Saturday, December 17, 2016
Danon: UN hypocrisy against Israel has broken records
Outgoing United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday admitted that the international body is biased against Israel.Ban condemns West Bank outpost bill, admits UN biased on Israel
In a statement to the Security Council summarizing his ten years in office, Ban said that "we must never accept bias against Israel within UN bodies."
The Secretary General then admitted that the UN has a "disproportionate volume of resolutions, reports and conferences criticizing Israel" and that "in many cases, rather than helping the Palestinian cause, this reality has hampered the ability of the UN to fulfill its role effectively."
At the same time, Ban criticized Israel over the Regulation Law, which recently passed its first reading in the Knesset and would legalize the status of some communities in Judea and Samaria.
"I strongly urge legislators to reconsider advancing this bill, which will have negative legal consequences for Israel and substantially diminish the chances for Arab-Israeli peace," Ban said, according to the Reuters news agency.
Israel's Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, reacted to the Secretary General's statement with regards to Israel and criticized the UN.
"The Secretary General admitted the clear truth; the UN's hypocrisy towards Israel has broken records over the past decade. During this time the UN passed 223 resolutions condemning Israel while only eight resolutions condemning the Syrian regime as it has massacred its citizens over the past six years. This is absurd," said Danon.
"With a new Secretary General set to take office next month, we look forward to the possibility of a new era of fairness at the UN," the Ambassador added.
Ban said that if the bill is passed by the Knesset, it “would for the first time apply Israeli law on the status of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank” in clear violation of international law.Prominent British MP: Anti-Zionism Is ‘Simply Antisemitism Minding Its Manners So It Can Sit in a Seminar Room’
“I strongly urge legislators to reconsider advancing this bill, which will have negative legal consequences for Israel and substantially diminish the chances for Arab-Israeli peace,” he said.
The South Korean secretary-general called for Palestinian unity, an end to Palestinian terrorism and incitement to violence, and a halt to Israeli settlement construction if the two-state solution were to yield fruit.
“The framework for peace remains unchanged: the establishment of two states, on the basis of the principle of land for peace, and a just and comprehensive regional peace consistent with relevant Security Council resolutions as well as with existing agreements signed between the parties,” he said.
Ban didn’t refrain from acknowledging and criticizing his own organization’s bias against Israel in recent years.
“Decades of political maneuverings have created a disproportionate volume of resolutions, reports and conferences criticizing Israel,” he said. “In many cases, rather than helping the Palestinian cause, this reality has hampered the ability of the UN to fulfill its role effectively.”
“At the same time, Israel must realize that the reality in which a democratic state, governed by the rule of law, keeps the Palestinian people under military occupation will continue to generate criticism and calls for accountability.”
Ban called on the Security Council to issue a commitment to the two-state solution, saying “the status quo entrenches a one-state reality of perpetual occupation and conflict.”
“We must not give up on the right of Palestine to exist, just as we must protect the right of Israel to exist in peace and security with its neighbors,” he said.
Anti-Zionism is “simply antisemitism minding its manners so it can sit in a seminar room,” a prominent British Conservative politician said on Friday.
In an op-ed published in the Times of London, Michael Gove — the MP for Surrey Heath and a former secretary of state for justice — wrote, “Antisemitism has moved from hatred of Jews on religious or racial grounds to hostility towards the proudest expression of Jewish identity we now have — the Jewish state.”
“No other democracy is on the receiving end of a campaign calling for its people to be shunned and their labour to be blacklisted,” he continued. “This is antisemitism, impure and simple. It is the latest recrudescence of the age-old demand that the Jew can only live on terms set by others. Once Jews had to live in the ghetto, now they cannot live in their historic home.”
Antisemitism, Gove emphasized, “deserves to be called out, confronted and opposed.”
Furthermore, Gove noted, “the fate of the Jewish people, and the survival of the Jewish state, are critical tests for all of us. The darkest forces of our time — Islamic State, the Iranian leaders masterminding mass murder in Aleppo — are united by one thing above all: their hatred of the Jewish people and their home. Faced with such implacable hatred, and knowing where it has always led, we should not allow antisemitism any space to advance, or incubate.”
Gove ended with a call for the UK to mark the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration — in which Britain announced its support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” — by moving its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Gove: 'Anti-Zionism Is Anti-Semitism, Impure and Simple'
Britain should move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and have the Queen open the new premises in a show of solidarity with the Jewish state, senior Conservative Michael Gove has said.
