Why Do the ‘Greens’ Hate Israel?

by Joshua S. Block   March 7, 2019

The day of March 30, 2018, marked the beginning of violent Hamas-orchestrated riots along the Israeli-Gaza border. Many thousands of acres of Israeli farmland and beautiful wildlife reserves have been destroyed because of a willful assault on nature, carried out by incendiary airborne devices launched by Palestinian terrorist organizations.

The shameful weaponization of nature is a major concern to the global green movement that advocates a progressive, socially democratic left-wing agenda informed by ecological wisdom and environmental protection.

Or, you would think so.

But while Israel’s farmlands were devoured by flames and defenseless animals suffocated in raging fires, representatives of the American Green Party traveled in November to the International Criminal Court in The Hague to deliver a letter calling for a full investigation into alleged “war crimes” committed by Israel against the Palestinians.

The letter claims that Palestinian rioters “have defended themselves mostly with rocks, burning kites, balloons and tires, homemade rockets and starkly tragic human suicide bombers” in the face of “the heavily blockaded Gaza border.”

Nowhere in the letter was the Green Party calling for an end to the Palestinian war on nature, even though the deliberate stockpiling and burning of thousands of tires on the border fence caused serious environmental damage and jeopardized the health of both Israeli and Palestinian civilians.

Neither were they calling for an immediate stop to animal cruelty, even though Hamas used animals to set the fires – and with barrages of incendiary kites and balloons, caused an unprecedented destruction of their natural habitats, as well as the animals themselves.

In a world that faces continuing environmental and ecological catastrophes in the form of mass pollution, climate change, hurricanes, floods and earthquakes, it is indeed absurd that the US Green Party has chosen to make the stigmatization of Israel as a priority.

Lending extra absurdity to the stigmatization policy is the fact that Israel excels in many areas championed by the international green movement – from the protection of natural resources to cutting-edge solutions for water shortages, reduced pollution and sustainable energy conservation. Then why is the Green Party so obsessed with Israel?

The Green Party promotes “the creation of one secular, democratic state for Palestinians and Israelis on the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan” – a thinly veiled call to end Israel as a Jewish state, which echoes the rallying cry of Palestinian terrorist organizations: “From river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

But that’s not enough. The Green Party also supports the virulently anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement that is aimed at ending Israel’s very existence. In the name of its so-called “social justice” and “identity politics,”

Cloaked in the language of progressive idealism, far-Left antisemitism has been mainstreamed by traditional left-wing actors. That’s why this form of antisemitism is so dangerous. The Labour Party in Britain is one example. The Green Party in the US – which is prepared to endorse a form of discrimination that other democratic parties have made clear is completely unacceptable – is another.

There’s nothing “green” about the ghettoization of Israel.

BDS Counter-Productive To Peace

By Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman  

The former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, once said, “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.”

Yehuda Cohen, CEO of Lipskin Company, located in the Barkan Industrial Park, recited those words on Wednesday at the Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference. Speaking on a panel titled, “Coexistence in Conflict: How BDS Undermines the Chance for Peace,” Cohen explained that he employs 100 people in his West Bank plastic factory – 70 Palestinians and 30 Israelis.

“I give my Palestinian workers hope that can build their homes, hope they can send their children to university, hope they can live a normal life,” said Cohen, noting that these employees make higher salaries in Israel than in the Palestinian territories. His factory, he added, “is a bridge for peace.”

“If BDS or any kind of labeling or boycott is successful, we can say we lost the option to live in this area,” said Cohen. “I believe that work brings hope and boycott brings suffering.”

Minister of Strategic Affairs Gilad Erdan reflected on Airbnb’s decision in an earlier speech at the conference, calling it “appalling in its hypocrisy, outrageous in its discrimination, and counter-productive in its effects.”

“This policy of distinguishing or differentiating between Israel and Judea and Samaria is discriminatory, counter-productive and simply dangerous,” he said. “This policy is counter-productive becomes it aims to undermine the very activities that can form the basis for a viable peace.”

