New Directions In Assault On Israel’s Legitimacy

There is an old saying that generals prepare to fight the last war. Those of us engaged in defense against the assault on Israel’s legitimacy cannot afford to fall into this trap. We must accurately assess the evolving strategies and tactics employed by anti-Israel activists who seek to portray the Jewish state as a rogue nation, the 21st-century equivalent of apartheid South Africa, often urging the use of BDS (boycotts, divestment and sanctions) as punishment for Israel’s misdeeds. 

In past years, the blockade of Gaza served as a focal point for anti-Israel activism, which included wildly exaggerated reports of human suffering and baseless accusations of illegality. The IDF’s interdiction of the flotilla from Turkey (subsequently validated as legal by a UN investigation) and the discredited Goldstone Report about alleged “war crimes” committed during Operation Cast Lead were centerpieces of campaigns aimed at demonizing Israel. 

Today, the Muslim Brotherhood has assumed a leadership role in Egypt and is not anxious to disrupt the flow of U.S. assistance or to provoke a confrontation with Israel. It is pressuring Hamas to avoid rocket attacks against Israel, to moderate its positions and to seek reconciliation with Fatah, the other major Palestinian faction. Thus, the situation in Gaza does not appear to provide the same fertile ground for anti-Israel campaigns under the guise of human rights as it once did. Moreover, Israel’s military actions with respect to Gaza and Hamas always could be readily explained in terms of the legitimate right of any country to self-defense. 

While Israel’s “occupation” and lack of Palestinian independence will continue to be in the center, we now can discern at least two new fronts in the campaign against Israel’s legitimacy, both of which will offer difficult challenges. One involves Israel’s Arab citizens, and the accusation that their second-class status and mistreatment place the Jewish state apart from the family of nations. As described in a March 24 New York Times article about the attempt to boycott Israel food products at the Park Slope Food Co-op in Brooklyn, BDS is being used to pressure Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories and to recognize the “fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality.” 

Another ongoing issue that provides fertile ground for anti-Israel activists whose real purpose is not to achieve a two-state solution, but, instead, to bring an end to the Jewish state of Israel (“one-staters”) is Jewish settlement activity in the West Bank. Harsh criticism of settlements by NGO activists is buttressed by the sharply critical UN Security Council Resolution, which was vetoed by the U.S. in 2011, and the recent decision by the UN Human Rights Council to establish a commission to investigate the impact of settlements on the West Bank. The UN has been notoriously one-sided in its assessment of this situation and many others related to Israel. On the other hand, we see that some from the Zionist left who are genuinely concerned about Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state — notably Peter Beinart in his much discussed recent op-ed piece in The New York Times — are not merely condemning settlements, but also calling for boycotts targeted at products made over the Green Line.   

What makes these new fronts particularly challenging is that they are picking at soft spots within the mainstream Jewish and general communities. The Arab citizens of Israel, in fact, have legitimate grievances. This has been acknowledged by a succession of Israeli governments, including the current one, as well as by the organized Jewish community, which has even established a special interagency task force to work on advancing civic and socioeconomic equality in the Jewish state. In addition, many within the mainstream Jewish community believe that settlement activity, while not the most serious obstacle to peace, nevertheless is misguided, especially as Israel’s stated long-term policy is to pursue a two-state solution. Polls uniformly show that the American people are sharply critical of settlements, in part due to a consistent pattern of U.S. government condemnations of settlements through both Republican and Democratic administrations. (It also should be noted that most critics of settlements, including J Street, reject targeted boycotts as counterproductive and ineffective.) 

We must develop effective strategies for countering attempts to delegitimize Israel that use as their point of departure the status of the country’s Arab citizens and settlement activity. Chief among them is projecting into the public square voices of those who are critical of and seek to change Israeli policies, but who do not want the country’s flaws, as they regard them, used to justify the campaign to turn Israel into a pariah state. As the groundbreaking analysis done several years ago by the Israeli think tank Re’ut pointed out, Israel’s most thoughtful critics, too often ostracized by the government and the organized Jewish community, are best positioned to build a “political firewall” between the extreme and the mainstream.

Martin J. Raffel is senior vice president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and project director of the Israel Action Network, an initiative of The Jewish Federations of North America and the JCPA.

How can do-gooders possibly think that Gaza is the primary centre of injustice in Middle East?

What is it about Israel that prompts such a widespread departure from common sense, reason and moral reality? As another insane flotilla prepares to butt across the Mediterranean bringing "aid" to the "beleaguered" people of Gaza, in its midst travelling the MV Saoirse, does it never occur to all the hysterical anti-Israeli activists in Ireland that this is like worrying about the steaks being burnt on the barbecue, as a forest fire sweeps towards your back garden?

I took part in a discussion about the Middle East last weekend in the Dalkey Books Festival. It was surreal. Not merely was I the only pro-Israeli person in the panel of four, but the chairwoman of the session, Olivia O'Leary, also felt obliged to throw in her three-ha'pence worth.

Israeli settlers on the West Bank were on stolen land, she sniffed. Palestinians in their refugee camps had title deeds to the ancient properties. The UN had repeatedly condemned Israel. Brian Keenan, who was held hostage by Arab terrorists for four years, then detailed Israeli human-rights abuses, to loud cheers.

Israel -- and its sole defender on the panel (is mise) -- were then roundly attacked by members of the audience. But what was most striking about the audience's contributions was the raw emotion: they seemed to loathe Israel.

But how can anyone possibly think that Gaza is the primary centre of injustice in the Middle East? According to Mathilde Redmatn, deputy director of the International Red Cross in Gaza, there is in fact no humanitarian crisis there at all. But by God, there is one in Syria, where possibly thousands have died in the past month.

However, I notice that none of the Irish do-gooders are sending an aid-ship to Latakia. Why? Is it because they know that the Syrians do not deal with dissenting vessels by lads with truncheons abseiling down from helicopters, but with belt-fed machine guns, right from the start?

What about a humanitarian ship to Libya? Surely no-one on the MV Saoirse could possible maintain that life under Gaddafi qualified it as a civilised state. Not merely did it murder opponents by the bucketload at home and abroad, it kept the IRA campaign going for 20 years, and it also -- a minor point, this, I know -- brought down the Pan Am flight at Lockerbie. Yet no Irish boat to Libya. Only the other way round.

And then there's Iraq. Throughout the decades of Saddam Hussein, whose regime caused the deaths of well over a million people, there wasn't a breath of liberal protest against him. Gassing the Kurds? Not a whimper. Invading Kuwait? Not one single angry placard-bearing European liberal outside an Iraqi embassy.

Destroying the drainage systems of the Marsh Arabs? Silence. Manipulating UN oil-for-food programme so that thousands died? Nothing.

