By LaBode Obanor
George Orwell’s Animal Farm contains one of literature’s most enduring warnings about political power. The storyline narrates how animals overthrow Mr. Jones because they have experienced exploitation firsthand. Their revolution promises a new order in which arbitrary power and domination will be a thing of the past. Yet, the pigs who inherit power begin adopting the habits, privileges and coercive practices of the very rulers they displaced. By the novel’s devastating conclusion, injustice does not cease to be injustice because those exercising power possess a compelling history, ideology or explanation for wielding it.
That is the Orwellian lesson worth contemplating in the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy.
The Jewish people carry the historical memory of extraordinary persecution. They’ve suffered centuries of antisemitism, pogroms, expulsions and, ultimately, the Nazi Holocaust, in which six million Jews were systematically murdered. That history must never be trivialized, relativized or conscripted into crude historical analogies. Nor should the conduct of the Israeli government be attributed collectively to Jewish people, whether in Israel or throughout the world. Governments, regardless of their geography, make policies. They deploy armies, authorize settlements and military operations. Citizens may support, oppose or have no meaningful influence over particular decisions of their governments. Collective responsibility is precisely the kind of moral reasoning this argument rejects.
The principle at issue is simpler and carries a universal implication:
No government is immune from moral accountability whether historical, religious or geopolitical.
The state of Israel emerged partly in the shadow of catastrophic Jewish persecution and with an understandable determination that Jews should never again be defenseless against those seeking their destruction. The United States subsequently became Israel’s most consequential international patron, providing extensive military, financial and diplomatic support. That relationship has significantly enhanced Israel’s military and diplomatic power, but power presents its own moral test, irrespective of who possesses it. That test today concerns specific policies and actions of the Israeli government, particularly in the Palestinian territories.
Here, the geographical distinctions are pivotal. The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has been under Israeli occupation since 1967, with Israeli settlements expanding across parts of that territory while Palestinians live under a complex system of military control, checkpoints, movement restrictions and differing legal regimes. Gaza, from which Israel withdrew its permanent settlements and ground forces in 2005, subsequently remained subject to extensive Israeli control over access, airspace and maritime movement, alongside restrictions imposed at Egypt’s border. Since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, Gaza has endured an extraordinarily destructive Israeli military campaign and massive displacement of its Palestinian population.
These circumstances are not interchangeable, and precision matters. Neither should criticism of Israeli government policy be transformed into an accusation against Jewish people collectively.
The question, however, is whether occupation, settlement expansion, forced or coercive displacement, restrictions on civilian movement, deprivation of essential necessities, or military operations producing enormous civilian suffering can escape moral scrutiny simply because the government responsible invokes legitimate security concerns.
They cannot. And this is where Orwell becomes relevant.
Animal Farm is not fundamentally a story about one nationality, religion or historical grievance, but about the corrupting possibilities of unaccountable power and the ease with which governments can persuade themselves that principles applicable to others somehow become negotiable when their own security or interests are involved. Fortunately, that lesson applies universally. It applies to Israel, to Hamas, to the Palestinian Authority, and even to the United States. It also applies to Russia in Ukraine, to governments repressing civilians across Africa, and every other state or armed organization that demands moral standards from its adversaries while requesting exemptions for itself.
Human rights are not universal if we enforce them against our enemies but excuse their violation by our allies.
Nor does criticism of Israeli government conduct erase Israel’s legitimate security concerns. Hamas’s atrocities on October 7, including the deliberate killing of civilians and taking of hostages, cannot be justified by Palestinian suffering. Israeli civilians possess the same fundamental right to life and security that Palestinian civilians possess. In other words, the horror of one atrocity does not grant license for another. The United States therefore carries the heavier burden and a responsibility. Not because Israel should uniquely be denied alliances or assistance, but because influence creates responsibility. American friendship with Israel should neither demand moral silence nor inhibit the United States from speaking out when fundamental rights are violated. Military assistance, diplomatic protection, and political support should not render every action of an allied government defensible. On the contrary, genuine friendship should demand greater candor, not less.
And this is perhaps where Orwell’s warning reaches beyond Israel and Palestine.
The most dangerous moment for any government comes when it becomes convinced that the righteousness of its cause exempts it from the rules it demands others obey. Every global or regional power eventually encounters that temptation. Some invoke national security to justify extraordinary harm; others invoke revolution or religion. Still others appeal to historical grievance, territorial integrity, counterterrorism, or national survival. The justifications may differ, but the temptation is the same. And that perhaps is the most useful way to read Orwell today. Animal Farm does not require us to search history for a new Mr. Jones or decide which people have become the pigs, instead it asks whether we are willing to apply the same principles when those exercising power are people or governments with whom we sympathize.
If our condemnation of oppression disappears when the alleged perpetrator becomes an ally, then we have lost our principle, and instead embrace preference. And the world has already paid too terrible a price for that distinction.