The best model for Israeli-Palestinian coexistence can be found in industrial areas in Judea and Samaria, Erdan said. Here, Israelis and Palestinians, Jews, Muslims, Christians and Druze all work together in mutual respect and harmony, yet these areas are a main target of the policy that calls to distinguish between Israel, and Judea and Samaria.

“Nothing could be more counter-productive to peace,” he said.

This was true in October 2015, when some 500 Palestinians lost their jobs when the SodaStream headquarters moved from its location in Mishor Adumim industrial park in the West Bank to a new facility in Lehavim, within the Green Line, due to pressure from the BDS movement.

“There was no great elation for the BDS movement because it quickly discovered that hundreds of Palestinians lost their jobs,” said Efrat Mayor Oded Ravivi, who also spoke on the panel. Ravivi said what BDS supporters don’t understand is that its outcome is worse for the Palestinians.

“For us [the Israelis] it might be unpleasant, but we are way stronger and more financially stable,” he said.

He added that BDS supporters are out of touch with the reality in Judea and Samaria, since many choose not to visit. He cited the popular Rami Levy grocery store that is in the center of the Gush Etzion junction, where “Jews and Arabs are walking up and down the same aisles.” He said it is the chain’s most profitable branch.

To help showcase this co-existence and the unique products being farmed and created in Judea and Samaria by Jews and Arabs alike, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs hosted a display table at the conference. Diplomats could touch and taste West Bank products and talk with representatives from the area.

Special emphasis is placed on the innovative solutions to agricultural challenges that serve both communities and the day-to-day peaceful coexistence that working together fosters.

“While we work to counter the lies and pressure of the boycott organizations, we’re also working to spread the truth about Israel and support those harmed by the boycotts,” Erdan said.

A Palestinian businessman, Ashraf Jaabari, also spoke on the panel. He told listeners about the recent launch of the Judea and Samaria Chamber of Commerce and Industry, where both Israelis and Palestinians can participate.
“I believe if we continue to work hard, we will get to excellent results,” Jaabari said.

But Ron Brummer, director of operations at the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, said while working to combat BDS, it is also important to label it for what it is – antisemitism.

Brummer said that according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, signaling out Israel is defined as antisemitism.

He then compared the BDS movement to a load of dirty laundry.

“You throw in antisemitism, terrorism, and delegitimization. The washing machine works and out comes a message of human rights, justice and equality,” Brummer said. “You cannot talk about annihilating the State of Israel. So, BDS is used to cover up the movement’s true face: antisemitism [which is] linked to terror and denying the mere existence of the State of Israel.”

Brummer added that BDS is a tool being used by those who want to delegitimize Israel. He said there is no threat that BDS will cause the Israeli economy to collapse. Rather, it “eats at the hearts and minds of the uneducated, of people who don’t know the reality of this area.”

Brummer, however, said to attending diplomats: “You have to realize that any victory for BDS is a defeat of coexistence.”

Double standard anti-Semitism pure and simple

Following the Airbnb decision to give in to the BDS campaigners, the Simon Wiesenthal Center is urging its 400,000 constituent members and Jews the world over to boycott Airbnb after its CEO announced it will no longer allow its services to be used by Jewish residents on the West Bank.

“This is double standard anti-Semitism pure and simple. Nowhere else on the planet has Airbnb stopped making its service available in disputed territories, except Judea and Samaria,” said Rabbis Marvin Hier and Rabbi Abraham Cooper, SWC Founder and Dean and Associate Dean and Director, Global Social Action Agenda.

“To be clear, no Israeli leader, left, right, or center, would ever return to the indefensible ‘Auschwitz borders,’ a term coined by the founder of Israel’s peace movement, the late Israeli Foreign Minister, Abba Eban,” they added.

"We take note that Airbnb has no problem doing business in the territory of the Palestinian Authority, which names schools and shopping centers in honor of mass murderers who have killed innocent civilians and have a ‘pay to slay’ policy when it comes to killing Jews.

“We don’t expect Airbnb to be geo-political experts, but today’s draconian and unjust move, which only empowers extremists and terrorists, merits only one response—taking our community’s business elsewhere," the Rabbis concluded. 

