Rebuttal to Rob de Mezieres’ misguided attack on Joe Biden: The ‘Israel narrative’

Rob de Mezieres’ article, Goodbye, Genocide Joe, is a masterclass in distortion, but perhaps its most egregious misstep is the predictable, tired inclusion of Israel. As if no critique of an American president would be complete without shoehorning in the usual litany of accusations: apartheid, genocide and whatever other buzzwords can be weaponised to fit the agenda.

It’s as if an obligatory paragraph on Israel is required to validate any criticism of Western foreign policy, no matter how unrelated it may be.

Convenient and Exhausted Talking Points on Israel

Ah yes, who could forget? The media and its willing amplifiers must insert Israel into the narrative, no matter how irrelevant. De Mezieres predictably obliges, deploying the well-worn script that paints Israel as the ultimate villain while whitewashing the very real and heinous crimes of Hamas. It’s a carefully constructed charade, built on selective outrage, deliberate ignorance, and the relentless repetition of misinformation.

The absurdity of this forced inclusion becomes more apparent when we analyse the structure of the anti-Israel rhetoric itself. It is always the same: Israel is accused of crimes so heinous that no context is necessary, no counterargument is entertained, and no complexity is allowed.

Instead, a deliberately one-sided picture is painted, one that ignores both historical facts and present realities. Apartheid, genocide, ethnic cleansing, these terms are thrown around with reckless abandon, stripped of meaning, and devoid of accuracy.

What De Mezieres Refuses to Acknowledge about Israel

De Mezieres conveniently leaves out the fact that Israel, unlike its neighbours, is a democracy with a thriving Arab minority that enjoys equal rights under the law. The charge of apartheid crumbles upon even the most basic scrutiny, yet it is wielded because it serves as a rhetorical sledgehammer rather than a factual critique.

The sheer laziness of this argument is baffling when one considers that Arab Israelis serve in parliament, on the Supreme Court, and in high-ranking positions within Israeli society. That is not apartheid, it is coexistence, something that does not exist in most of the countries that surround Israel.

Oh, you want to talk about Gaza and the West Bank controlled by the Palestinian Authority? Well, news flash: they are not part of Israel. Obviously, you’re not walking into Tel Aviv with a Palestinian passport without the necessary checks and balances.

Before the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian workers crossed freely into Israel for employment. They were granted work permits, integrated into various industries, and coexisted peacefully with their Israeli employers. Then, on October 7, some of those very same workers turned against the people who had given them jobs, slaughtering entire families in cold blood. This is the reality that Israel faces, not the convenient, one-dimensional narrative peddled by those who ignore the complexities of the situation.

As for the accusation of genocide, one of the most abused terms in modern discourse, it is nothing short of an insult to actual genocides throughout history. The reality is that Israel is engaged in a defensive war against Hamas, a terrorist organisation that has embedded itself within the civilian population, using schools, hospitals, and mosques as shields while it launches attacks on Israeli civilians.

The intentional erasure of Hamas’ war crimes from this discussion is not an accident; it is a strategic omission meant to reinforce a one-sided victim narrative. If Israel truly sought genocide, why has the Palestinian population increased exponentially over the last few decades? The numbers alone expose the intellectual dishonesty of the claim.

Selective Outrage and the West’s Double Standards

There is a broader phenomenon at play here: the West’s obsessive focus on Israel, while turning a blind eye to actual human rights catastrophes. Where is the moral outrage over Syria, where Bashar al-Assad’s regime has slaughtered hundreds of thousands of civilians? Where is the global uproar over China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims? The answer is clear, those conflicts do not serve the ideological objectives of the anti-Israel industry.

This selective outrage is no accident. It is deliberate. When anti-Israel activists attack Israel, their purpose is not to improve conditions for Palestinians. If it were, they would be equally enraged by Hamas’ repression of its own people. They would call out the Palestinian Authority for imprisoning and torturing dissenters. They would demand accountability from the very leaders who perpetuate conflict rather than seeking peace. But they don’t. Because the goal is not peace, it is the delegitimization of Israel.

Holocaust Inversion: A Pathetic and Vile Manipulation

De Mezieres writes, “FUNDING HOLOCAUSTS, INSTEAD OF HEALTHCARE. Since Israel’s holocaust in Gaza began….” Oh really? Holocaust inversion? How pathetically vile. This is yet another example of the perverse and intellectually dishonest practice of weaponising Holocaust rhetoric to demonise Israel. Comparing a contemporary military conflict, one where a democratic nation is defending itself against terrorist aggression, to the industrialised genocide of six million Jews is not only absurd but also deeply offensive.