The former Education and Justice secretary has called for the move as a marker in opposing the rising tide of antisemitism, which he says is being dressed up as antizionism.
The gesture would prove that Britain was “not going to be intimidated by those who want to treat Israel as a second-class state,” Gove said.
Israel is the only country in which the British embassy is not located in the nation’s capital, and the only British ally which the Foreign Office has steadfastly refused to let the Queen visit.
The Foolish Coming War on David Friedman
What horrifies those who will oppose Friedman isn’t his opinion of JStreet or his credentials, but the fact that he is an outspoken opponent of the two-state solution, a supporter of Israel’s settlements, and a believer that the law passed 20 years ago should be implemented that moves the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It is axiomatic to America’s liberals that every one of these things is at the very least short-sighted, or counterproductive, or runs contrary to American interests, or will cause terrible trouble for the U.S. in the Arab and Muslim world. But even those objections pale before the moral rage that asserts it is an act of barbaric immorality to oppose the two-state solution. For not only, in the eyes of its supporters, is it the only possible way out of the perpetual state of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, with Jerusalem divided so that it can serve as the capital of the new Palestinian nation, it is the only way to heal the moral stain of Israel’s “occupation” of the West Bank.Radical J Street Tries to Raise Money off David Friedman Nomination
There isn’t space here to litigate this; Please go back and read the last 40 years of COMMENTARY to discover the 10,000 reasons why such opinions are problematic at best and highly destructive at worst. Suffice it to say that if you believe the current Israel-Palestinian impasse is a stain on Israel’s moral position in the region, you are free to feast on your own self-righteousness, but your perspective is astoundingly askew. Just to take this week alone, there’s a genocide going on about 300 miles to Israel’s northeast, a nightmarish pseudo-caliphate is enslaving women another 200 miles to the east of that, and a barbaric theocracy with a “destroy the Jewish state” doctrine is amassing power another 400 miles further east of that. The idea that Israel, by comparison to its region, is morally compromised is nothing less than unworldly preening.
As it happens, I am a supporter of the two-state solution in theory; but I have eyes to see and ears to hear. If you choose to believe there will be such a solution under current or future conditions absent a wholesale shift in the mindset of the Palestinians, please enjoy your delusion. If you are able to cut through the conventional static to consider a different view and how it might actually make such a shift possible, read Daniel Pipes’s profoundly important new essay in the January COMMENTARY.
But back to personnel being policy. The reason Trump has chosen Friedman is that he has evidently decided he wants to up-end the conventional approach toward Israel and the Palestinians and go in a radically different direction. This was not predictable from Trump’s campaign rhetoric, when he talked about being “even-handed” and wanting to make a great real-estate deal. It’s possible he believes he can defibrillate the occluded heart of the “peace process” by approaching the Palestinians from a highly aggressive pro-Israel stance. If he actually wants to make a real deal, pursuing the entirely discredited approach of trying to drag the Palestinians to the table at which they refuse to sit is the worst possible strategy anyway.
The scalp hunters will be out for David Friedman, but if Democrats decide to go to war over this nomination, the joke will be on them. For one thing, blocking or derailing Friedman is a vastly more difficult thing to do now than it would have been otherwise because Senate Democrats, living in a fantasy world in which his party would always hold the presidency, stupidly invoked the nuclear option on executive appointments in July 2013 and have now made the passage of such appointments a matter of a simple majority vote in the Senate. For another, Republicans in Congress (with a 52-48 majority) are the nation’s foremost right-wing Zionists now and will meet any attacks on him with delighted counterattacks and defenses. And finally, should they succeed in derailing him, there are many other prominent Americans who share his views to whom Trump could turn. Personnel is policy. This is the policy the president of the United States wants to pursue. He’ll get the ambassador he wants, and he will pursue the policy he wants. Know why? Because he will be the president.
The radical group J Street is trying to raise money off President-elect Donald J. Trump’s nomination of David Friedman to be the next U.S. Ambassador to Israel.NYT slams ‘dangerous’ Friedman appointment as Israel envoy
Among their complaints: Friedman once referred to J Street supporters as “far worse than kapos – Jews who turned in their fellow Jews in the Nazi death camps.” J Street is urgently soliciting donations “to fight [Friedman’s] nomination.”
Friedman’s use of that term is objectionable — but J Street has done far worse.
In 2010, J Street was reportedly involved in efforts to promote Judge Richard Goldstone’s “war crimes” report against Israel — which he later recanted. The group denied facilitating meetings for Goldstone on Capitol Hill, but did share contact information with George Soros’s Open Society Institute, which arranged them.
