, the U.S. reined in Israel and its British and French allies, forcing them to retreat disgracefully after their invasion of Egypt, which had been prompted by Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal. This incident underscores how, prior to 1967, the U.S. was not yet committed to unconditional support for Israel and even aligned itself with international condemnation of its actions. However, after the Six-Day War, this dynamic shifted, as Israel’s military prowess made it an invaluable Cold War asset, leading to a much deeper alliance between the U.S. and Israel. The U.S. began providing significant military and economic aid to Israel, transforming the relationship into the close strategic partnership it is today.
The Holocaust narrative also gained renewed prominence post-1967, shaping U.S. and Western perceptions of Israel. Before this period, the memory of the Holocaust, while acknowledged, was not as central in American public discourse or foreign policy. The Eichmann trial in the early 1960s played a role in bringing Holocaust memory to the forefront, but it was after 1967 that the Holocaust narrative became deeply intertwined with Israel’s legitimacy in Western discourse. The Holocaust was increasingly invoked to justify the need for a strong, secure Jewish state, whitewashing or deflecting criticism of its policies toward Palestinians and other Arab nations.
In The Holocaust Industry, Norman Finkelstein explains how the memory of the Holocaust has been instrumentalized to shield Israel from criticism. He argues that before 1967, American Jewish elites used the Holocaust primarily to denounce anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union, drawing parallels with Nazism. Skeptical of the Jewish state, they feared that its creation would reinforce accusations of dual loyalty, especially in the context of the Cold War. However, the 1967 war changed all that: Israel’s military display impressed the United States, which made it a strategic pillar in the Middle East. For American Jewish elites, this alignment enabled a smoother assimilation into the United States: Israel was now perceived as a defender of American interests. The Holocaust took on a central place in American Jewish memory, serving to reinforce Israel’s legitimacy as an outpost against common enemies. American Jewish intellectuals, hitherto largely indifferent to Israel’s fate, increasingly rallied behind the Hebrew state, which they presented as a bastion of Western civilization. After 1973, this memory was consolidated as a tool of mobilization and influence, aimed at justifying support for Israel, whatever the circumstances. This allowed Israel to present itself as a permanent victim, despite its growing military and geopolitical dominance, thereby deflecting scrutiny of its actions, especially concerning the occupation of Palestinian territories.
Western intervention in the Middle East has historically been driven by control, exploitation, and domination, not altruistic motives. As Frantz Fanon argued in The Wretched of the Earth,
The colonizer, who is himself the product of a history of violence, has, in the final analysis, only one way of dealing with the violence that is directed against him: he must point out that the violence comes from the victim. He must show that he is the one who is oppressed.
Colonizers often invoke past suffering to justify current oppression, manipulating historical victimhood to evade responsibility for their own violence. In this case, Israel has weaponized its historical trauma to deflect criticism of its actions, transforming the Holocaust into a shield to justify its violence against Palestinians. This perverse exploitation is bolstered by Western nations, who eagerly participate in the narrative, masking their own complicity in the ongoing colonial project. The irony and outrage of this defense of current agressions, massacres and ethnic cleasing in the name of a past genocide become clear when we reflect on the words of Aimé Césaire, who saw in Europe’s colonial crimes the roots of modern barbarism.
Césaire famously argued in his Discourse on Colonialism that Europe’s greatest crime was not the rise of fascism per se, but the fact that “what [Hitler] inflicted on Europe, Europe had previously inflicted on the colonies.” He highlights the deep hypocrisy of the West, which only recoiled in horror at Nazism when it became a victim of its own tools of oppression, which had long been honed through colonization in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. As Césaire states,
What the very distinguished, very humanistic, very Christian bourgeois of the twentieth century cannot forgive Hitler for is not crime in itself, the crime against man, it is not the humiliation of man as such, it is the crime against the white man, the humiliation of the white man, and the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa.
By participating in Israel’s genocidal project, the West is not atoning for the Holocaust; rather, it is perpetuating the same logic of exclusion and dehumanization that enabled colonialism and Nazism. This is why Israel’s invocation of the Jewish people’s tragedy rings hollow in the context of its ongoing violence — because what was once condemned when perpetrated in Europe is now justified in Palestine. This selective application of moral outrage underscores the reality that the West’s real concern is not with human rights or justice, but with protecting colonial interests and racial hierarchies.
Ultimately, the West’s relationship to Israel is less about historical guilt than about using Israel as an instrument to perpetuate a colonial and imperialistic project in the Middle East. The same crimes the West claims to condemn in its past are the ones it now supports in the present, showing that its commitment to “never again” has never truly extended beyond Europe’s borders — that paradoxically include the Jewish population of Israel, a pure product of “Western civilization”.
The Myth of “Shared Values”
Another common justification for the West’s support of Israel is the claim that it upholds Western humanist and democratic values, making it a natural ally in a region often depicted as autocratic and hostile to Western ideals of progress. This argument is frequently strengthened by referencing the so-called “Judeo-Christian roots” of Western identity, which frame Israel as part of a shared cultural heritage. These supposed roots are presented as the moral foundation of the West, positioning Israel as a guardian of civilization against a perceived Middle Eastern “otherness” — particularly Islam, seen as irreconcilable with these values.
As Edward Said famously observed, “Every empire tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.” Israel, with steadfast Western support, replicates this narrative. But the true aim is not liberation — it’s about maintaining power through violence and subjugation. The West has long framed the Arab world as the civilizational “other” to justify intervention and alliances that are first and foremost about domination. The West’s support for Israel is less about common democratic principles and more about maintaining colonial power structures through an “us versus them” dynamic.