Suddenly the World Sees the Emperor has no Clothes

There is no question that feathers have been ruffled as the USA starts to call a spade, a spade. The fact that the emperor has no clothes and no one dared to say so is now being discussed openly.

 NATO member nations always would promise, indeed swear, that they would meet their military spending commitments, even as they had no intention at all of doing so. Fine, said the Americans, since World War II it has been the duty of the United States to lead and protect the West. American presidents would lecture NATO nations about their promised obligations and meanwhile expect public nods and private snickers. In the New York and Washington corridor, the gospel was never to question the changing role or funding of NATO but always to utter “NATO is the linchpin of the West.” This is no no longer the case.

The Palestinians always have to remain  “refugees” in a way that similar displaced people who were also forced out of their homeland — Prussians, Jews of the Middle East, or Volga Germans — no longer have refugee status, after more than 70 years. The USA has now accepted reality and quit funding the United Nations relief organization that supposedly attends to “refugees” who in reality are a political tool deemed useful for demonizing Israel around the world. The UNWRA self defined status of a refugee is not acknowledged in any other international agency.

Jerusalem has long been privately accepted as both the historic and natural capital of Israel, (whether it be all Jerusalem or only a part), and it’s now far more open and freer than it was prior to 1967. But we were not supposed to say that given fears of Palestinian anger, or terrorist attacks, or inflaming the Middle East. Trump in his supposedly reckless fashion simply moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and other nations strangely are beginning to follow.  

Even the BDS campaigners are now publicly being acknowledged as campaigning for the destruction of Israel rather than the human rights of the Palestinians.

Palestinian takes the European Parliament by Storm

Palestinian Mudar Zahran takes the 

European Parliament by Storm: 

BDS hurts us, 

We want peace

Brainwashed "Intellectual" Fascists

A letter written below by a non - Jewish Scottish professor to his students who voted to boycott Israel. 

It's a response from Dr. Denis MacEoin, a non-Jewish professor, to the motion put forward by The Edinburgh Student's Association to boycott all things Israeli, in which they claim Israel is under an apartheid regime.  Denis is an expert in Middle Eastern affairs and was a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly.  Here's his letter to the students:

TO: The Committee Edinburgh University Student Association.

May I be permitted to say a few words to members of the EUSA?  I am an Edinburgh graduate (MA 1975) who studied Persian, Arabic and Islamic History in Buccleuch Place under William Montgomery Watt and Laurence Elwell Sutton, two of Britain 's great Middle East experts in their day.  I later went on to do a PhD at Cambridge and to teach Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University .  Naturally, I am the author of several books and hundreds of articles in this field.  I say all that to show that I am well informed in Middle Eastern affairs and that, for that reason, I am shocked and disheartened by the EUSA motion and vote.

I am shocked for a simple reason: there is not and has never been a system of apartheid in Israel .  That is not my opinion, that is fact that can be tested against reality by any Edinburgh student, should he or she choose to visit Israel to see for themselves.  Let me spell this out, since I have the impression that those members of EUSA who voted for this motion are absolutely clueless in matters concerning Israel, and that they are, in all likelihood, the victims of extremely biased propaganda coming from the anti-Israel lobby.

Being anti-Israel is not in itself objectionable.  But I'm not talking about ordinary criticism of Israel.  I'm speaking of a hatred that permits itself no boundaries in the lies and myths it pours out.  Thus, Israel is repeatedly referred to as a "Nazi" state.  In what sense is this true, even as a metaphor?  Where are the Israeli concentration camps?  The einzatsgruppen?  The SS?  The Nuremberg Laws?  The Final Solution?  None of these things nor anything remotely resembling them exists in Israel, precisely because the Jews, more than anyone on earth, understand what Nazism stood for.

It is claimed that there has been an Israeli Holocaust in Gaza (or elsewhere).  Where?  When?  No honest historian would treat that claim with anything but the contempt it deserves.  But calling Jews Nazis and saying they have committed a Holocaust is as basic a way to subvert historical fact as anything I can think of.