Next, Saudi Arabia, whose revolting practices cannot be called medieval without doing a grave injustice to the Middle Ages. It is led by savages who have studiously turned their backs on knowledge -- even as they sip their Krug and their Bollinger in their €100m apartments in Belgravia. They behead and behand, they torture and they mutilate, and they have spent billions on their foul madrasahs teaching young Muslims right across the world to hate us kaffirs. But what demonstrations are there outside Saudi embassies? What flotillas to defend the human rights of the millions of immigrant serfs, who toil without any rights in Saudi homes and in the oil industry?

There isn't a single Arab country, not one, with the constitutional protection that Israel confers on all its citizens, regardless of religion or ethnicity or sexual orientation. And no, I don't like the settlements on the West Bank, but really, by any decent measure, it is simply not possible to gaze upon the entire region, reaching from Casablanca to Yemen, and then to point indignantly and say: "Ah yes, Gaza: that's where the one great injustice lies."

The last 'aid flotilla' to Gaza carried a large number of Islamists who wanted to provoke: and aided by some quite astounding Israeli stupidity, they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

Now another convoy is under way, and again with an utterly disingenuous plan to bring "assistance" to the "beleaguered Gazans", some of who, funnily enough, can now cross into Egypt any time they like, and buy their explosives and their Kalashnikovs in the local arms-bazaar.

And as for human-rights abuses: why, nothing that Israel has done in the 63 years of its existence can possibly compare with the mass-murders of Fatah members by Hamas firing-squads over the past five years.

The colossal western intellectual dissonance between evidence and perception on the subject of Israel at this point in history can perhaps only be explained by anthropologists.

This dissonance is perhaps at its most acute in Ireland, where no empirical proof seems capable of changing people's minds. Israel, just about the only country in the entire region where Arabs are not rising up against their rulers, is also the only country that the Irish chattering classes unite in condemning. Rather pathetic, really.

- Kevin Myers

On delegitimization

‘We have to take back the narrative and reframe it and get out of the docket of the accused’ – Irwin Cotler.  

Over the past several years, the almost-unpronounceable word ‘delegitimization’ has become part and parcel of any discussion on Israel.

Countless lectures have been given about it, position papers have been written about it and many an op-ed writer, including in this paper, has attempted to outline the expressions and manifestations of the delegitimization of the State of Israel.

One of the many panels at last week’s Third Annual Presidential Conference was the “Delegitimization: Who is at fault? Us or them?” discussion moderated by Brig. Gen (Res.) Michael Herzog, senior fellow at The Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) and former head of the IDF Strategic Planning Division.

The panelists included:

-Irwin Cotler, emeritus professor of law and chair of Inter Amicus, McGill University, a member of Parliament, Canada and former minister of justice and attorney general

-Miri Eisen, former international media advisor to the prime minister

-Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations

-Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League

-Robert Wistrich, Neuberger Professor of Modern History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the author of A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad.

The Jerusalem Post caught up with them before their panel discussion on Thursday for a more intimate dialogue on the Jewish state, its image and the campaign to call into questionits legitimacy, on which there were some interesting disagreements.

Ben-David: Is there a working definition for delegitimization? 
Foxman: Rejection of Israel. Period. It’s just a fancy name for the non-acceptance of IsraelHoenlein: The right of Israel to exist. It’s not about policies, it’s not 1967, it’s 1947. It’s denying Israel the right that all other countries have.

Wistrich: Delegitimization is really something more far-reaching. It goes beyond the existence of Israel. They are saying that Israel is illegitimate but also that it’s existence is immoral. That it shouldn’t be here. And behind that is something else: It challenged the raison d'être of the Jewish people being able to define itself, especially in national and state terms.

Eisen: I emphasize the issue on nation terms, that is the approach of Judaism and the Jewish people as a nation beyond religion and culture.

Ben-David: Israel’s right to exist?
Cotler: It’s not only a matter of denying Israel’s right to exist but also undermining its legitimacy and that shows that delegitimization is not only an objective, it’s a strategy. And there are series of ways and means of undermining Israel

Hoenlein: It’s an attack on the collective Jew, as Bernard Lewis put it.

Wistrich: I think it’s even more than undermining. It is political and ideological warfare, designed to sap completely the basis of Israel’s existence. It’s been rather successful until now but, fortunately, not completely so.

Ben-David: So you are saying that this is linked to anti-Semitism. Would you consider it a new form of it?
Wistrich: It’s a little more difficult that it might appear a first. You could make the argument that all forms of anti-Semitism we have known, from antiquity until the present, have involved forms of delegitimization as one aspect of the way anti-Semitism works. It’s delegitimizing because the core of Jewish identity was defined both by Jews and non-Jews in religious terms, delegitimizing Judaism, presenting it as demonic, that was an extreme form of delegitimization.

While that still exists, many other things have been added on and today Israel, as has been said, the collective Jew is at the core of delegitimization. Is that anti-Semitic? To negate the rights of Jews to define themselves in the way that they choose is at the very least to be opening the door to anti-Semitism and actually seems to lead there. In order to make the case for delegitimization, you have to make extreme statements. To nazify Israel is a form of anti- Semitism. Claiming Israel is an apartheid state, is that anti-Semitic? It’s not an open and shut case. To nazify Israel is because that is demonizing Israel beyond any possible rational argument.

Eisen: People don’t know how to differentiate. The symbols to them are the same, the state of Israel and the flag are the star of David. They can say they’re anti-Israel when in fact they are being anti-Semitic.

Foxman: To me, this is classic modern anti-Semitism. It’s denying to the Jewish people that which is ok for every body else which is national liberation, national independence and sovereignty, expression and so on. What other country in the world is challenged as to its decision to have its own capital.

So everything that’s ok for everybody else is not ok when it comes to the Jews and the Jewish state. That’s anti-Semitism. And we are not talking about criticism or a policy, it doesn’t really matter what Israel does or doesn’t do, what it engages in or doesn’t engage in, it’s the very fact that it is.

Wistrich: I would extend this. It’s ontological guilt. That the very being of Israel is, as it were, a crime. That, to me, is the most devastating aspect of the current wave of delegitimization. That so many discussions of Israel are now tainted by an assumption of guilt that is a given. That has a long history of anti-Semitism.

Hoenlein: There is also an attempt to deny Jewish connection to this land.
You can have official bodies where they focus on sites like the Western Wall, the Cave of the Patriarchs and say these were not Jewish sites and having scholars justifying this and writing position papers on this and the deputy director of UNESCO issuing a statement characterizing Rachel's Tomb as a mosque. They deny us a past and they deny us a future. And they understand it better than many Jews do and better than many Israelis even who don’t get the significance of this attempt. It’s delegitimizing Jews collectively but also as a Jewish state because if we weren’t here, if we have no roots here, what rights do we have to be here in the future?

