Their names were Eyal Yifrah, Gilad Shaar, and Naftali Fraenkel; Eyal was 19, and Gilad and Naftali were 16. They were killed in cold blood because they were Jews; yes Jews, not Israeli. It is time to say the truth; Arab society is deeply anti-Semitic, and this sentiment began well before Zionism existed.

The West refuses to see the obvious and bears a deep responsibility for the aggravation of the situation in the Middle East. When the Presbyterian Church makes the decision to sell its stock in Caterpillar because their bulldozers are used to crush Palestinian houses, it comforts the Palestinian leaders in their anti-Semitic stances. Such an action by the Presbyterian Church does not help civilians in the West Bank; it implicitly supports the Palestinian Authority when it names parks after terrorists or indoctrinates children in the hatred of Jews

Maybe Israel can be blamed for some actions, but it is the only democracy in the region. It is sad to see the Free World trying to force one of its smallest brethren to accept the conditions of its worst foes -- those who, more or less loudly, say they want its eradication. If the roles were reversed there would not be any Jews in this region, as is the case in most Muslim countries. Why does the media, its scholars and so many politicians support their foes who consider a woman inferior to a man, who think gays must be hung, who think that a nine-year-old child can be married to a man? Why is so much focus given to so small a state when at the same moment the entire Middle East in sinking in a frenzy of blood and hatred?

In many aspects, Israel is a Western country and that is the worst of its sins. Whether or not Jews come from everywhere on earth or were already in Israel before Zionism took hold, no matter that most of the Jews had to flee the Arab countries, no matter that they were persecuted in Jerusalem and Hebron, where they were not allowed to pray at the Tombs of the Patriarchs, no matter that a mosque has been built on top of the Wailing Wall, the Jews are seen as Westerners, and therefore are not allowed to set foot on Muslim land.

The West is paralyzed by its colonialist past and cannot discern good and evil whenever Islam is involved. As a Western country, Israel must comply with all the self-hatred principles that plague the West. Its delegitimization comes from this very simple idea; it has no right to exist, because it is an excrescence of the West and therefore something impure.

At the same time, this mindset is a constant reminder of what happened not so long ago in the heart of Europe. Therefore, there is something comfortable in casting the victims of yesterday as the executioners of today: In the same move, one can exonerate oneself from concentration camps and colonization. Hence, Stéphane Hessel can talk about Gaza as a concentration camp, or John Kerry can take to his account the idea of Israel the apartheid state. The major of Malmö in Sweden can say the Jews cannot complain about being beaten in the streets of his city, because they support Israel, and Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss scholar close to the Muslim Brothers, can say that the recent anti-Semitic attack in Brussels is understandable, because two of the victims have worked for the Mossad. All of these ludicrous assertions are acceptable, because no matter the facts, the Palestinians are victims and the Israelis are colonialists.

Eyal, Gilad and Naftali are scapegoats offered to the Arab street to slake its thirst of revenge on the "despicable" Jews. Shouts of joy saluted the announcement of their abduction, and stones were thrown at the ambulance carrying away their bodies. At the same time that it condemns the assassination, the West warns Israel about measures of vengeance it could take. If the western press remained relatively silent on this dreadful murders, it loudly laments today the horrible assassination of Mohammed Abu Khdeir a young Palestinian teen burnt alive in retaliation by other fanatics without noticing that the Israelis, in contrast to the Palestinians, did not openly rejoice in the streets. In Jerusalem a rally that gathered rabbis, politicians and simple citizens took place to protest against retaliation and vengeance; is it conceivable that such a protest could happen in Ramallah to denounce the abduction and the murder of three Jewish kids? The participants would not rather be lynched by the populace. Who reported this peaceful rally?

The obscene idea that the Jews are now camp guards is gaining momentum; in fact, one can think that the only Jews the West loves are those wearing striped pajamas.