Likewise apartheid.  For apartheid to exist, there would have to be a situation that closely resembled how things were in South Africa under the apartheid regime.  Unfortunately for those who believe this, a weekend in any part of Israel would be enough to show how ridiculous the claim is.

That a body of university students actually fell for this and voted on it is a sad comment on the state of modern education.  The most obvious focus for apartheid would be the country's 20% Arab population.  Under Israeli law, Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews or anyone else; Muslims have the same rights as Jews or Christians; Baha'is, severely persecuted in Iran, flourish in Israel, where they have their world center; Ahmadi Muslims, severely persecuted in Pakistan and elsewhere, are kept safe by Israel; the holy places of all religions are protected under a specific Israeli law.  Arabs form 20% of the university population (an exact echo of their percentage in the general population).

In Iran, the Bahai's (the largest religious minority) are forbidden to study in any university or to run their own universities: why aren't your members boycotting Iran?  Arabs in Israel can go anywhere they want, unlike blacks in apartheid South Africa.  They use public transport, they eat in restaurants, they go to swimming pools, they use libraries, they go to cinemas alongside Jews - something no blacks were able to do inSouth Africa.

Israeli hospitals not only treat Jews and Arabs, they also treat Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank.  On the same wards, in the same operating theatres.

In Israel , women have the same rights as men: there is no gender apartheid.  Gay men and women face no restrictions, and Palestinian gays often escape into Israel, knowing they may be killed at home.

It seems bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a boycott of Israel and say nothing about countries like Iran, where gay men are hanged or stoned to death.  That illustrates a mindset that beggars belief.

Intelligent students thinking it's better to be silent about regimes that kill gay people, but good to condemn the only country in the Middle East that rescues and protects gay people.  Is that supposed to be a sick joke?

University is supposed to be about learning to use your brain, to think rationally, to examine evidence, to reach conclusions based on solid evidence, to compare sources, to weigh up one view against one or more others.  If the best Edinburgh can now produce are students who have no idea how to do any of these things, then the future is bleak.

I do not object to well-documented criticism of Israel.  I do object when supposedly intelligent people single the Jewish state out above states that are horrific in their treatment of their populations.  We are going through the biggest upheaval in the Middle East since the 7th and 8th centuries, and it's clear that Arabs and Iranians are rebelling against terrifying regimes that fight back by killing their own citizens.

Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs alike, do not rebel (though they are free to protest).  Yet Edinburgh students mount no demonstrations and call for no boycotts against Libya, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iran.  They prefer to make false accusations against one of the world's freest countries, the only country in the Middle East that has taken in Darfur refugees, the only country in the Middle East that gives refuge to gay men and women, the only country in the Middle East that protects the Bahai's...  Need I go on?

The imbalance is perceptible, and it sheds no credit on anyone who voted for this boycott.  I ask you to show some common sense.  Get information from the Israeli embassy.  Ask for some speakers.  Listen to more than one side.  Do not make your minds up until you have given a fair hearing to both parties.  You have a duty to your students, and that is to protect them from one-sided argument.

They are not at university to be propagandized.  And they are certainly not there to be tricked into anti-Semitism by punishing one country among all the countries of the world, which happens to be the only Jewish state.  If there had been a single Jewish state in the 1930's (which, sadly, there was not), don't you think Adolf Hitler would have decided to boycott it?

Your generation has a duty to ensure that the perennial racism of anti-Semitism never sets down roots among you.  Today, however, there are clear signs that it has done so and is putting down more.  You have a chance to avert a very great evil, simply by using reason and a sense of fair play.  Please tell me that this makes sense.  I have given you some of the evidence.  It's up to you to find out more.

Yours sincerely,
Denis MacEoin

Beyond Deception Strategy

BDS... three letters to de-ligitimize Israel through defamation. Hatred, anti-Semitism, sometimes Nazism, often terrorism, feed the BDS behind a veil of "humanity". It is time to expose them, while showing the reality of Israeli society.

Yet More Success Against BDS

SodaStream, an Israeli company, hit the world headlines  when the boycott (BDS) campaigners attacked the company's products claimed they were produced in "Palestinian occupied lands".