Cotler: In some sense, delegitimization is not new, it’s been with us since 1948 when Israel was regarded as an original sin. What is new is the strategic aspect, and that is the laundering of delegitimization under the cover of law for example. I agree with Robert on the political and ideological warfare on Israel.
There’s also lawfare. The explosion of the legal revolution and the human rights revolution has a pernicious effect on the legitimacy of Israel.

Wistrich: This is taking place under an umbrella of human rights which is something new, relatively speaking. This is the wrapping in which it comes and this attracts many liberal people.

Hoenlein: and the core of this goes back to Durban I, where they said ‘just as we used BDS against South Africa, we’ll use BDS against Israel.’ It may not be a coordinated effort but there certainly is a plan and that blueprint was laid down at Durban I and we are not coming up to Durban III.

Ben-David: I’d like to pick up on what you just said about not being completely organized. How aware are people outside the Israeli press, the Jewish press, the Israeli dialogue circles about delegitimization? 
Foxman: This is a very important question. Who made it as significant as it is? My feeling is we have. We have made it a lot more serious, a lot more significant, we have even given them a weapon which they didn’t really have.

This is classic rejection, they tried it by war, they tried it by economics, this is a new manifestation. We gave it this global, strategic air. I don’t think it’s there. And I think while we have international conferences on how to fight delegitimization, we are giving to them something they didn’t have. I’m concerned that we have given it a status and an importance. I don’t think there’s global strategy.

Wistrich: Let me ask you this: I have recently been following up on the political Left and going back in time to see whether the things we’re discussing now, where they began and how coordinated or uncoordinated it was and I think initially, it was in an experimental phase. The time when I remember, the 1970s, it was more marginal. Today, we are way beyond that. On the Left, I see it as very organized and successfully infiltrating, for lack of a better word, many mainstream organizations. That may not be universally true and it’s also fair to say that not everybody engaged in these campaigns are all on the same page but the Islamists and the Leftists have found some modus vivendi.

The Arab states sometimes have a different agenda, Iran has a certain agenda and so on. There are many groups there but it is becoming much more organized than it used to be. You read the stuff about Israeli universities, it seems they have a strategy, they have goals, they’ve laid it out and they have a method

Foxman: You talk about the Left infiltrating mainstream but they’ve done that from time immemorial. There is a change here that has not so much to do with us, it’s a technology thing. The internet has provided them with a platform, and now you can communicate in nanoseconds globally. What we saw during Operation Cast Lead, we’ve always seen. Every Mideast conflict spawns anti-Semitic activities globally; that’s a fact. It was not as “successful” as it was after Gaza. Why? Because the internet was used to recruit, to send a message so that you had the imagery, the call for demonstrations, the targets and so on and so its’ the technology which makes it so global.

Hoenlein: The communications revolution is a factor, but there is something happening and I think you got to face it realistically. When you see in Hollywood, when you see the movements among unions, when you see their efforts in Australia, Scotland, Ireland, this is being done on a global level, they use all sorts of guises for doing it, but that doesn’t diminish the significance of what they are doing. I don’t like the term delegitimization.

Ben-David: Why is that? 
Eisen: It’s like talking about occupation. If you use that term, that is what the discussion will be about. If I say occupation, we say is there or isn’t there [an occupation]? Use a different word and you change the whole subject.

Hoenlein: Settlements vs communities.

Eisen: The words you use are very important. I want to add in on the disagreement.

I don’t think its globally organized but I think it comes out of global changes and it’s not just social media and communications. I talk about the post post post post world; post-WWII and Cold War, post-colonial, postnationalist and post-Holocaust and in Europe, they are post all four. When you are in a community in northern Europe, you meet now that social media group of the 25-30 year olds and they are born in Brussels and live in Vienna and study in Scandinavia and marry British and it’s not that they don’t have national background, but it’s not part of their world. And to them, the Holocaust might as well have been in the Middle Ages. Delegitimization bites into their world. I am also very disturbed by the use of the delegitimization – that is their term. We are talking in their terms. Their terms are the human rights and post-national terms and the Israeli terms are national and military. We are still in the Holocaust world, we still go to Poland so that we are in a situation wherein our own discussion, they way we talk about ourselves, makes it worse.

Wistrich: I agree, it’s a very awkward term and perhaps if we can get rid of it, this might be the time. But actually, we’re really often talking about defamation and demonization. If we start moving to what we can do about it, the fact is that Israel has fought this war, and the Jewish world, more widely, with one hand tied behind its back because we are not prepared to do what, in this kind of warfare, we normally do, which is seize on the many weak points on the other side and bounce them all back. Take apartheid, when Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] says there will be no Jews in a future Palestinian state, that should be exposed as pure unadulterated racism but Israel and mainstream Jewish organizations choose, for maybe good reasons, not to highlight the “apartheid” features of some regimes.

Eisen: I think these things are highlighted extensively.

Foxman: You are also right that there is a hesitancy here, because if you highlight this, you continue to undermine the illusion, the hope that we will have two states, that we have a partner. Israel is schizophrenic on this whole subject.

Cotler: Delegitimization is a generic term. It is inclusive of, but not limited to, the defamation of, demonization of Israel. It reached its tipping point and was formalized as a policy in Durban I. It’s a framing of a strategy and those there even used that term. I wrote my first article on this and called it “The campaign to delegitimize Israel” in 1973.

Hoenlein: Did anybody read it?

Foxman: It failed. Let’s not forget that.

Cotler: I don’t think it failed. I think we failed to recognize it. Let me just give an example. We talk a lot about the Zionism is Racism resolution. That in effect was a manifestation of delegitimization. I think it’s morphed into a apartheid and even worse. At that time, in 1973, you has a series of decisions, UN specialized agencies, which purported to and indeed had the effect of delegitimizing Israel. The ILO, the International Labor Organization, accusing Israel of suppressing trade unions. The WHO – Foxman: But it was reversed. The Zionism is racism charge was reversed Cotler: It was not reversed. Every one of those decisions in the WHO, UNESCO, none of them have been reversed.

Foxman: What are the practical implications?

Cotler: I’ll give you one study. I was a member of a number of these delegations.

Who comes to it? You’ve got academics, diplomats, parliamentarians, trade unionists, journalists, students. You not only have a critical mass of delegitimization, you have a critical mass of exposure to that delegitimization and that is a continuation of the dynamic.

Foxman: In the 30 years of this campaign, what have they achieved in delegitimizing Israel? 

Wistrich: It depends where you look.

Cotler: The world is larger than America.

Wistrich: Even in the US, look at some of the campuses, the day to day issues, which involve humiliation, and intimidation of Jewish students and professors.

And the acceptance of it.

Hoenlein: If you are saying this has a revolutionary impact, it hasn’t. This is an erosionary process. This is part of the legacy of Zionism is racism. I don’t think you can argue that it’s had no impact. What is said about Israel today would not have been said 25 years ago.

