Multiculturalism is an 'anti-Western ideology' - Ralph Schoellhammer

Schoellhammer began, “What we see is that this conflict has brighter, broader repercussions throughout the regions and also within the West itself. Because what Hamas was trying to do, and I'm not sure if they're going to be successful with this, was kind of to entirely derail the potential for Israel to become a recognised state within the Middle East.

“The leadership of the Arab world is not a huge fan of Hamas. The leadership of Saudi Arabia is not happy with Hamas. The leadership of Egypt is not happy with Hamas.

“Saudi Arabia has made huge efforts to normalise relations with Israel, but they did a poll recently. Only 7% of the people of Saudi Arabia would allow an Israeli Prime Minister to visit their country.

“Multiculturalism truly is an anti-Western ideology. This is one of the reasons why they are so against Israel because they see it as a Western outpost in the Middle East.”

Nana chimed in, saying, “I know the people of Palestine are not the same as Hamas, but it is very difficult to fully separate the two when Hamas are the governing organisation within there.”

Schoellhammer replied, “Just a couple of months back they did a poll in in Palestine and they were asking people, ‘If there would be a two state solution would you still support the the continuous fight against Israel until basically all of Israel disappears?’ and over 50% say yes. So exactly what you say. You cannot separate it.

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“It's an ideology that absolves you from knowing anything about the other side. We saw this, if a person goes with a rainbow flag to a Hamas protest, what that shows you is the person is insane. But I think what it really shows is that person has no idea about the people that he or she thinks they're joining.”

The conversation moved onto support for Palestine from those outside the region, with Nana expressing her surprise at Greta Thunberg’s pro-Palestine stance.

Schoellhammer said he felt the opposite way, “I'm not so sure if it's really a surprise because this is what I meant, that all these different ideologies, whether they do it consciously or subconsciously is a separate question, but for them it is a kind of a resistance against the West. It's an anti Western ideology. So by default, this is the position they take.”

Nana also asked Schoellhammer what can be done to combat this anti-Western ideology.

“This is a brutal thing to say,” Schoellhammer replied, “but if you look historically, in order to defeat an ideology, you must humiliate it. I mean, fascism was not defeated because we had intellectual debates about the pros and cons of fascism. But they lost the war so devastatingly that people said, ‘You know what, we can't do this ideology’.

“I think in the worst case scenario, but also the most likely scenario, we're going to end up with Hamas 2.0, because these people have been marinated in disbelief. These are people that grew up with just learning to hate the Jews, to hate Israel.

“There's nothing wrong with saying ‘If you come to Britain, if you can't come to Europe, we would like you to adopt certain values’. It doesn't mean you have to drop your entire tradition, but as we said, running through Vienna or Sydney yelling ‘Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas’… that is not going to work.

“You are entitled to your own values, religion, beliefs, to the level to which they are compatible with the new country you choose to make your home country. I don't think that's too much to ask.”