The company at the time was employing over 1000 workers of whom 65% were Palestinian.

Fast forward a few years after the company moved its activities to a new factory near Beer Sheva and bingo:-

- Significant growth in new exiting markets
- A share price increase of 300% in the last 18 months
- A workforce offering employment to the Bedouin community

Some of the original Palestinian workforce  have received work permits to allow  them to work in the new facility and although the present numbers , 80 is likely to double shortly, it is a far cry from the numbers previously employed.

The bottom line is that the BDS campaign resulted in more suffering of the Palestinian community while SodaStream just goes on growing,

BDS is Losing

The BDS movement  has been demonizing Israel online since the movement was created and although it has taken time, there is an going backlash by pro Israel activists that are turning the tide.

By highlighting the hypocritical actions of the organisers, more and more people are beginning to realise the true message of these bullies.

Recently virulent anti-Israel critic Ken Loach recently chided rockers Radiohead for performing in Israel, while he regularly screens his own films there. Loach vocally condemns artists who perform in Israel as supporting an “apartheid regime” and calls on others to boycott Israel. However, his latest film “I, Daniel Blake” is currently showing in Israeli cinemas.

Further, more and more States in the USA are passing legislation banning the state from doing business with those businesses supporting the boycott message.

We read almost daily of legal battles being won, most recently the students association at the University of Ontario won a ruling against the banning of a pro Israel group of attending campus events.

In the eyes of the Vice President of the Israel Project the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions operatives are already losers.

“When people read about BDS in the media, they get the sense that the delegitimization campaign is winning. But it’s not, it’s losing in a big way,”

 “Our main message is twofold,” he said. “First, that they aren’t about peace, but about hate and bullying. Every time they reveal their true face, we make sure everyone knows about it. Second, that they fail much more often than they succeed. They are on the defensive. With the help of a very wide and large coalition of organizations in Israel and the United States, these BDS activists are finding it more difficult to operate.”

Hamas is winning hearts and minds in Europe

For full article by Avi Issacharoff go to   http://tinyurl.com/hrlb7yr

Via conferences and through hierarchies linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, Gaza-based terror group, Hamas is building global infrastructure to challenge PLO’s standing as Palestinians’ sole legitimate representative

At the end of February, in Istanbul, the Palestinians Abroad Conference convened with the purported goal of promoting global support for the Palestinians. Its actual purpose was to bolster the status of Hamas in the international arena.

It became clear that many of the organizers and attendees had something else in common: they are known to have been members — for decades — of Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated networks all over Europe. Many of the same faces are present — including current and past members of the Muslim Brotherhood, at a more or less official level, and current and past members of Hamas.

Their shared goal is to promote international legitimacy for Hamas — in Europe, Africa, the Middle East (of course) and even in Latin America — in a bid to challenge the PLO’s international standing as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

Hamas, in this way, is slowly but surely establishing a global infrastructure of supporters who are providing not only encouragement and legitimacy, but also quite a bit of financial assistance.

Tracing the outlines of this infrastructure lends some surprising insights. For example, Britain turns out to be hosting more of this semi-official activity by Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood than any other country in Europe.

One almost quintessential example of such activity under innocent-seeming cover is the Global Anti-Aggression Campaign. The group held many conferences and issued fatwas against the West, such as against France after it began military action in Mali.

The Campaign began focusing on Gaza in 2009, during and after Operation Cast Lead, an Israeli military campaign aimed at stopping rocket fire from Gaza into Israel. At a conference held in February 2009, the group decided to turn Gaza into a new front for jihad under the auspices of the “Istanbul Declaration.” The declaration, signed by 90 Muslim clerics from all over the world, including members of Hamas, stated that the Palestinian Authority was not the representative of the Palestinian people.

The statement attacked the Saudi-sponsored Arab Peace Initiative — a proposal that offers normalization of ties between Arab countries and Israel in exchange for Israel pulling out of territories claimed by Palestinians — calling it nothing less than “a proven betrayal of the Islamic Nation and the Palestinian cause, and a blatant betrayal of the Palestinian people.”