Foxman: That is not true! I’m sorry. Malcolm, I’m old enough to have been on the college campuses in the 60s and then, it was hell to be pro-Israel, on the same 30, 40 or 50 campuses where it is today. It was the anti-Vietnam movement and it was hell standing up for Israel then. There was one difference.

Most of the kids then knew what being Jewish was about, what Israel was about, they knew 1948 and it was tough. So it’s not new, but we were a different generation of Jews and Jewish professors than we are today.

Wistrich: There are two ways where I think it has changed for the worst and you hint at one of them. First of all, take the case of Zionism. The word has become totally anathema. I would say looking back even 30 years, we weren’t there.

Eisen: Zionism is racism, that was in 1974. That was pretty bad.

Cotler: People walked around back then with badges saying proudly ‘I am a Zionist.’ They won’t do that today.

Foxman: They don’t even know what it is, we have stopped teaching them.

Hoenlein: He’s right to say people don’t know. But it’s also right to say Zionism has become pejorative. I was there as a student leader in those years. It is not comparable today. Jewish students will not register today as Jewish. Jewish students don’t sign up for Judaic studies, Christians do. Jewish students were not intimidated then in ways they are now.

Eisen: The changes have not just been around the world. I sit in my country, and this country has changed, and this country has evolved into other places and the hijacking of the term Zionism, from my point of view as an Israeli, happened here in Israel. What is it to be Zionist in Israel? Can I be a centrist Zionist or a leftwing Zionist or is it only right-wing Zionist? I’ll ask it like this: If there was a two-state solution, would this kind of debate be different? Sadly, I don’t think so. There are certain aspects that have to do with the conflict and I want us to touch on that. This is not only anti-Semitism; adding into it is also the fact that there is conflict going on here and there are different opinions on how to resolve it. The last point I want to make is about the politics. Israel, right now has more diplomatic relations than it ever has before, with 164 countries. When do not get that kind of criticism from governments so much as we get from public opinion. The exception that rule is British academia. But everywhere else? it’s mainly the street, it’s the people which is a very big thing on the social level.

Ben-David: If there were a change in Israeli government policy, would that have an effect? 
Foxman: Only if you believe it is our fault.

Wistrich: I have to say, as someone who’s lived here the last 30 years, since I can remember, particularly more in the center and left of the spectrum, I’ve been hearing ‘if only we’d change our policy, it would go away,’ and the fact is it didn’t. It didn’t go away in the time of Rabin, or Barak, or Olmert. It’s almost a hubristic Israeli illusion, to think it’s all in our hands. I could add to what Miri said about the internal Israeli dialogue and what goes on at some Israeli universities; the post Zionism, some of which is the old fashioned anti- Zionism, more attractively labeled, some of it is genuine post-Zionism, the question is, if Israel suddenly said we are a post-Zionist state, if we went with the globalizing tendencies, played down our national heritage and Holocaust consciousness and suddenly renounced all these things, would that fundamentally change anything? It might help in some areas but what would that do in terms of the Jewish identity of Israel? Which brings me back to Abe’s point about Jewish identity: What is the relationship between delegitimization, Jewish identity and the need to maintain it? It’s much more complex than it seems. In some ways it ironically helps us, not in the way that the anti- Semites say, that Zionists deliberately encourage all this to create Jewish unity, but in a way it does.

Hoenlein: Do you think it’s really happening in this case? I don’t see it. Sometimes, because of anti-Semitism, people come together and identify with the community more. I don’t think that in the delegitimization case it’s happening, but it could.

Foxman: We lost two generations, ok? Up until Taglit-Birthright, because what we did was truncate Jewish education of our children at the age of 12 and 13 when they began to think as adolescents. Then the message to the overwhelming majority of American Jewish kids was: “Your Jewish education is finished.” They then, five years later, came onto campus and all of a sudden we expected them to be Jewish and defend Israel. They didn’t know how! They didn’t understand.

It has changed. Taglit has now delivered. A hundred thousand, 150,000 kids who now understand. I came to Israel when I was 18, on a summer program with 400 kids. In the last 40 years, I find these kids who are now grandparents, leaders in Jewish communities, in synagogues and so on. But the majority were not educated, they were not exposed. Today, things have changed. I don’t think it’s a calamity, I don’t think it’s a crisis. It’s a question of perspective.

Wistrich: If you are a Jew from Holland or Belgium or even the UK, the situation is very different.

Hoenlein: The British model is different from the French model, which is different from the Scandinavian model. The British model is the closest to the US model and Canada also, which is that it starts with the elites and work down to the population rather than the population up. And it shifts the onus to us. The people who hate, will hate. These are all factors in our capacity to respond to it and over time we will know whether Birthright has changed things. We don’t know yet. I don’t know they they are going back to the campuses and are really knowledgeable from spending 10 days here to argue the case. It’s not a panacea just to send them if you don’t educate them. The problem is that we have ignored our kids for too long. Kids formulate their ideas younger and younger. Even the kids who go to good Jewish schools are not prepared to go to a campus like that.

Eisen: I get invited to the communities and I talk to them and the big change that I see from my point of view as an Israeli is the polarization; one of the direct results of this campaign on the Jewish community is the polarization over Israel. I went to Edmonton recently, a small Jewish community, and they hadn’t had a Jewish event for 5 years because they couldn’t agree on Israel.

Israel has become a divisive issue in Jewish communities rather than a uniting issue.

Cotler: Things are bother better and worse. It’s true that communities are more divided and yet you had a election in Canada recently where you had a phenomenon that never existed before. You had Jews openly and avowedly making decisions based on the Israel issue. In other words, that became the ballot box issue.

Foxman: And that’s good?

Hoenlein: Unless you are running for office.

Cotler: I’m just saying that people were not apprehensive or apologetic. I think if you take the campus and what’s happening there, I think things are worse. We never had an Israel Apartheid Week before, during all the years that I was a professor. We didn’t have a BDS phenomenon. On the other hand, you do have at this point, a response that didn’t exist before.

Foxman: We are making such a big deal out of it. Somebody should take a look at the apartheid weeks, where they were, how successful, how many, how many counter demonstrations were there. I’m glad we are sensitive to this, but come on.

Hoenlein: They do impact the atmosphere.

Wistrich: I think that for this generation, younger Jews, we may be understating and underestimating the emotional psychological damage that has taken place when you have a phenomenon on this scale whereby you have this kind of identification with the other side, the Palestinian side. It’s a large group. There are Jews who are proud to be ashamed to be Jews. Now again, if you count up the whole number it may look not so impressive, but they tend to be people who are quite prominent, even celebrities.

And the only time Jewish identity comes to the fore is to say: ‘I am ashamed to be a Jew and I want this published in The Guardian so that everybody knows.’