(J Street did not support the Goldstone Report, but it did not oppose the Goldstone Report, either. It applauded Goldstone when he retracted his claims — after the damage had already been done.)
J Street calls itself “pro-Israel, pro-peace,” but it has taken a number of anti-Israel policy positions since it started in 2008, including opposing Israel’s wars of self-defense in Gaza, opposing Iran sanctions, and supporting the Iran deal.
The New York Times has warned against President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of David Friedman as the next US ambassador to Israel, calling the move “dangerous.”Trump team: Embassy will move to Jerusalem, but no timetable yet
Trump’s “chosen representative would be far more likely to provoke conflict in Israel and the occupied territories, heighten regional tensions and undermine American leadership,” the newspaper warned in an editorial published Saturday.
Meanwhile, an op-ed in the paper written by former US ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer called the decision “a serious mistake” that could be “hazardous to peace.”
Friedman, 57, an Orthodox Jew and a Hebrew speaker, has been an outspoken and active supporter of the settlement movement, and has argued that Israel doesn’t face a “demographic threat” to its Jewish character if it fails to separate from the Palestinians. In addition to being a bankruptcy lawyer in New York, Friedman serves as president of American Friends of Bet El Institutions, an organization that supports a large West Bank settlement just outside Ramallah.
President-elect Donald Trump “remains firmly committed” to moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, his transition team said.Dershowitz: Move US embassy to Jerusalem in three stages
“This is a commitment that the president-elect made numerous times on the campaign trail, that he remains firmly committed to,” Jason Miller, a transition team spokesman, said Friday on the daily briefing call for reporters.
The prior evening, Trump nominated longtime adviser David Friedman to be the US ambassador to Israel, and in the campaign’s release, Friedman said he looked forward to working from the embassy in Jerusalem.
JTA asked Miller on the briefing call whether that meant Trump has a timeline for moving the embassy from Tel Aviv, and he said it did not. But he reiterated Trump’s commitment to such a move, noting that he chose as an ambassador someone who is on the record backing the move. Miller said it was too soon, with 35 days until inauguration, to schedule such an action.
Congress recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 1995 and mandated the embassy move, but successive presidents have exercised a waiver on the move, citing national security considerations.
Prof. Alan Dershowitz against the United Nations: Speaking in Jerusalem on Wednesday evening, he said, "If I had to vote on it, I would have to bite the bullet and vote to abolish the United Nations, as I think it has done more harm than good."Erekat: Moving US Embassy to Jerusalem will ‘destroy peace process’
Dershowitz and former Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dore Gold conducted a "dialogue" at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), where Gold serves as President. The occasion was the Annual Memorial Lecture in honor of founding JCPA president Prof. Daniel J. Elazar. Close to 250 people were in attendance.
The topic of discussion revolved generally around the recent U.S. elections and the election of Donald Trump as they relate to Israel, but it predictably veered onto other topics as well. Dershowitz said that in no way could Trump's election be viewed as a "mandate" for his policies, as the United States "is basically split down the middle. Trump won the electoral vote, while Clinton won the popular vote. It could have gone either way! And this is why we cannot allow Israel to become a partisan issue – because we could have lost!"
He further said that he has hopes that Trump will succeed, "but my expectations for this are lower." Dershowitz noted that Trump's appointments so far do not indicate a consistent policy towards Israel. He emphasized that in general, "xenophobia is not good for Israel. Jews should be wary of being seduced by those who are pro-Israel if they are in fact racist, xenophobic, etc. We fell prey to Communists in the 30's and in general, Jews thrive in the political center."
In response to a challenge by Gold regarding his use of the term "populism" concerning Trump, Dershowitz said, "Trump is not a real populist, because he's not an ideologue."
Palestinian Authority chief negotiator Saeb Erekat warned on Friday that US President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem could “destroy the peace process” and send the region to a “path of chaos, lawlessness and extremism.”Thomas Friedman Bemoans Moving US Embassy to Jerusalem: 'Madness,' 'The Full Employment for Iran Act'
Speaking at a press conference in Bethlehem, Erekat responded to the Trump team’s announcement that the president-elect has decided to appoint David Friedman, a hawkish American Jew, to the position of ambassador to Israel.
“Donald Trump’s announcement of his cabinet… is his business,” Erekat said, but then added: “What is not Donald Trump’s business is to determine the capitals of other nations, especially when it comes to occupied East Jerusalem.”