Another example: FIOE, the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe. Thirty-seven different groups in different countries on the continent operate under that organization, and over the years have created an image for themselves as ‘the legitimate representatives’ — the Islamic mainstream. The group is known as IGD in Germany and UOIF in France. The same thing is going on in Scandinavia and almost everywhere.”

These networks operate according to the long-established model of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. In each country there is a network of civil society organizations — in other words, dawa, a word in Arabic meaning proselytizing or preaching of Islam. These organizations are run by well-known figures who head madrasas, or Muslim schools; mosques; charitable organizations that raise money not only for Muslims in Europe but also for Hamas. Recently, Muslim “human rights” groups have been established that work to strengthen support for the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

Many prominent figures in these groups, again, operate on British soil. Here are some examples.

• Muhammad Sawalha, of Palestinian origin, is very well known to the Israeli security establishment as one of the founders of Hamas’s military wing in the West Bank. He also lives in London.

• Zaher Birawi, a former Hamas operative in the Gaza Strip, was one of the spokesmen of the Mavi Marmara flotilla and has been involved in other flotillas.

• Essam Yusuf Mustafa is a former member of Hamas’s political wing, at least according to the US Treasury Department. Mustafa, one of the organizers of the latest conference in Istanbul, is on the board of trustees of another organization, Interpal, which was declared a terrorism-supporting organization by the United States as far back as 2003. Both Birawi and Mustafa live in Britain.

Mustafa was a leader of a group called the Charity Coalition (also known as the Union of Good), which raised money for Hamas in the early 2000s and gained the spiritual support of Yusuf al-Qardawi, the leading Sunni cleric and Muslim Brotherhood member..

There are others, in Britain:

- Ismail Patel, head of the Friends of Al-Aqsa group;

- Daud Abdullah, originally from Grenada, a former member of the Muslim Council of  Britain, who helps operate a news site which takes a pro-Hamas and pro-Muslim Brotherhood stance;

- Azzam Tamimi, a Palestinian who is the CEO of the Alhiwar television station, which operates from London and is considered explicitly pro-Hamas

- Ibrahim Munir Mustafa, also Egyptian by birth, who chairs the international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood movement and lives in London.

The whole BDS issue benefits from this Islamist infrastructure and receives assistance from organizations that are identified with Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood.

Fake News Reportiing

With thanks to Honest Reporting

A question was asked by an anti-Israel activist at an event organized by Israel’s Foreign Press Association. The activist was also the holder of an official press card issued to him by Israel’s Government Press Office. The questioner was Antony Loewenstein, a self-described freelance journalist for publications including The Guardian. Yet when Honest Reporting asked The Guardian directly about him, incredibly Peter Beaumont, the newspaper’s Israel correspondent replied in an email: “I don’t anything [sic] about Antony Loewenstein.”

Either way, Loewenstein was at the press conference. The Jerusalem Post described the exchange as follows:

“You talked before about the idea that since Oslo, Israel has done little or nothing wrong, but the truth is that 2017 is the 50th anniversary of the occupation.

There are now 600,000- 800,000 settlers, all of whom are regarded by international law as illegal, including your good friends in Amona apparently.”

“Is there not a deluded idea here that many Israeli politicians, including yourself, continue to believe that one can talk to the world about democracy, freedom and human rights while denying that to millions of Palestinians, and will there not come a time soon, in a year, five years, 10 years, where you and other politicians will be treated like South African politicians during Apartheid?” he asked.

Lapid pushed back stating: “The problem is that the Palestinians are encouraged by The Guardian and others saying we don’t need to do anything in order to work for our future because the international community will call Israel an apartheid country.”

[See the video below for Lapid’s complete response.]

Dear Anti-Israel Activist

As more and more people seem to realise that anti Israel activism is nothing more that anti Social behaviour, there seems to be a trend to challenge their outrageous bullying. Lies and deceptions are no match for the truth. Even Arab countries are losing patience with the Palestinians as they begin to see what Israel can offer them in so many ways - water, health, food security, military security, to name just a few.