Foxman: And that again is the media and the internet. These people were there before, they didn’t get the exposure as they do now.

Cotler: There are a number of things that have changed. You have the globalization phenomenon, not just of media and technology but also of human rights and NGOs and so on. And the Palestinians are the posters for human rights and Israelis the anti-human rights metaphor.

That’s a whole new configurative dynamic we didn’t have before.

Foxman: We used to have the advantage, even though we were small. We were intent, devoted, smart.

Eisen: We still are. Stop it, you’ve gone too far.

Foxman: We still are. The difference now is that the numbers on the other side look bigger.

Hoenlein: You can’t deny the intensity of what is going on. I find that many more students now come into the fore. We are flooded by volunteers, people who want to do work on our lawfare project, many more than before. And we are doing a better job on campuses today. More money is being invested. But we also see a phenomenon of intimidation, it’s very strong. People are afraid. I hear students everywhere I go who are afraid to speak out and they don’t get support from Jewish faculty and administration.

Ben-David: What strategies to combat this phenomenon? I’m hearing a lot about Jewish education and strengthening Jewish identity, is that really what we need at this point? 
Hoenlein: It’s not just Jewish education.

It’s equipping them with the tools to answer the charges, and the confidence. We have to do more to give them support, to back them up, and starting at earlier ages. And that’s just the Jewish students, other students also.

Wistrich: We have to reach out much more, to non-Jews and in many different contexts. If you start looking more systematically and seeking out potential allies, you will find surprising numbers of people who might be willing, if approached and for their own reasons very often, to take part. Take Indians, for example, I have been struck with that in the UK for example, who are willing to understand Israel and Jews rather well and they are often more forthright in what they are ready to say.

Eisen: It’s true all over Europe now.

[The demographics are] starting to change some of the debate about post-nationalism and culture. We have a tendency to try and impose our point of view in our terms on other cultures and I think that part of the issue of delegitimization is in words and in terms and I think that we need to do much more in presenting our case in that sense, in the words and terms of the human rights world. Rather than give the counter arguments, talk in their terms and expose the argument and I don’t think we do that at any level. We are always responding. And our initiating is usually in terms which are often very difficult for others to swallow.

And I want us to talk in terms that are easier for others

Ben-David: By which you mean?
Eisen: I mean that you find that when you talk in the same cultural settings of what those people are used to, you can say things that otherwise sound very aggressive. We Israelis sound very aggressive. We use military, national, security terms because that’s our setting and we can say the same things but not in other kinds of terms.

Cotler: We have to take back the narrative and reframe it and get out of the docket of the accused. You have to delegitimize the delegitimizers.

The paradigm right now is that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the source of all troubles in the Middle East, if not the source of all evil. It’s radical Islam and Arab tyrannies that are the sources of conflict in the Mideast and beyond. This is the real apartheid. They will deny Israel’s right to exist within any borders.

Ben-David: How do we do that? Is there room to engage with people who are for BDS, who make these efforts happen? There is a planned mass fly-in for July 8 at Ben-Gurion airport and a flotilla on it’s way. What do we do?
Hoenlein: We can reverse this.

Part of the problem is that we use the wrong messages. It is true that people’s image is of Israel as militaristic and so on and what it tells us is that many of the messages we have been using, don’t work. For instance: ‘Israel makes the world a better place.’ People would say: ‘hey, that’s a great message.’ But it doesn’t work. Start-up Nation works. If you tell them about the values of Israelis, who Israelis are, that makes a difference. They have no idea, all they know is Israel as the “apartheid state.” And if you do that, you start to diminish their numbers greatly. We have to change the nature of what we say.

Foxman: So they fly in and we take them to...?

Hoenlein: A gay bar.

Eisen: And see, then you get into the real world where they are invited to the Gay Pride Parade [which took place earlier this month], leading for gay rights Barcelona and they are stopped at the airport. Because they were not believed that they were invited.

That’s us.

Cotler: And with regard to the flotilla we hear stuff like “we have a military surprise for you.” There are other ways to do this.

Foxman: But these people coming on July 8 are not your potential allies. It doesn’t matter what you show them.

Eisen: But the question is how it’s framed when they come and if the answer is an Israeli security response – because we do everything through a security prism – we’ve already lost it before it’s began. That’s our issue.

Cotler: You go to your allies and you tell them you have an obligation to enforce international law and people are aiding and abetting Hamas and are in effect, committing a criminal offense.

Foxman: Malcolm will tell you, that doesn’t sell. The world doesn’t give a sh*t.

Ben-David: I just want to ask you, Miri, more specifically here.

You are criticizing the Israeli response and we have heard that a lot.

Eisen: I have warned about these things before, both on Gaza [Operation Cast Lead] and the flotilla.

The week before the flotilla, I said: “You are putting this in a military frame, that’s wrong, this is a media event and you need to approach it that way.”

Ben-David: Israel does this time and time again. Is there any way we can change our approach to this, within the Israeli context?

Hoenlein: Yes, I do think that the government takes it very seriously.

People are looking at these things anew. I’m not saying they are ready to implement but they are looking at these issues. I think it’s possible to change.

Eisen: I love Malcolm but I disagree.

I think it’s possible to change. I don’ think that we are changing.

Ben-David: Many activists and NGOs and particularly groups like J Street have expressed the feeling that because they are not from the ‘Israel right or wrong’ camp, they are in a better position to engage with and debate anti-Zionists and those engaged in BDS activities. What do you think of this strategy? Does it have merit? Could Israel use this in any way?
Foxman: People have freedom of speech, they can talk to whoever they like.

Ben-David: Yes, but then they are criticized for giving legitimacy to the “delegitimizers” by sharing a platform with them, talking to them and so on.

Eisen: We need to be open to a variety of ideas. We all need to engage, with all the different voices.

There is merit to that. There is extremism on both sides. There are voices on the far Right that are also detrimental. We need to acknowledge that.

Foxman: J Street begins with the notion that it’s our fault. These people are not neutral, they take a side that Israel is at fault and that’s not the best advocate that you would want on your behalf.

All apologetics are doomed to failure.

Hoenlein: People who lobby for resolutions against Israel, we don’t want them to debate others. I want to know that they go and give them the right message. People who delegitimize, they care about human rights, they care about racism, apartheid. We have to tell them that the things they say are hurting us.

Boycotting Israel? Just Do It: Part 1

o you have decided to boycott all products and services from Israel. Here is a list of activities that you now need to perform in order to comply with this boycott.

 

Part One – Technology and Food

 

First, remove all Intel Pentium and Celeron computer processor chips from personal computers (desktops, laptops and notebooks) as these were either developed or manufactured in Israel.

Note that the revolutionary new Ivy Bridge processor will be manufactured in Israel. Any computers running the Windows XT operating system must be turned off immediately as this was developed in Israel. All current Microsoft operating systems are not to be used as Microsoft is heavily reliant on its Israel R&D centre.

