Since September 11, the depth of European support for America has become clear. Some alliances have proven shallow.

In the face of the looming war with Iraq, France, the self-appointed moral voice of the West, has castigated us for our unilateralism while Germany likened Bush to Hitler.

On the other hand, Britain’s support has certainly proven to be enduring. Still, the most enthusiastic ally of all is Israel, who responded to the terrorist attacks with a curt ‘let’s roll’ and has not strayed since.

Why?

Israel and the US are both confronted with the threat posed by radical Islam. Many of the same countries that funded Al Qaeda support Palestinian bombers, often by paying the families of the murderers $25,000.

Unfortunately, Israel’s unqualified support has not been reciprocated. We permit temporary abridgement of our own civil liberties in pursuit of terrorists, but we deny this to people who face this threat every time they step onto a bus?

What prevents us from standing alongside brave Israelis are misconceptions and myths that drive a wedge between the American populace and one of the US’s few enduring friends. Foremost among them is the myth of the ‘occupied territories.’ Prior to 1967, the West Bank was part of Jordan and the Gaza Strip part of Egypt.

Neither wants them back. How can people continue to call this territorial aggrandizement when the ‘victimized’ countries acquiesce and are in fact the only two in the Arab world who have normalized relations with Israel?

Second is the idea that Yassar Arafat, laughably a Nobel Laureate, is somehow a victim. The same man who chides supporters in Arabic to “Kill Jews, wherever you find them” portends victimhood in English to willing tools like MP George Galloway.

The true Palestinian victims are the people peaceloving who merely desire freedom and prosperity, goals denied them by a handful of murderers driven to kill by promises of salvation and a greedy monster who has accumulated millions by exploiting his hardships.

Remember, it was Arafat who walked away from a generous settlement at Camp David that offered a firm bedrock for lasting peace.

Israel’s necessary fight has been lambasted, of course, by that beacon of morality, the United Nations.

The organization that stands idle in the face of mass murder, ethnic cleansing and land seizures by dictators pulls no punches in condemning a liberal democracy that faces a daily struggle against terrorism and has responded with a justifiable use of force.

Equally vigorous in their condemnation is the American left. The lynchpin of this is ‘divestment,’ which calls for the end of support for Israel and ‘Zionist’ businesses.

While few liberals are anti-Semitic, it is very disturbing to see the rhetoric of Goebbels recycled for a ‘progressive’ crusade that Harvard President Lawrence Summers and attorney Alan Dershowitz deemed ‘anti-Semitic in effect if not in intent.’

This potential for anti-Semitism was made clear when a swastika was spraypainted on a campus Sukkot, and reinforced when Holocaust Remembrance Day at Berkeley was chosen for a violently anti-Semitic rally for Palestine.

I wonder if the violent protest that prevented Benjamin Netanyahu from speaking at Concordia set off Nancy Welch’s academic freedom alarms.

There is certainly room for criticism of Israeli actions, but since it cannot occur without (understandably) terrifying American and European Jews, perhaps protesters need to rethink their strategy.