WHY YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT THE PROPAGANDA WAR AGAINST ISRAEL, EVEN IF YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT ISRAEL: Some of the people who don’t want Israel to be able to defend itself are antisemites, or Islamists, or Palestinian nationalists (not that these are mutually exclusive categories). But there is also a cohort of leftists who don’t want any Western-oriented country to be able to defend itself militarily. To them, Israel is small and vulnerable and therefore is an alluring target for a propaganda campaign. The activists can make absurdly tendentious “international law” arguments (that have no real basis in international law) why Israel may not fight back against terrorism. Just for example, I’ve yet to find a single person who claims that Israel’s military response to Hamas violates the international law principle of proportionality who is willing to acknowledge that any level of force would be proportionate. Such arguments are taken seriously only because Israel is small and unpopular; the United States can brush off similar arguments with ease. But once the leftists get the precedents established against Israel, that it violates international law to fight terrorism basically if any civilians get harmed in the process, they will use those precedents against the U.S. and other countries. Israel is the canary in the coal mine here.