 

Step 2. Any computers that still work need to have their anti-virus software and personal firewalls removed as this technology originated in Israel. The organisation’s firewall will also need to be switched off. Staff should no longer open external emails as most of these will be infected with viruses. No outgoing emails can be sent. The algorithm (code) that’s used today for sending e-mails, was made by an Israeli who worked at the Ben-Gurion University in Be’er-Sheva in 1980.

 

Step 3. Discard all mobile phones, as this technology was developed in Israel, where the first mobile phones were manufactured. Mobile chip technology from a single Israeli company has now been installed in over 100 million devices. Only top-level staff may retain mobile phones for emergency situations. However the use of SMS (Texting) is expressly forbidden as this facility was developed in Israel. No 4G devices can be used, as the chipset is Israeli.

 

Step 4. Turn off your voice-mail service and delete any recorded messages. Israeli companies invented the voice-mail system. If someone you do not know answers your phone-call, then hang up. Israeli call-centres and call-centre technology is in widespread operation in the UK.

 

Step 5. Before accepting any printed material, check that the supplier has not used the Israeli device that might have saved up to 50% of the ink used.

 

Step 6. At home, do not use Facebook as many in-built and add-on applications are Israeli-developed. Do not watch videos on the Internet as the platform used to upload them may be from AOL and hence from an Israeli company. Do not use the Internet to search for answers to your questions as this may involve use of an Israeli-developed search engine. Better to remain unenlightened.

 

Step 7. On your TV or home entertainment centre, do not use Video On Demand (VOD) to watch movies as you may inadvertently see an advert displayed using Israeli software. Do not purchase any games devices as these are likely to use Israeli technology.

 

Step 8. Do not read books using an e-book as this may contain Israeli technology. Do not use data storage as it may have been developed at Israel's storage technology R&D center.

 

Step 9. Do not buy an electric car as it is likely to be powered with an Israeli battery or use Israeli developed charging mats. Continue to sit in traffic knowing that you are polluting the environment and financing oil-rich despotic regimes.

 

Turning to food and drink, all food outlets on the organisation’s premises must dispose of cherry tomatoes, which were developed in Israel. Staff must ensure that no cherry tomatoes are included in sandwiches brought into office premises. The ban also applies to honey and any products derived from honey. Israel has developed solutions to the worldwide problem of bee-colony collapse, so that any products derived from bees might only be available now due to an Israeli invention.

 

Avoid drinking any of the world-recognised award-winning Israeli wines. Do not consume homemade drinks from Israeli-manufactured household drinks machines.

 

Avoid any fruit from South Africa or Peru as produce from these countries is being marketed with Israeli brand names.

 

No agricultural products from the following areas must be consumed as they use water irrigation and agricultural technology provided directly from Israel. This includes most of Africa, China, India, Indonesia (a Muslim country), Nepal and many others.

 

Much fruit and vegetables (including organic) imported into the UK has been enhanced using Israeli technology. This may save millions of people from starving around the world, but is not a good reason for you to eat it. To be safe, only eat fruit and vegetables that you have grown yourself using seeds that have been in your family for generations.

 

 

Part Two – Health (http://blogs.jpost.com/content/boycotting-israel-just-do-it-part-2)

 

Destroy all personal medication. Israel’s Teva Pharmaceuticals, the largest generic drugs company in the world, will have manufactured many of your medicines.  Staff with the following illnesses will need to take specific precautions.

 

Cancer - do not take any form of medication or treatment. Israeli scientists have been working at the forefront of oncology for decades.

 

AIDS and HIV – beware; researchers at Israel’s Weizmann Institute or Hebrew University developed or improved AZT and Hypericin-based drugs; they have also developed a treatment that destroys HIV-infected cells without damaging healthy ones.

 

Diabetes – do not measure or inject Insulin using the devices developed by Israeli scientists.

 

Multiple Sclerosis – stop taking Copaxone, one of the most efficient medicines and the only non-interferon agent, as Teva developed it.  Don’t touch Laquinimod either.

 

Parkinson's – remove the Israel-pioneered brain pacemaker to stop tremors. Discontinue Levodopa, which reduces motor disturbances. Cease sessions that involvemagnetic cortex stimulation.

 

Staff with a family history of heart disease and arteriosclerosis must not use the Israeli device for early detection of these.  Rather, wait until onset of the disease.

 

Epileptics – stop treatment that may have benefited from the Israeli discovery of the underlying mutant gene; also throw away the bracelet that sends out an alert when a person goes into seizure.

 

Staff or relatives with Age-related Macular Degeneration - remove Israeli implants that arrest the disease. 

 

Liver disease – abandon Israeli-developed antibody immunotherapy treatments.

 

Emphysema - steer clear of the Israeli protein replacement therapy.

 

Myeloma – stop taking the drug Velcade, which was developed over a period of 30 years by scientists at Haifa.

 

Sleep apnea - no tests using the breakthrough Israeli device for diagnosis.

 

Dyslexics must not benefit from the Israeli Internet-based reading system.

 

Skin allergies must be treated with steroid creams only, as the new safer non-steroid alternative is Israeli.

 

Any incident of stroke or head trauma or onset of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, MS, epilepsy, glaucoma or brain tumor must avoid using any of the Weizmann Institute's patented methods of treatment.

 

Before any surgery or medical tests, check that hospital catheters have not been protected from infection using the new plastic from Israel that disables microorganisms. Avoid throat surgery as this may utilize Israeli surgical lasers.  Ensure any colonoscopy or gastro investigation does not use internal Israeli cameras such as the Pillcam.  Never undergo surgery to install an artificial heart, as the first artificial heart transplant took place in Israel. 

 

Kidney transplant patients must wait for donors of the same blood group as only Israel's revolutionary new methods allow donors from other blood groups.  Staff of Arab origin must not make use of the only database for matching potential Arab donors of bone-marrow - in Israel.

 

In the event of a spinal injury or disease, do not accept spinal implants - likely to be an Israeli product or development.  Heart rhythm problems must not be solved with the Israeli-developed heart pulse generator. All heart stents are off-limits as most of these originate from Israeli medical companies.

 

Check all vaccines as many of these have been developed in Israel.  Ensure that all X-rays do carry a radiation risk, as the only radiation-free system is Israeli. Treatments derived from Stem Cell research must be avoided as most of these are Israeli-developed.

 

If you or your family are struck with a bacterial infection, do not take alternatives to older, ineffective bacteria-resistant antibiotics, as an Israeli discovery will have been responsible for the modern, effective drugs. Check that any pain relief medication is not based on soya as an Israeli doctor discovered the beneficial effect of the soya bean.