Friedman, 57, an Orthodox Jew and a Hebrew speaker, has been an outspoken and active supporter of the settlement movement, and has argued that Israel doesn’t face a “demographic threat” to its Jewish character if it fails to separate from the Palestinians. In addition to being a bankruptcy lawyer in New York, Friedman serves as president of American Friends of Bet El Institutions, an organization that supports a large West Bank settlement just outside Ramallah.
Erekat said that “no one on Earth is mandated to preempt or prejudge the issue that is there for permanent status negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis. These are issues that were agreed by an American sponsor, an international sponsor.”
Friday on CNN’s “New Day,” New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman criticized President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman.Sweden ‘to seek anti-settlement resolution’ during Security Council presidency in January
Among the complaints Thomas Friedman had about the pick was David Friedman support of moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Such a gesture would upset many of the actors in the Middle East according to Thomas Friedman.
“The issue is we continue — the United States position is that the ultimate disposition of Jerusalem remains to be negotiated by the two sides,” Friedman said. “And until it is, we’re going to keep our embassy in Tel Aviv. Now, moving the American embassy — this is an evergreen. Everyone running for president tosses this out. No one actually does it. Moving the American embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in the absence of an agreed upon solution between Israelis and Palestinians, I would call that ‘the full employment for Iran act’ because I can tell you, Chris, the Iranians, they would be clinking glasses over that.”
“What the Iranians would then do is make a huge issue of this,” he continued. “Paint the Americans as a pro-, basically fanatical right-wing supporter of the worst kind in Israel. And that would then embarrass all the Sunni Arab regimes. They would have to do something further complicating Israel’s relations with them and also with their relations with us. This would put Egypt and Saudi Arabia in a very awkward position. I can tell you the Iranians right now. I mean, they would be sending love letters to David Friedman.”
Sweden will seek to advance a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements when it assumes the council presidency in January, Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom told Palestinian officials during a visit to the West Bank Friday.PM to meet with Amona residents, pledges to demolish illegal construction ‘all over Israel’
“We discussed our (upcoming) presidency,” Wallstrom said after meetings in Ramallah with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, according to the Swedish Expressen newspaper. “We hope that it will be possible for the Security Council to adopt a resolution on the settlements.”
The Security Council presidency rotates between member states on a monthly basis. Even if it gathers enough votes, a resolution against Israel is likely to be shot down by Washington, which holds veto power at the council, though Israel’s leaders have said they have some concern that the outgoing Obama administration might be less inclined to use its veto on a milder anti-Israel resolution in its final days in office.
“Sweden’s policy aims to create a future in which Israel and Palestine can live side by side,” Wallstrom said. “It is deeply worrying that young Palestinians are beginning to lose hope for the future after 50 years of occupation.”
Wallstrom toured Ramallah and Bethlehem during her stay on Friday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday posted a video on his Facebook page in which he pledged to increase enforcement of illegal construction laws to all areas in Israel, intimating that the government will crack down on illegal housing in the Arab sector.PM orders crackdown on illegal Arab construction
Netanyahu addressed the video to residents of Amona, an outpost deemed by the Supreme Court to have been built illegally on privately owned Palestinian land. In the clip he called on residents of a West Bank outpost not to resist the imminent evacuation of the outpost, which is expected in the next few days.
The state has until December 25 to evacuate the outpost. Netanyahu is to meet with Amona residents on Saturday evening, in another bid to head off a confrontation, Channel 2 news reported on Friday evening. Hundreds of supporters have made their way to the outpost in the past few days.
“Dear residents of Amona, my heart is with you,” Netanyahu said in the video. “You are going through a tough time, you and your families and the rest of the people of Israel.”
“The government is committed to settlement in Judea and Samaria,” Netanyahu said, referring to the West Bank by its biblical name, “We are committed to it more than any government in the history of the country,” he added.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday evening instructed Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan to step up enforcement measures against illegal construction in the Israeli Arab sector, in line with a new plan to tackle the issue expected in the coming days.Mossad blamed as Tunisian scientist ‘with Hamas ties’ killed near his home
The plan refers to the demolition of illegal structures in central and southern Israel as well as in the Jerusalem area.
Netanyahu “is determined to see equal enforcement of the law regarding illegal construction, both in the Arab and Jewish sectors,” according to a source in Jerusalem, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Netanyahu’s request came a day after he posted a video on his Facebook page pledging to step up action against illegal construction across the country, intimating that the government would crack down on unlawful housing in the Arab sector.