====================

By Nevet Basker  September  2016,

Dear Anti-Israel Activist,

I don’t know you personally, but I know what you do. You demonstrate on college campuses, in front of stores that sell Israeli products, at co-op grocery outlets, and in the town squares of liberal places like my community of Seattle. You wear a keffiyeh and carry signs that say “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Shall Be Free” and other slogans that deny Israel’s right to exist. I see your swastikas and other classic antisemitic images.

I see your placards with names of villages lost when Israel’s neighbors invaded in 1948. I see your props: child-size coffins, for a dramatic effect. Mock “eviction notices” and “apartheid walls.” Posters commemorating the “Nakba”—catastrophe—your term for the Arab failure to destroy Israel.

I hear your chants of “Intifada, Intifada” and “We are Hamas”—glorifying violence against Jews and celebrating their murder. I see you disrupt talks by Israeli scholars and experts—and even by Palestinians who support peace. I hear you call for boycotting hummus (made in Virginia!), and petition artists not to perform in Israel, and demand that pension funds divest from one of the world’s most vibrant economies. I hear you misappropriate terms like “justice” and “apartheid” and “genocide,” divorcing words so far from their true meaning that the language is no longer recognizable.

And I can’t help but wonder: How is all this vitriol, this hateful rhetoric, remotely helpful to the cause of the Palestinian people you claim to support?

If you truly cared about Palestinians, you would fight the rampant corruption of the Palestinian Authority. You would challenge Palestinian leaders who rob their people to line their own pockets, who pay bounties to terrorists and their families. You would oppose Hamas in Gaza for stealing humanitarian aid, international donations, and construction materials to build rocket launchers and assault tunnels.

If you cared about the Palestinian people, you would protest the thousands killed and imprisoned, the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians gassed, bombed, and displaced in Syria. But you don’t, because you haven’t (yet?) figure out how to blame Israel and the Jews for this wholesale death and destruction.

If you really cared about the Palestinians, you would fight to improve their education, public health, and economic opportunities. You would advocate for dismantling the UN agency that prevents resettlement of descendants of Palestinian refugees, instead nurturing statelessness and victimhood for generations. You would object to the brainwashing of children in schools and summer camps, of youth on social media and adults in mosques and the media, indoctrination to hate and incitement to violence.

If you were a true progressive, you would fight for the rights of women, of LGBTQ, and of religious minorities, all of whom suffer enormously in Arab (including Palestinian) societies. If you cared about freedom of expression and a free press, you would oppose the arrest and abuse of journalists by both Palestinian governments.

And if you really cared about Palestinian statehood, you would invest in building institutions and infrastructure, and in fostering a social climate conducive to eventual Palestinian self-rule and self-sufficiency. You would educate for peace and coexistence, not violence and war.

The reason you don’t do any of these things is because, in fact, you don’t care at all about the Palestinians. You represent a campaign of hate and bigotry, disguised as a national-liberation movement. You then add to it a phony veneer of social-justice and—the irony!—a sprinkle of political correctness, in order to attract well-intentioned progressives to support your cause. In reality, you don’t even want a Palestinian state, only to eradicate the Jewish one. (That’s what “From the River to the Sea” actually means, of course.) You don’t support dialog, or peace, or coexistence. You reject overtures at “normalization,” as though being “normal” is somehow objectionable rather than a laudable goal.

You are a fraud. You are, of course, proudly anti-Israel and profoundly anti-Jewish. But you are also, in fact, anti-Palestinian and anti-peace. Thoughtful progressives are waking up to your true nature and looking for ways to truly support the causes of justice, of coexistence, of peace, and ultimately of the Palestinian people themselves.

Director of Pakistan Israel Alliance (PIA) Speaks

Noor Dahri (http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/author/noor-dahri/) of the Pakistan Israel Alliance (PIA) is an independent researcher based in London. He spoke recently in Scotland .

Good to know that even Pakistanis are coming to the truth about Israel

As a former anti-Semite and anti-Zionist campaigner, I am very worried about the recent wave of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel incidents happening across the UK. I know anti-Semitism, I practised it and I can smell the threat which is on its way to the Jewish community of the UK.

