RUTHFULLY YOURS

When the Israeli Ministry of Exterior invited me to visit Israel as part of a delegation of European-based Arab journalists and media representatives, I accepted without hesitation. The goal of the invitation was to provide us with an opportunity to freely explore the different dimensions to life inside the state of Israel. Located in the heart of the Middle East and one of the region’s central and enduring conflicts, Israel receives a large amount of attention from neighboring peoples curious about the state itself and its management. Although major developments in international communication and accessibility of knowledge have transformed the world into a connected community that now sometimes resembles a small village, Arab media coverage of Israel continues to be characterized by a lack of clarity and misrepresentation, making it difficult for Arab citizens to truly understand the country. The persistent and recurring problems in the West Bank and Gaza are of major concern to many Arabs, but media sources often conflate the State’s controversial foreign policy with life inside the the country itself and produce dystopian visions of life inside its borders.

While not an article or analysis, the following is an honest testimony of what I saw during my visit, without influence by any person or institution. I hope to present an alternative perspective from other Arab media outlets that I have found to exaggerate and mischaracterize the realities of Israeli life.

On my flight from Rome to Tel Aviv on Israel’s El Al airlines, I thought about what awaited me and what I would see. Although I had an idea of what Israel was like and friends who have told me of their experiences working there, memories of the accumulated assumptions about the place that I had gained throughout my childhood in Egypt presented a conflicting counter narrative. I wondered which was the truth: what I now knew, or what had been instilled in us Egyptians as children. Do the “Jews” in Israel actually hate Arabs? If they found out I was Egyptian, would treat me poorly? Would I be verbally or physically abused if Israelis heard me speaking Arabic?

Halting my train of thought, a man sitting next to me with his wife asked me something in Hebrew. In English, I explained that I didn’t understand the language. The man then apologized and asked in English, “Where are you from?” When I answered that I was from Egypt, he and his wife smiled genuinely and welcomingly. These were not the fake smiles our schools, society, television, and film had attributed to Israelis and Jews.

When I arrived in Israel’s financial capital, Tel Aviv, the airport’s clean atmosphere and facilities left me wondering whether I had left Europe. Its modernity left little doubt that I had entered a developed country.

On May 31, Middle East Forum President Daniel Pipes joined an estimated 2,000 diplomats, public officials, journalists, and other opinion makers from around the world at a special conference on the delegitimization of the State of Israel at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

The unprecedented nature and size of the conference, entitled “Building Bridges, Not Boycotts,” befits the scope of this growing problem. Founded nearly 11 years ago, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) seeks to lobby governments, companies, universities, artists, and others to sever ties with Israel. Supporters say that Israel alone should be singled out among the nations of the world for its alleged human rights abuses and violations of international law.

Opponents say BDS has nothing to do with actual Israeli transgressions and is “not about helping the Palestinians or bringing peace,” as Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon remarked in his address to the conference. Its “only goal is to bring an end to the Jewish state … BDS is the true face of modern anti-Semitism.” As MEF fellows Alexander H. Joffe and Asaf Romirowsky explain, the BDS movement in the West is propelled by “an unholy alliance of far-left organizations and Muslim Brotherhood-backed Islamists,” centered primarily in universities and unions.

According to a new poll, a third of Americans now think boycotting Israel is ‘justified.’

Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour boasted that conference is an “admission” that Israel is “losing ground at American universities and colleges to BDS,” and he’s right. In fact, the BDS movement has continued to make advances on U.S. campuses, winning 12 of 26 BDS referendums last year, as well as a Middle East Studies Association (MESA) resolution lauding “calls for [anti-Israel] institutional boycott, divestment, and/or sanctions” as “legitimate forms of non-violent political action.”

The success of America’s institutions of higher learning is thanks in no small part to the largesse of America’s most generous citizens — persons with names such as Rockefeller and Carnegie. That tradition continues today. But one of the names has left-wing groups in a fit.

According to UnKoch My Campus (UKMC), a group of “students and activists” dedicated to exposing “the Kochs and their vast network of front groups,” the brothers have donated to more than 300 colleges since 2005. Kelly Riddell of the Washington Times estimated the total amount at $68 million as of 2013. UKMC alleges that these donations are intended “to undermine the issues many students today care about: environmental protection, worker’s rights, healthcare expansion, and quality public education, to name just a few.”

Supposedly in the interest of “accountability,” UKMC has been using open-records laws to intimidate professors and administrators involved in any academic work associated with Koch donations.

Last year, Ross Emmett, co-director of Michigan State University’s Center for Innovation & Economic Prosperity, who used Koch money to found a seminar — the Koch Scholars — that studies political economists such as F. A. Hayek and Karl Marx, was forced to release documents to student activists. In 2014, the head of the University of Kansas’s Students for a Sustainable Future filed a state records request demanding a decade’s worth of private correspondence from Professor Art Hall, director of the Center for Applied Economics at the University of Kansas School of Business. Hall, who had received a seed grant from the Fred and Mary Koch Foundation and testified against green-energy quotas before the state legislature, sued, alleging a “fishing expedition.” A year later, he reached a settlement with the university.

And as we see, the Israel-haters from the “Australia Palestine Advocacy Network”are on the campaign trail:AIJAC, meanwhile, has posed thirteen questions a-piece to current prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and his main rival, ALP leader Bill Shorten, regarding their respective policies regarding Israel.

As will be seen by clicking this link, both parties are broadly similar on most issues. There is nothing that can be considered over-the-top hostile or alarming from either of them. Nevertheless, there seems to be little doubt that the ALP is worse from a Jewish communal perspective, especially if we read between the lines.

For unlike the Coalition the ALP is increasingly dependent on the Muslim vote, especially in western Sydney and in north Melbourne. It also is dependent on the Greens, who are openly hostile to Israel. The ALP also has various left-wing anti-Israel activists.

Reading the answers to the questions, there are several areas of concern:

– Counter-terrorism”: The ALP emphasises “early intervention and community engagement” and quotes that “we can’t arrest our way to success”. These are cop-outs, and suggest that terrorists won’t be monitored and stopped as effectively under an ALP government as under the Coalition.

-Schools: There is little between the two parties, but the ALP purely needs-based policy should be looked at closely for its possible impact on Jewish day school funding.

– The ABC (Australia’s equivalent of the BBC): The Coalition hasn’t been great, not with Turnbull as Communications Minister, but it seems clear that an ALP government would adopt a hands-off policy towards the ABC, even if (as it is) it is blatantly controlled by the Left and is hostile to Israel.

– 18C: This legislation can be used, and has been used, by leftists to silence conservative columnist Andrew Bolt and others, and should be repealed or modified. It is an open invitation, under an ALP government, to silence anti-Muslim blogs. It should have been repealed by Tony Abbott, who chickened out, but at least it is not being used as a left-wing weapon.

– UN Votes: An ALP government would obviously be more critical of Israel at the UN than a Coalition government.

So, leaving aside other policy issues, it seems clear that the ALP is at least marginally worse across the board.

Meanwhile, from the BDSers in Adelaide, who are a persistent bunch indeed, a singularly amateurish piece of work kicks of a new campaign of theirs: