If the sirens are in Tel Aviv rather than Paris, if the rockets are falling on Israel rather than Berlin, if Hezbollah is threatening Haifa rather than London, and if Iran is promising to destroy Jerusalem rather than Brussels, everything must be fine.

This is perhaps the West and Europe’s greatest delusions: mistaking geographical distance for strategic immunity.

Israel has lived for decades with the unpleasant experience of discovering that declarations, ideologies, terrorist organizations and missiles have a tendency to become rather more serious than Europeans initially imagine. Europe, meanwhile, has often responded to Israel’s security predicament as though it were an unfortunate disagreement that could be solved if only Israel would sit down, compromise, make a few concessions and perhaps stop being so alarmingly difficult.

The West sees Israel fighting Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis or Iran’s wider proxy network and often asks the same question: Why doesn’t Israel simply stop fighting? Perhaps, the European suggestion goes, if Israel would simply negotiate more enthusiastically, everyone could go home. The underlying assumption is that Israel’s security environment is somehow uniquely Israeli—that terrorism, radical Islamism, Iranian expansionism and ideological warfare are unfortunate features of the Middle East, but fundamentally somebody else’s problem.

Israel’s problem. Not Europe’s. Not America’s. Not ours.

Except that the people Israel is fighting have never actually said that.

The great Western misunderstanding is to assume that because Israel is the first battlefield, Israel is the entire battlefield.........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)