You know it by the renewed reminders of Israel’s origins. Every time the Palestinian strife is in the news, a lot of the online educational content among Palestine supporters (which is most people around the world and most social media influencers) is about what happened in 1948 and about how Zionism began in the 1800s.

That is to say, the historical examination does not stop at how Israel has been illegally occupying the West Bank and Gaza since 1967. No, it almost unfailingly goes back to Israel’s establishing. In other words, the very legality of the existence of Israel is always being subjected to scrutiny.

This is profound. Consider over 7 decades of complete Western acceptance of Israel, journalistic complicity and endorsement, billions spent to prop up and maintain Israel, countless tours for Westerners hosted by Israel, military and intelligence complete integration with the West, thorough corporate endorsement.. All of that, and yet Israel’s very right to exist keeps being reevaluated.

By now, it’s safe to say that this reevaluation will never go away so long as Israel is in existence.

If I were a philosopher, I would be fascinated by this. It is a strong example of the universality and permanence of certain moral values. Despite all efforts, time lapsed, and all attempts at revising history by erasing all mention of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1947-1948, the establishment of Israel never became right, Israel remains an uneasy anomaly and the truth about Israel’s founding could never be concealed. The validity of Israel’s founding is always being questioned and even lamented among large swaths of intellectuals in the West.

To be fair, though, there are factors without which this renewed examination of Israel’s establishing may not take place. If, for hypothetical example, there were no Palestinian resistance, if said resistance were too meager to be of much significance, if Palestinians were not as numerous, if Palestinians were not relatively homogenous culturally, if Palestinians were not relatively universally oppressed, the balance may have tipped in favor of Israel being an easy fit into the collective conscience of the world.

Regardless of the causes and factors, the end result is the same. Israel’s right to exist is always in question despite all efforts, and that’s astonishing and damning at the same time.