New Ambassadors course at Haifa University

The 2014 academic course to combat the delegitimization of Israel has now started at Haifa University.

The curriculum of the university, " Ambassadors Online ," teaches students how to operate against the campaign to de - legitimize the State of Israel and now, after 2  experimental years, grants students starting this semester 4 credits towards their degree in the  Department of Interdisciplinary Studies .

" This is a program designed to train students who wish to explore, learn and ask what underlies the new anti-Semitism and the delegitimization of Israel , as represented , among others , by Apartheid Week , which is an expression of pure anti-Semitism . Ambassadors will train during the program to fight this phenomenon and learn how to research and teach the phenomenon "said Prof. Eli Avraham , academic supervisor of the program and Director of the Comper Center for the Study of Antisemitism.

" Ambassadors Online " opened two years ago as separate part of the graduate program and qualified for an Eligibility Certificate only. The program focused on ways to use the Internet in general and social networks in particular, to fight the de – legitimization of Israel .

Now, with the upgraded academic program , students will be required to ,not only be active , but also to analyze and investigate issues such as anti-Semitism sources old and new , public relations strategies , branding and more.

In the previous two years, the activities of the graduates of the program  recorded many achievements :

-            -  during operation " Pillar of Cloud " they set up a war room information center  presenting the      way Israelis saw the reality on the ground ;

-           -   initiated several advocacy missions abroad ;

-           -   created quite a lot of social media " messaging " that went viral on the Web , including                supporting decision of the actress Scarlett Johansson promoting the SodaStream company;

-           -   brought to Israel, journalists and bloggers from around the world and toured with them in              various cities and more.

Consequently, the program has won praise from public officials in the Foreign Ministry and current program coordinator Maureen Hayo - Hemo even represented the program in two various discussions held at the Knesset : A meeting of the Caucus on Public Diplomacy for academic boycott of Israeli universities and meeting of the Committee of Immigrant Absorption Anti-Semitism on the net.

All these have made the program a magnet for the students and this year nearly a hundred students sought admission to the program,  some students from other universities in Israel and even non- students. After a stringent screening process involving four stages 35 students were accepted from a wide range of ages , backgrounds and religions .

"This year we will focus on the students ability in analytical depth strategy – widening the network of Israeli diplomacy and a significant emphasis on the branding of Israel in the Social media ," said Hayo - Hemo .

"The image and stereotypes against Jews have not changed much among some Europeans, a fact that can be easily seen in the attempts to boycott or call to boycott that Israel faces . I'm sure students who will complete the course will receive tools for academic and practical work to cope with these prejudices," concluded Professor Abraham .

Hostile BDS Meeting

A number of friens in the UK attended a meeting of the Co-op organisation who have adopted a policy of boycotting Israeli products produced in Judea and Samaria.

Following is their report which shows what a small number of people can achieve in such a hostile environment.

When the next motion was due to be put, the chairman read out a lengthy statement from the national Board reiterated the Co-op's policy of not sourcing anything from the illegal occupied territories. Cleverly in my view the motion had Morocco tagged on to Israel for boycott, a cynical move in my view designed to stop being able to claim it was a policy aimed only at Israel.


He said as the motion had been withdrawn he would not allow any debate but that one woman has said she wanted to make a statement. It turned out to be a known local Palextinian Solidarity Committee (PSC) person who congratulated the Co-op and said how delighted she was that their ethical stand against a country with such a bad human rights record was being boycotted


The chairman however had claimed in his opening remarks, and I believed it was reinfoced in the statement that it is not a "boycott of Israel" and the Co-op does business with around 20 Israel companies.


After the first woman another PSC supporter spoke up. It was clear the chairman wanted to close the issue but I jumped up with a point of information (which it wasn;t really but nor was it a legitimate point of order) and demanded the right to put the other point of view as he had allowed two speakers to welcome the policy. I said I could not understand why the Co-op was adopting such a selective policy when there were countries like China, Turkey Syria and Libya who were not subject to this treatment


I also rammed home how it would only be the Palestinians who work agriculture in the territories who would suffer from this policy I also said I wanted to challenge the term Illegal agricultural exploitation as it was neither illegal nor exploitation At that point the chairman insisted I was actually debating the motion which he repeated he would not allow. I said I would respect the chair but just wanted to remind people that this boycotting of Agrexco and other companies would mean the loss of Palestinian jobs and I wanted everyone to think about being responsible for that


AT that point Raymond Solomon sttood up and said he was determined to have his say. Teh Chairman tried to resist this but Raymond would not be silenced and was able to ask the question as to why the Co-op was operating a boycott when even the Palestinian Authority Government did not support this.