The video in Hebrew was addressed to residents of Amona, an outpost deemed by the High Court to have been built illegally on privately owned Palestinian land. In the recording, Netanyahu insisted that the law on illegal construction “must be egalitarian. The same law that necessitates the evacuation of Amona, necessitates the evacuation of illegal construction elsewhere in our country,” he said.
The prime minister said he would insist on enforcing laws on illegal construction “in the Negev, in Wadi Ara, in the Galilee, in the center – all over the country.” He was apparently primarily referring to Israel’s Arabs and Bedouins, in whose communities illegal construction laws have not been enforced for decades.
Mohammed Al-Zoari, an aviation scientist and engineer with links to Palestinian terror group Hamas, was shot dead at point-blank range on Thursday in the Tunisian city of Sfax, Hebrew outlets quoted Arabic media as saying Friday evening.Hamas blames Israel for killing its drone expert in Tunisia, vows revenge
According to reports on Israel’s Channel 10 and Army Radio, unknown assailants shot Zoari, who was said to have helped Hamas develop unmanned drones, multiple times when he was sitting in his car near his home.
The reports said between three and seven bullets were found in his body.
According to Channel 10, a senior Tunisian journalist said the Israeli spy agency Mossad had been tracking Zoari for quite some time, and was responsible for his assassination.
Israel’s Channel 2 news said Zoari was reported to have received death threats because of his Palestinian terror links.
However, Channel 2 also quoted Tunisian security officials as saying that the investigation of the death did not currently suggest an assassination by a foreign intelligence agency.
Hamas on Saturday evening blamed Israel for Thursday’s killing of Mohammed Al-Zoari, a Tunisian aviation scientist and engineer who developed the terror groups unmanned drones, and vowed revenge.Israel returns 7 bodies of Palestinians killed in security incidents
Accusing Israel of the assassination, Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, said Zoari’s death constituted an attack on it, and that “his blood will not be spilled in vain,” Army Radio reported. It said he had “acted against Israel, in the defense of Palestine.”
Earlier on Saturday, Hamas officials confirmed Zoari, 59, was a central figure in its weapons manufacture, calling him a pioneer in developing its unmanned drones.
Hamas said Zoari had been a member of its military wing for the past 10 years. It published a poster showing Zoari with an unmanned drone in what appeared to be a training session. The poster bore the logo of Hamas’s military wing and referred to Zoari as a commander.
Tunisian newspapers rushed Friday to blame Mossad for the killing of Zoari — who was shot dead at point-blank range in his car outside his home in the Tunisian city of Sfax.
According to Channel 10, a senior Tunisian journalist said Mossad had been tracking Zoari for quite some time, and was responsible for his assassination.
Israel has handed Palestinian authorities the bodies of seven Palestinians killed during attacks, clashes and arrests over a period spanning six months, the army said Friday.Nine suspects in shooting of PA cops turn themselves in
The move was “in accordance with government directives,” an IDF spokeswoman told AFP, and came a week after the Israeli government informed the High Court it would be willing to return seven out of 10 bodies of Palestinians from the West Bank that it had been holding.
The remaining three were not to be returned at this point because they were affiliated with the Hamas terrorist group.
Four of the Palestinians whose bodies were returned Friday came from the Hebron area of the southern West Bank, a focal point in the recent wave of attacks, with the other three hailing from the Tulkarem and Nablus areas to the north.
One body belonged to a man suspected of criminal activity who was shot dead by police in September, and another assaulted Israeli soldiers during a riot in October, the spokeswoman said.
The other five — one of them a woman — were Palestinians who had either attempted or succeeded in carrying out stabbing or car-ramming attacks on Israeli security forces or civilians since June, according to the spokeswoman.
Nine wanted suspects for allegedly participating in the shooting of two Palestinian Authority security officers in August turned themselves in on Friday, Nablus Gov. Akram Rjoub said.Israeli group asks US court to block Boeing deal with Iran
“After months of being pursued, the group accused of killing Palestinian security personnel decided to listen to the voice of justice and reason and turned themselves in to the security forces,” Rjoub told Palestinian journalist Muath al-Shareeda on Friday in a telephone call.
The suspects who turned themselves in are: Imad al-Din Ahmad Iz Halawa, Muayid Fathi Saba Astitiah, Saif al-Din Ahmad Iz Halawa, Jamal Ahmad Iz Halawa, Muhammad Tahsin Abd al-Mujid al-Ghanim and Ihab Nabil Khalid, according to Maan, a Palestinian news outlet.
