The basic formula of IDS is that almost any negative consequences which derive from Arab attacks on Israel are blamed by enlightened elites not on the attackers themselves, but on Israel, especially when the Jewish state’s response to being assaulted does not take the form of absolute and total moral perfection as defined by the UN and the Guardian‘s editorial board. IDS in its more subtle forms is so pervasive it largely escapes notice. But it’s still worth noting, once in a while. Here are a couple of examples from recent days:

1. Reporting on a conversation in which Joschka Fischer claimed that Israel would attack Iran’s nuclear facilities before the end of the year, Nouriel Roubini, an NYU business professor, declared that

if such action were to be taken by Israel the consequences outlined above would be the clear outcome: a major global recession, wars throughout the Middle East (Iran, Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, Israel, etc.) and a major increase in geopolitical instability.

In other words, a litany of catastrophes would befall the world not because Iran is in violation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and three UN Security Council resolutions, is developing nuclear weapons, waging war against America, Israel, and Lebanon through proxy forces, and has repeatedly threatened to annihilate the state of Israel. None of those items inform the moral calculus. No, Roubini’s argument runs, Israel is to blame, because not allowing itself to be destroyed would upset global harmony. Nice.

2. The Gaza Fulbright scholars. Reports ABC News:

Seven Palestinian scholars may lose their prized Fulbright scholarships to attend American universities because Israel won’t let them out of the Gaza Strip.

So Israel is now responsible for ensuring the educational opportunities of Gaza students? The young soldiers of the IDF, according to this logic, must be put in harm’s way at the crossing points of Gaza — which are Hamas’ favorite ambush and attack sites — so that seven people may leave a territory into and out of which they would be able to freely travel any day they wished if Hamas was not engaged in a terror war against Israel. The point is not that limitations on Palestinian educational opportunities are a good thing; it is that such hardships have their origins not in Israeli cruelty, but in Palestinian violence. As someone once said, the Jewish state is expected to act like the only Christian nation in the world.

There are dozens more examples. But there is a group of people on whose behalf anything is rarely said. They are the Palestinians who detest the manner in which Hamas has imprisoned them in Gaza. These people have no spokesmen, not even among the western reporters who derive so much smug satisfaction in imagining themselves the champions of the voiceless. By falsely incriminating Israel and thereby apologizing for Hamas, such journalists only prolong the suffering of Palestinians. IDS hurts Arabs, too.