Moreover, such comparisons often serve as a veiled attempt to delegitimise Israel’s right to self-defence. Critics frequently employ hyperbolic analogies, likening Gaza to Auschwitz or other sites of historical atrocities, thereby distorting history and undermining the unique horrors of events like the Holocaust.

This grotesque inversion of history is not only inaccurate but strategically deployed to erase the suffering of Jews while falsely portraying Israel as a genocidal state. It is a convenient rhetorical trick used by those who wish to justify their own anti-Israel bias while avoiding accusations of blatant antisemitism.

The manipulation of Holocaust memory for cheap political points should be called out for what it is, an insult to the victims of real genocides and a disgraceful distortion of history. Need I remind you that holocaust inversion is a disgusting form of internationally recognised antisemitism.

The Historical Revisionism of Anti-Israel Activism

It is no coincidence that the anti-Israel narrative relies so heavily on distorting history. The simple fact is that Israel was founded with international legitimacy in 1948, following the horrors of the Holocaust, and has since endured multiple existential wars launched by its neighbours.

The so-called “occupation” narrative deliberately omits that Israel has repeatedly offered peace deals, only to be rejected time and time again by Palestinian leadership who see compromise as surrender.

Even today, calls for a “Free Palestine” are not about achieving peace but about erasing Israel from the map entirely. It is an ideological commitment to Israel’s destruction disguised as a human rights cause. The evidence is clear: when Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, it left behind infrastructure that could have been used to build a thriving society. Instead, Hamas took control, waged war and plunged the people of Gaza into further misery. Yet somehow, Israel remains the only entity held responsible.

Zionism: The Convenient Scapegoat

One of the most common tactics used by anti-Israel activists is to turn Zionism into a dirty word. The mere identification as a Zionist is now treated as something shameful, as if believing in the Jewish right to self-determination is some sort of crime. Yet, at its core, Zionism is simply the belief that the Jewish people, like any other people, have the right to a homeland.

The demonisation of Zionism has become a convenient scapegoat, precisely because openly blaming Jews for global issues would lead to backlash. Instead, detractors blame “Zionists,” as if that somehow sanitises the same old antisemitic rhetoric that has existed for centuries. When politicians, media outlets, and activists scream about “Zionist oppression”, what they are often doing is finding an acceptable way to peddle hostility toward Jews under the guise of human rights advocacy.

In reality, Zionism is no different than any other self-determination movement, except that it is uniquely vilified. No one condemns the existence of France as a state for the French, or Japan as a state for the Japanese. Yet, the Jewish people seeking security in their ancestral homeland is somehow an affront to morality. Kurds for Kurdistan is widely accepted, Scots for Scotland is a celebrated idea, yet somehow, Jews for Israel is treated as an aberration. The double standard is glaring, and it reveals more about the biases of the accusers than the legitimacy of the movement itself.

The Bottom Line

Joe Biden’s presidency can and should be debated on its merits, but the desperate need to insert Israel into every critique of Western leadership betrays the true motivations at play. De Mezieres’ fixation on Israel follows the same tired playbook: distort history, ignore context, and demonize a nation that has every right to defend itself. The PFLP-inspired propaganda may still have traction in certain circles, but it is losing ground among those willing to engage with the truth.

Not to mention, you were writing a letter to a man who wouldn’t read it, and let’s be honest, the hamster wheel was spinning, but the hamster wasn’t there. Joe Biden clearly had cognitive decline; he should have been at home playing with his grandchildren, not making decisions on the world stage.

The notion that he had been at the helm of US foreign policy was laughable, as it was increasingly obvious that his administration was operating without meaningful leadership. To frame Biden as some sort of mastermind behind global events was to ignore the reality that his cognitive faculties had been failing before our eyes.

So let’s call this what it is: an opportunistic attempt to inject a narrative that has nothing to do with Biden’s presidency and everything to do with advancing an anti-Israel agenda. It’s time to retire the script. The cycle of misinformation, double standards, and weaponised outrage is crumbling under the weight of its own contradictions. Perhaps it is time for those who cling to these falsehoods to reckon with the fact that reality refuses to conform to their ideological narratives.

The world is watching and the game is up. Time to talk about how Donald Trump is watching South Africa, and he sees what’s been happening. I fear it’s not going to be good for any of us.

Should critique of Joe Biden’s tenure be divorced from Israel?

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