In recent weeks, we have seen the UNESCO resolution on the Temple Mount and Jewish connection, the report of UNHRW, and worrying statements from British politicians such as Jeremy Corbyn, Ken Livingstone, Naz Shah, Jenny Tonge and many more. We saw Jewish students attacked at UCL (University College London) and there are many more anti-Jewish events in the pipeline.

After creating a home (Israel), the Israeli community across the world, thought that they were safe, yet 69 years after the creation of the State of Israel, the Jewish community still faces the same hatreds, persecution, blame and political attacks which they faced at the time of the Nazis.
Jews are being blamed for the Holocaust, Israel compared to Islamic State and Zionists said to have power over the UK Parliament. The Palestinian Return Centre has launched a campaign to press Britain to apologise for the Balfour Declaration, while in the House of Lords, Baroness Jenny Tonge, not only criticised Israel but urged the UK government to boycott the Jewish state of Israel.

I feel great pain at the attacks being launched against the Jewish people, their identity and their country, attacks which previously I would have joined. Now as a Muslim willing to stand up against such attacks I urge my Jewish friends to do the same. Sadly, you still face many dangers, but I want to remind you, that you are not alone.

When I look at the flag of Israel, I realise the true meaning of this flag is as the symbol of those six million Jewish martyrs who sacrificed their most valuable lives for the future of their race and religion, for the future of their children and for the future of the only Jewish nation in the world.
There will be many challenges to face, we have seen some recently, in UK politics, in the Labour party, in the Lib Dam party, in the Tory party, in the House of Lords, in educational institutions and in other governmental and private organisations. As a minority community, you may wonder how to counter such hateful behaviour from the majority community? –

Let me offer a question. I am a Muslim Zionist, I am a religious Muslim, ex-fanatic, ex-extremist, ex-anti-Semite, and ex-Anti-Zionist. If I fight your war and raise a war against my own, against my community, against those who share my faith — why can’t you?

I have paid a price for this willingness, can you imagine what kind of life I am spending with my family? I live in exile, no one knows my whereabouts. I cannot go back to my country. I cannot go back to mosques where I used to pray all of my life. But, this is the sign that you are on the right direction, when your enemies become your friends you are doing something right. If I can be changed, then those who are your enemies can be changed anytime.

You cannot win this game of hatred by yourself, you need to help those supporters who are from other communities and faiths. There are people around you who belong to different religions, different ethnics and different backgrounds and still support Israel and Zionism without any worldly benefits. They expended their time and efforts through organising events and writing to promote your campaign.  They are the real potential who stands firm with you in this mission. Please do not lose them because they are the real assets of Israel and Zionism and they sacrificed everything for you and your bright peaceful future.

You need to stand firm together, there should not be rightist, leftist or centralist among you because out there your opponents are uniting against you, they are not divided amongst each other, you know why? Because their goal unites them, to single out Israel and demonise Israelis.

You have to fight for your right but your fight must be a civilised and legal fight. They appear to have the majority of people and powerful political and media backup. But you are the most intelligent, creative, learned and peaceful nation of the world. Your tool of defence should be your pen, your brain and above all, your unity. Please organise yourselves, whatever creative skill you have, use it to defend your nation and the country of Israel.

Please do not forget, that if you are happy with your families and friends, you are working hard and doing your business, you are busy in your entertainment and in enjoying your lives around the world, you still owe a debt to the state of Israel. The smile on your children faces is because of Israel. The state of Israel is at the heart of your identity, your pride and your survival. The state of Israel has provided you the right to live and the right to exist.

Please keep in touch with your real supportive organisations which are working day and night to defend you morally and socially on social, electronic and print media. They organise events and gatherings to remind you your duty which is to defend your identity and your country. These organisations are fighting for your right to live with peace and without any fear.

We must support one another in promoting the cause, of Israel in the UK and across borders. I have a hope and a belief that one day our children will live with peace and love free from hate and without fear of persecution.