 

Do not use the revolutionary new Israeli bandage that saved the life of Arizona senator Gabriella Giffords after she was shot in the head.  If you break a bone badly, reject any treatment that involves introducing collagen, as this may have been manufactured from Israeli plants.  Do not protect babies and infants from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome with the Babysense system from Israel.  Do not use Epilady (or epilator) – two Israelis invented this hair removal device. 

 

Finally, reject all major dental treatment, as your teeth may need to be scanned with an Israeli-developed dental scanner.

 

Part Three – People (http://blogs.jpost.com/content/boycotting-israel-just-do-it-part-3)

 

When interviewing prospective new staff or holding meetings with members of the public or with individuals from other companies, it is vital that you check whether they originate from, or are associated with the following countries and areas. You must ensure that you do not have any contact with people who have benefited from Israel’s aid to those countries. The organization must avoid any possible acknowledgment of Israel's contribution to world relief.

 

In addition, you must obtain a formal statement from the government of these countries that Israeli aid was not responsible for the production or development of any goods and services supplied to the organization.

 

These locations include:

 

Japan (As well as rescue teams, Israel supplied Geiger counters and Israeli thermal imaging cameras are monitoring the reactor cores - Mar 2011)

Ghana (has been receiving technological aid from Israel since 2006; Israel is now providing neonatal units to save many of the 4,800 babies that die each year – Mar 2011)

New Zealand (Israel sent several rescue teams, temporary shelters and water purification systems following the Christchurch earthquake in Feb 2011)

Chile, whose rescued miners were treated to a tour of Israel as part of their "Pilgrimage of Thanks" (Feb 2011)

Vietnam, whose milk industry is being totally transformed using high-yield Israeli cows (Feb 2011)

Uganda (Israeli solar-powered refrigerators were provided to store vaccines used to eliminate an outbreak of Polio from the country in Jan 2011)

Kenya (Israel's Agency for International Development built a state-of-the-art Emergency Room in a hospital serving 6 million Kenyans in Jan 2011)

The Maldives (although non-Islamic worship is banned here, Israeli eye-doctors performed free operations for citizens in Dec 2010)

Philippines (signed major trade agreement with Israel in Nov 2010)

Romania (Israeli doctors treated babies following fire at a neonatal unit - Sep 2010)

Cameroon (Ophthalmologists from Haifa restored vision to patients and trained local medical teams in these procedures - Aug 2010)

The Congo (Israel were the first burn specialists on the scene following the oil tanker fire disaster in July 2010)

Angola (mines cleared by Israeli technology - July 2010)

Mississippi (bio-remediation technique used to clean up after oil spills was developed in Israel)

China (a major purchaser of Israeli technology, and recipient of medical aid and training)

South Africa (Israelis trained their doctors to perform circumcisions to prevent the spread of AIDS - July 2010)

Haiti (Israel set-up the largest field hospital to treat victims of the 2010 earthquake, the hurricane and the cholera outbreaks and provided vital assistance for over a year)

Sri Lanka (Israel conducted a massive airlift with food, 50 medical staff and rescue teams only 48 hours after the Tsunami in Dec 2004)

India (Israel sent an fully-equipped field hospital following Gujarat earthquake in Feb 2001)

El Salvador (Israel relief aid following earthquake in 2001)

Georgia (Israel contributed food and seeds for farmers following severe drought in 2001)

Turkey (Israel relief aid following earthquake in 2000)

Mozambique ((Israel relief aid following floods in 2000)

Colombia (Israel sent medical aid and food following earthquake in 1999)

Venezuela (President Chavez has forgotten Israel's aid following floods of 1999)

Central America (Israel sent emergency medical aid teams and equipment to help victims of Hurricane Mitch in 1998)

Pakistan (2005) and Peru (2007) both accepted aid from Israeli NGOs following earthquake disasters.

Peru's hydro-electric power plants are also being built and run by an Israeli company.

Rawanda, Mexico, Chad, Sudan (Darfur) and Malawi all have received humanitarian aid from Israel, including medical assistance from Israel's NGO IsraAID.

 

Always remember that the boycott extends to any individuals from the above regions that have been exposed to Israeli assistance during the 63 years existence of the current Jewish State.

 

Part Four – Other Impacts (http://blogs.jpost.com/content/boycotting-israel-just-do-it-part-4)

 

-Reject all products from the USA. Analysis conducted in a typical US state shows that Israeli innovations were responsible for $2.4 billion in direct revenue to that state’s economy in 2009 and generated nearly 6,000 jobs.

-Do not tutor your children in advanced Mathematics techniques, which may have originated in Israel. Also, if these techniques are used in your children's schools, withdraw your children immediately.

-Keen ornithologists should consider giving up their hobby as many rare species stop off or reside in Israel during their twice-yearly migration.
-Do not watch the new series of NCIS as one of the actresses is Israeli.

-Avoid going to any football matches featuring teams with Israeli players.

-Destroy all your recordings of Madonna, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, Deep Purple, Bon Jovie, Justin Bieber, George Benson, Moby and many, many more artists who have ridiculed the illogical boycott and have proudly performed (or will shortly perform) concerts in Israel.

-Destroy any recordings of U2, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen, Beck, Rihanna Coldplay and any artist whose music has been recorded using the sound technology of the Grammy Award winning Israeli company Wave Audio. You also must get rid of any personal copies of Shrek, American Beauty and Star Wars. Do not trust anything recorded by Sony, JVC, Toshiba or Dell.

-Don't go to see The Black Swan with Natalie Portman, or watch any old films with Elizabeth Taylor - both lovers of the Jewish State.

-Do not stay in hotels or visit shopping centers owned by Israeli companies (sorry, you will need to check which ones yourself).

-Do not have anything to do with the banks who are using Israeli software to prevent fraud.

-Do not use any credit or debit card as the Security monitoring system used by the credit card companies is likely to be Israeli.

-Do not buy an engagement ring containing a diamond as it is possible that this may have been cut in Israel.

-Do not travel by air, as your plane might get towed by the Israeli-built "Taxibot."

-Do not use public transport inside Amsterdam, Moscow or Northern China in case you benefit from Israeli transportation devices.

-If you suffer a power or network failure, be grateful that at least you haven't installed the Israeli system that prevents power outages.

-Finally, you need to leave all your taps running when you leave home and must never flush your toilet, because Israel provides water-saving technology to over half of the planet. It also is providing sewage treatment technology across the world, including to the UK.

 

 

YouTube - Videos from this email

Rules and Guidelines for Westerners reporting on the Middle East

Rule 1 (Incidents involving possible loss of Arab lives)

If there is any incident either in Israel or near its borders in which there are claims of Arab losses you should write a report with the following headline:

“Israeli troops kill X Arab civilians including Y children”

For the numbers X and Y simply choose the highest figures from the following sources:

• Syrian State Television
• Hamas
• Hezbollah
• The Palestinian Authority
• Al Jazeera
• Any person within 20 miles of the incident who is wearing a kaffiya or a Burka.