Israel is often hailed as the only democracy in the Middle East, a civilizational outpost in a supposedly barbaric and chaotic region, yet its treatment of Palestinians — both within its borders and in the occupied territories — completely contradicts the democratic values it claims to uphold, exposing it as a full-fledged apartheid regime. Said’s critique of Orientalism shows how such perceptions have historically allowed Western powers to rationalize their support for oppressive regimes under the guise of protecting civilization.
In practice, Western nations turn a blind eye to Israel’s violations of principles and norms when it comes to the treatment of Palestinians. Discriminatory policies, ethnic cleansing, and gross abuses of human rights are overlooked by Western governments that would vehemently condemn such actions elsewhere. After October 7, the hypocrisy of “Western values” has been unmasked and discredited for ever by the torrents of crocodile tears shed for 40 Israeli babies decapitated only in the putrid imagination of propagandists, while indifference prevails towards the thousands of Palestinian babies and children torn apart, with images and videos circulated daily on social media. Human rights have been exposed as nothing but a rhetorical tool used to justify political agendas rather than a genuine commitment to humanist ideals. The West prides itself on defending even animal rights, yet it seems that “human animals” — Palestinians and all so-called “inferior races” — are, in its eyes, granted only the right to die in silence, the
sole “blessing” of Western civilization.
A Colonial, Racist, and Islamophobic Project Fulfilled
The most compelling explanation for Western support lies in the fact that Israel’s actions resonate with colonial, racist, and Islamophobic ideologies that Western powers still harbor, despite the postcolonial era. Israel’s ongoing expansion of settlements, displacement of Palestinians, brutal military occupation and regular massacres reflect the same colonial practices that enabled Western powers to conquer America between the 16th and 19th centuries, but were forcibly abandoned in Africa and Asia due to the decolonization movements of the mid-20th century.
As Fanon highlighted in Black Skin, White Masks, colonialism inherently dehumanizes, dividing the world into compartments “inhabited by different species.” This process is central to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, who are reduced to a status below that of full human beings. Palestinians are portrayed as terrorists or existential threats, a narrative used to justify Israel’s ongoing occupation, military assaults, and outright extermination. The West’s complicity in this dehumanization is rooted in its own colonial legacy, where indigenous peoples were displaced, exploited, and erased from existence in the name of progress and civilization.
Furthermore, Islamophobia plays a crucial role in maintaining this alliance. The demonization of Muslims and Arabs as inherently backward, violent and irrational has become a central tenet of Western foreign policy, particularly after the events of 9/11. Israel capitalizes on this Islamophobic discourse, portraying itself as a bulwark against “Islamic extremism” in the region. Western nations, particularly the U.S., use this narrative to justify their support for Israel, despite its blatant disregard for international law and human rights. The Netanyahu government exemplifies the very fanaticism and bloodlust attributed to Arabs and Muslims, as seen in its leaders’ messianic rhetoric, violent calls for the annihilation of Palestinians and genocidal actions.
In this sense, Israel is not simply a rogue state acting independently; it is fulfilling the very impulses that Western powers were forced to moderate after the end of formal colonialism. The support for Israel’s policies towards Gaza, the broader Palestinian question and neighbouring Arab countries is not an aberration but rather a continuation of colonial violence by other means. As Fanon argued, colonialism is not just a physical occupation but a psychological and ideological project that persists long after the formal end of empire.
Israel as a Proxy for Western Oppression
The West’s unwavering support for Israel, despite its clear violations of fundamental universal norms, cannot be fully attributed to Holocaust guilt or a purported alignment of values. Instead, Israel serves as an outlet for Western powers to express their suppressed colonial instincts, racism, and Islamophobia. The settler-colonial project in Palestine mirrors the violence that Western powers once inflicted upon colonized peoples across the globe. Just as European empires sought to “civilize” non-Western populations through domination, Israel perpetuates this colonial legacy by asserting control over Palestinians. Having been forced to abandon their formal colonial empires, Western nations now view Israel as a proxy to continue their project of domination by alternative methods.
This support for Israel isn’t only about geopolitics or strategic alliances and interests. It’s about preserving the colonial order in a world increasingly calling for justice and liberation. Former colonial powers in the West are not just contending with this externally, in global power struggles between unipolar and multipolar systems, but also internally from marginalized groups, often coming from their former colonies. These groups challenge the legacies of racism, oppression, and inequality that were established during the colonial era. In this context, support for Israel helps suppress these growing movements by reinforcing the belief that colonial power structures — whether global or domestic — must remain intact.
If Israel were to be defeated, it would pave the way for a second wave of decolonization — this time, a decolonization of minds. Just as the early victories of Hitler during World War II demonstrated that European colonial powers could fall, emboldening indigenous populations to rise against their masters, Israel’s defeat would similarly expose the fragility of the global neocolonial order. This would inspire more developing countries to break free from US hegemony and oppressed groups within Western nations to push harder against segregation in their societies, exposing the hypocrisy and injustices of policies rooted in oppression. This notably explains why Western media, acting as guardians of the social order, eagerly parrots Israeli military rhetoric, praising its supposed successes, even when they amount to mass terrorism, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
Israel must remain “invincible,” not just for geostrategic reasons but as a psychological fortress. Its dominance reassures Western powers that the colonial mindset endures, allowing them to justify oppression at home and abroad, paying tribute to “worthy” victims and preserving “the lives that count,” all under the guise of hollow “values.” The struggle in Gaza is not solely for Palestinian freedom — it’s a stand for the freedom and dignity of all humankind.
The post Western Support for Israel: A Colonial Legacy first appeared on Dissident Voice.
This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Alain Marshal.
Alain Marshal | Radio Free (2024-10-28T15:15:39+00:00) Western Support for Israel: A Colonial Legacy. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2024/10/28/western-support-for-israel-a-colonial-legacy/
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