THE GOLIATH LIE

THIS IS NOT AN ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT. IT IS AN ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT. AND THE PALESTINIANS ARE STUCK IN THE MIDDLE.

Pretend activists LARPing social justice.

Once a narrative takes hold, it’s hard to dislodge. This may be especially true in the Middle East — the Holy Land — where narratives that took hold quite some time ago have some remarkable staying power.

But that is literally ancient history (or mythology, depending on your perspective). Focusing on slightly more recent history, the narrative about the current conflict is somewhat more malleable — but in a relatively short time has become stunningly entrenched.

If there is a single prevailing narrative in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is the antique legend of David and Goliath. But that concept, or the roles played by each of the players, inverted completely 57 years ago in a way that is almost unheard of in history and psychology.

From 1948 until 1967, Israel, the Jewish state, was seen as little David standing with a slingshot against the monolithic Goliath of the entire Arab world, which unanimously sought its annihilation.

Having survived an attempted annihilation by the combined militaries of the entire region in 1948-’49, the Israel-as-David motif seemed set in stone.

But, when Goliath attacked again in 1967 and, again, David miraculously slew the giant, the narrative inverted.

David can slay Goliath once, it seems. But slay him twice, and David becomes Goliath. (I know. It doesn’t really make sense. It’s a metaphor.)

What happened in 1967 was not so much that Israel proved that it could survive the onslaught of the combined militaries of all its neighboring countries, but more about the shift in how the world perceives the parties.

This was no coincidence. The strategy on the Arab side shifted beginning in 1964. That’s when the Palestine Liberation Organization was founded. Until that moment, the battle lines were clear. It was the small Jewish state lined up against the undivided Arab world that was explicitly and unanimously bent on erasing the Jewish presence in the region.

One only needs to remember that, when Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip and Jordan occupied the West Bank, from 1949 until 1967, Palestinian national self-determination was nowhere on the agenda. For all intents, it still isn’t — and that’s not because of Israel. It’s because of the Arab world.

After 1967, when Israel was attacked again by all its neighbors in another war of annihilation, Israel not only survived but expanded its territory. Israel gained control over the West Bank (which Jordan had occupied) and the Gaza Strip (which Egypt had occupied).

Recognizing the demographic, political, military and moral challenges of governing these places that were home to millions of Arabs, Israel instantaneously offered to return them to the countries that Israel defeated — in exchange for nothing but a commitment to live in peaceful coexistence. The answer, at the Khartoum Conference in August 1967, was Hell no.

This is why the Palestinian people are stateless today. Or, at least, it’s one reason. As the Israeli leader Abba Eban said, the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. But that was a big one. In offer after offer, the Palestinians (driven to total obstinacy by the larger Arab world in whose interest it is to perpetuate, rather than resolve, the “Palestinian problem”) they have refused to take yes for an answer.

What the world should have learned from that experience — but clearly didn’t — was that Palestinian national self-determination was not then, was not ever and is not now the priority.

The objective was, and is, the ending the very existence of the Jewish state. That has always been the heart of this conflict and all of the red herrings people throw up — settlements, refugees, the fate of Jerusalem, blah blah blah — are excuses to avoid confronting the intractable hard nut at the core of the conflict.

Compromise and coexistence are the only things that will result in a two-state solution and a “free Palestine.” But compromise and coexistence are not on the table. Because the overwhelming Arab consensus is that the Jewish people must be relieved of their national self-determination in the state of Israel. That has always been the case. (The Abraham Accords dented this monolith, but if you look at the global phenomenon of anti-Zionism, it was really only a nick.)

The fundamentals haven’t changed. The narrative did.

After 1967, the Arab world redirected its strategy from using traditional military efforts to eliminate Israel (because that wasn’t working) and instead invented and militarized one of the most powerful, immoral, coordinated terrorist strategies ever envisioned in the demented minds of human beings.

It worked like a charm.

The world came to see Israel not as the little David imperiled by the giant Goliath, but the giant Goliath imperiling the tiny Palestinian David.

This is wrong on so many fronts. It inverts victim and perpetrator — but not in the way you might think.