You do not need to state the source of your claim. In the unlikely event that an Israeli spokesman claims either a different figure or that the incident simply did not happen you may end your report with the following:

“An Israeli spokesman claimed, without evidence, that they ‘acted in self-defence’.

Note that there are certain circumstances where Arab deaths from violence should not be reported at all. This is when Arabs themselves openly claim to be the killers. This applies, for example, in the following cases:

• Mass slaughter in fighting between different rival groups (Hamas vs PA, Hamas vs Al Qaeda, PA vs Islamic Jihad etc)
• Where the victims are accused of being Israeli collaborators

If news of these killings does leak out into the Western media then simply write a brief statement including the words:

“The underlying cause of the violence was the oppressive Israeli occupation”

Rule 2: Incidents involving loss of Israeli lives

If Israelis are killed in a terrorist attack, then treat this as an opportunity to take a vacation from reporting.

However, you should immediately return from your vacation if it is discovered that an Israeli family in Jerusalem is planning to build an extra bedroom to accommodate their new baby. In that case you should write a story with the headline

Israelis destroy chance of peace by announcing new West Bank settlement plans. 

At the end of the article you can use the following statement:

An Israeli government spokesman claimed that the settlement plans were in response to what they claimed was a ‘terrorist attack’. 

The only exceptions to this rule are as follows:

• In the event of a suicide bombing you may interview the suicide bomber’s family and write a sympathetic piece stating how the bomber was a loving family person driven to his/her actions by the Israeli occupation. Be careful to refer to the actual suicide bombing only in vague abstract terms, never mentioning the victims or their families.
• In the event of a particularly brutal terrorist attack, such as the slaughter of an entire family in their home in which a baby is decapitated, you can, if news of the attack reaches outside Israel, write a brief report with the following words:

“Although the Israelis claim that a terrorist attack occurred at X, it is more likely to have been the result of a disgruntled Thai worker, Jewish militants intent on sparking anti-Arab violence, or simply a family dispute. Hamas have claimed they were not responsible but that in any case such actions are the natural response to the Israeli occupation.”

Rule 3: Demographics 

Remember the following important demographics in any report:

• Any Palestinian under the age of 24 is a child.
• Any Palestinian under the age of 12 is a baby.
• Any Palestinian over the age of 33 is a grandfather/grandmother.
• There are no Israeli ‘civilians’ and certainly no Israeli ‘children’. They are just soldiers or settlers.
• Every Palestinian is a civilian. Those who produce suicide videos armed with machine guns vowing to kill as many Jews as possible are simply civilians forced by the Israeli occupation into becoming ‘militants’.

Rule 4: Speaking to the natives

Never interview an Israeli. Although this is especially important after an incident such as the above, it applies equally to any aspect of life in Israel or the Middle East. The only exceptions to this rule are:

• Haaretz reporters
• Members of the Islamic Movement
• Amos Oz
• Any recent American Jewish immigrant living in the West Bank who uses Biblical quotations every other sentence.

To ensure this rule is adhered to it is safest to simply never speak to any Israeli Jew. Hence, make sure that whenever your are in Israel you either stay in the (Arab) American Colony Hotel Jersusalem or are hosted by a member of the Palestinian Authority or a person with a Haaretz press pass.

Rule 5 (Terminology)

• The word ‘terrorist’ must never be used except when referring to Jewish residents of the West Bank accused of acting provocatively in the presence of an Arab. 
• In any report you must insert the word “settler” after the word “Israeli”, unless it is known that they live outside of Central Tel Aviv, in which case you must add the word “fanatical” before “Israeli”. 
• When mentioning any Israeli politician you must insert the word “hardline”, “extremist”, or “right-wing” before their name (if in doubt it is best to insert all three words).
• In any report about Palestinians use the following words: “authentic”, “welcoming”, “poor”.
• When mentioning any Palestinian politician you must insert the word “moderate” before their name, even if they are a leader of Hamas.

Rule 6 (Peace activists)

Any non-Arab in the region who is involved in violent anti-Israel activities is a peace activist. If such a person dies under any circumstances then you must state before any evidence is produced that this person “was killed by Israeli troops”. You must also put out an urgent call to all journalists in the world to write about nothing else for the next 7 days. Also contact every playwrite to request a play dedicated to this martyr of the Palestinian cause.


Rule 7 (Arabic speeches)

Never use the services of an Arabic translator to find out what Arab leaders and clerics are telling their own people, as in “We will not rest until every Jew is dead”. This will ensure you do not have to waste time telling readers that they have directly contradicted what they told you in English (as in “We want peace with Israel”). It will also save you having to explain (or even report) that wild anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are believed by 99.999% of all Arabs. A simple rule of thumb is the following:

Any statement X made to you by an Arab in English is to be treated as unimpeachable truth. Any statement Y made by an Arab in Arabic that contradicts X, can be treated as false and hence ignored.

In the unlikely event that news of the translation gets into the main stream media you simply have to report that the translation is the work of MEMRI – a Zionist organisation dedicated to mis-translation to make Arabs look like anti-Semitic, homophobic, misogynistic psychopaths. If, even after that, the translation is proved to be accurate then you can simply say that the statement was "theatrical rhetoric which was never supposed to be meant literally".

Rule 8 (Israeli evidence) 

Be aware that in most major stories where you are able to cast Israel as the devil incarnate, the Israelis subsequently produce hard evidence (videos, documents etc) that prove they were not guilty of the claims that had been made. In such cases there is no need to report on the new evidence. However, if you wish to remind readers of the original story you can include the following words at the end:

“Israel has claimed that some of these accusations are not true, but sources cast doubt on the authenticity of the Israeli evidence”.

Rule 9 (Rocket attacks against Israel) 

The rule here is simple: Never report on any rocket attacks against Israel. The only exception to this rule is if Israel eventually retaliates. In that case you can lead with a major story reporting that Israel has attacked civilians and you can include the following statement at the end of your 26 page report:

“The Israelis claim that their attack was in response to home made rocket attacks from Gaza/Lebanon.”

Rule 10 (the Israeli population)

• Although you can refer to the fact that 20% of Israel's population are Arabs you should only do so if you include the words "oppressed minority", "abused", "underclass", "impoverished".
• Never ask why over 50% of Israel’s Jewish population appears to have dark or even black skin. This might otherwise force you to reveal that, contrary to your assumption that they are all of European/American origin they are actually native Middle Eastern and Ethiopian.

Rule 11 (Peace Partners) 

Under no circumstances ever mention that the Hamas Charter calls for the death of all Jews and cites the Protocols of the Elders of Zion for its inspiration. Similarly, never mention that, even after the Oslo accords, the Palestinian Authority has never renounced its own charter calling for the destruction of Israel.