Everyone knows it is possible for different groups of people to look at the same reality, see and acknowledge the same events, and still come to diametrically opposed conclusions. Since the Hamas terror attacks on Israel of October 7, 2023, we’ve seen this happening between Israel and many of its enemies in the West—on campuses and streets all over North America and Europe.
What is truly shocking, however, is to see this happening among leading officials of Israel on the one hand and the European Union on the other. These are not exuberant twenty-somethings stirred up by left-wing troublemakers; These are the adults in the room. They supposedly uphold a common Western democratic order, and lead a common civilization that shares the values of peace, tolerance, freedom, human rights, and human dignity.
As important as the question of the war between Israel and its enemies is, there is a more fundamental issue at stake: our so-called shared Western values seem to be failing us amid a worldview clash so sharp, stark, and consequential as to constitute a complete break, one that appears unbridgeable unless one side or the other profoundly changes its worldview.
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