Gunmen and PA police exchanged fire in the Nablus casbah in mid-August, resulting in the death of two PA officers, Muhammad Taraira and Shibli Bani Shamsa.
Following the clash, the PA security forces began to round up suspects involved in the shooting of the two officers, but many remained at large over the past several months, according to PA security officials.
An Israeli advocacy group on Thursday asked a US federal court to block aerospace giant Boeing’s planned $16.6 billion deal with Iran Air, saying the Tehran government must first pay off billions of dollars in damages to families of people killed or wounded by Iranian-backed terror groups.The BBC and the ‘apartheid’ smear
In papers filed in the Northern District of Illinois court, the Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center organization said it was seeking a lien against Boeing until the damages against Iran are recovered.
“We are going to seize all 100 airplanes,” said Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the group’s director. “If Boeing thinks it will simply sell to Iran Air, which is 60 percent owned by the Iranian government, and pretend it is providing some sort of humanitarian civilian aid to a non-governmental entity, we will reveal the truth.”
Boeing did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Darshan-Leitner has represented attack victims in dozens of lawsuits in American courts. She said 10 rulings in her favor have ordered Iran to pay victims some $2 billion in compensation. Thus far, she says she has been able to collect about $200 million in seized Iranian bank accounts and assets on American soil.
Despite all that amplification (and more), not once in those four years has BBC Watch been able to document an explanation having been provided to BBC audiences as to why the ‘apartheid’ trope is false, why used by anti-Israel activists and what is the aim of that tactic.How did South Carolina pioneer BDS legislation?
As has been noted here before:
“As Norman Finkelstein (not one of the better known card-carrying Zionists) pointed out earlier this year [2012], the makers of those demands [the BDS campaign] have one end-game in their sights.
“They call it their three tiers… We want the end of the occupation, we want the right of return, and we want equal rights for Arabs in Israel. And they think they are very clever, because they know the result of implementing all three is what? What’s the result? You know and I know what’s the result: there’s no Israel.” […]The methods used to try to bring about that end game include the delegitimisation of Israel: the attempt to paint a picture of a country so morally unacceptable that any ‘right-minded’ person cannot possibly tolerate its continued existence.
One way of doing that is to use the ‘apartheid’ trope. By deliberately employing rhetoric which the public associates with a universally morally unacceptable theme, the BDS movement aspires to brand Israel in the minds of the general public with the same stigma as the former racist regime in South Africa.
Of course a close and factual examination of the situation immediately reveals that the use of the ‘apartheid’ trope in relation to Israel is utterly unfounded. But sadly, many if not most members of the general public do not have sufficient knowledge of the facts to be able to assess the ‘apartheid’ trope for what it really is: a rhetorical tactic relying on the human mind’s natural tendency to make associations.”
But in addition to failing to provide its audiences with the context which would enable their understanding of why the false ‘apartheid’ smear is used, the BBC has for the most part also ignored the views of people who really did experience apartheid. A publication produced by ‘Africans for Peace’ provides some interesting insights from four South Africans who have visited Israel.
Ohio became the 15th US state to pass legislation banning business with companies that boycott, divest from or sanction Israel last week, joining an effort that began in May and June 2015 with Illinois and South Carolina.
Illinois might not have surprised anyone with its nearly 300,000-strong Jewish constituency in Chicago and surrounding suburbs. But South Carolina, which has only some 20,000 Jews, raised eyebrows.
State Rep. Alan Clemmons, who initiated the bill, came to the Knesset on Wednesday, guiding a group of legislators from Texas who want to pass a similar bill in their state.
“South Carolina is the most pro-Israel state in the US,” Clemmons said in an interview in the Knesset. “We don’t have a huge Jewish population but we do have plenty of Israel loving Christians. If the South is the Bible Belt, South Carolina is the buckle of the Bible Belt. Then again, the Texans would wrestle me for saying that.”
Clemmons said a 2011 speech by US President Barack Obama in which he called for two states for two peoples with Jerusalem as the capital of both inspired him to work against dividing Jerusalem and pressuring Israel to give up its heartland.
“It bothered me so much that I drafted resolution that Israel is the occupier of no one’s land,” he recalled. “All the Republicans in our State House signed on as co-sponsors. To my surprise, the Democrats signed on, and it passed unanimously, proving that support for Israel in South Carolina is not a political issue but part of American patriotism.”
