Whenever the global Left sees a white Israeli guarding a checkpoint in the West Bank or fighting in Gaza, it knows what moral categories to assign to Israel and Hamas. No matter how many rockets are launched or civilians murdered, the terrorists in Gaza are the freedom fighters and the Jews are the oppressors — just like the French in Algeria and the cowboys on the Great Plains. One suspects that whitewashing Israel helps some Westerners assuage their post-colonial guilt. By decrying the Jewish state, they expurgate the sins of their own ancestors and clean their moral slate.

But when you see blacks and whites, Jews and Arabs standing side by side against Hamas’s terrorism, it becomes difficult to call Israel a colonialist oppressor or an apartheid state. Instead, we see the reality of Israel’s existence: It is built on liberal values of tolerance anathema to its enemy.

I don’t mean to suggest that there is no friction or disparity between different ethnic groups in Israel. Israel is not a “post-racial nation” by any means, and outright discrimination certainly exists — as it does in many countries. Nor does the fact that the IDF boasts soldiers of every color relieve Israel of its obligation to fight morally — which it does, at much cost to its men and women in uniform. But seeing how our media twist themselves into a post-colonial pretzel only further highlights their consistent bias against the one democracy in the Middle East.