Most of the people in the room looked as they didn't have the slightest clue waht was going on!!!


However one or two people did come over and say they were pleased we had spoken up, I was able to distribute quite a few Boycotts damage the Palestinians fliers I had prepared and also gave out some SWU booklets to a lot of the key committee people Raymond and I also used comment cards a helpful committee member provided for us, and we made a lot of the points we would have made if proper debate had been allowed and they will be submitted for answers


The experience reinforced the importance of being at these meetings to counter the PSC line and to ensure fair and balanced coverage of the issue


I advise as many people as possibe to sign up for Co-op membership so we can be better prepared and organised in the future and perhaps present our own motions for debate. I think we need a concerted campign to gun down the Co-op boycott policy by drawing their attention to the selective and discriminatory policy they have in place and to point out with detailed examples how selective they are being. If they hide behind the"ethical" label we need to draw their attention to countries where women have no rights, where gays and lesbians are under threat of being killed, where Christians and Jews are not welcome or are harrassed and downtrodden etc etc.


I took time at the end of the meeting to talk to the chairman (who apologised for cutting me short but said it was only right I could have a say!!) the regional chairman and the regional secretary, and reinforced my arguments. I asked them how many of their pharmaceutical products are of Israeli origin and I also spoke with the Regional Secretary to ask if senior representatives of the Co-op would be willing to go to Israel to see the reality for themselves


He promised to take that forward to Head Office


Although not entirely satisfactory, I still felt it was a job well done and much needed. I am hoping to have people at two other local meetings at least and I am stressing to them not to allow themselves to be silenced, to remain calm and polite, but to refuse to give way


One thing is for sure we took the PSC people and the committee entirely by surprise and I cannot stress how important it is to have presence at meetings like this and to not be afraid to demand to be heard

Palestinian Kids Die as a Result of PA Boycott

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights reported (PCHR) on December 4th that two Palestinian children, members of the same family, died recently as the result of a political decision by the Palestinian Ministry of Health. For the full article see http://tinyurl.com/caevz2h by "Missing Piece" dated Dec 18th

On November 2nd The PA ministry issued a decision decreasing the transfer of seriously ill patients to Israel, citing the high cost of treatment in Israeli hospitals.
The measure has nothing to with finances however, but was the result of the long standing PA policy of boycotting Israel.

PCHR submitted a report on the deaths of Mohammad Azzam Sahwil (9) and his sister Hiba Azzam Shawil (8):

Yearly thousands of Palestinian patients are treated in Israeli hospitals. From the Israeli perspective high costs were never a reason to refuse them treatment.

There have even been cases in which funds for treatment were raised among the Jewish public in Israel. The best known example of this was the story of Mohammed Abu Mustafa, a Palestinian baby from Gaza who was born without an immune system. The baby was saved by Israeli doctors after a anonymous Jewish Israeli donated the costs of the treatment.

The Peres Peace Centre has a special fund known as ‘Saving children’ that enables hundreds of Palestinian children to receive free medical treatment in Israel.

Recently the IDC website No Camels ran a story about a pregnant Palestinian woman who received emergency treatment in the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem.
The woman was pregnant with twins whose blood supply was insufficient. According to No Camels ‘A small catheter was inserted into her womb and using a laser device, her placenta was burnt and separated to two parts – one for each baby. The procedure was carried out successfully and the lives of the twins were saved.’

It is obvious that the decision to deny seriously ill Palestinians treatment in Israeli hospitals has nothing to do with finances but everything with the ongoing political war against Israel by the Palestian Authority.

Last week several planned informal meetings which aimed to promote normalization between Israelis and Palestinians, were thwarted by Fatah. Hatem Abdel Khader, a senior Fatah official, told Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh that Fatah has declared war on all informal meetings between Israelis and Palestinians.

It is highly doubtful however that this new PA attempt to boycott Israel will succeed.

An earlier economic boycott failed miserably after the Palestinian public refused to participate. One has only to visit the West Bank to see that Palestinians massively buy Israeli goods and are involved in trade with Israel. Despite an ongoing ban thirty thousand Palestinians work in the Jewish communities in the West Bank and their number keeps growing.

The current normalization boycott seems to be ignored as well. While Fatah was busy sabotaging reconciliation meetings in Jerusalem and Beit Jallah last week, Israeli scientists met their Palestinian counterparts at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, in order to discuss further cooperation.

So the real victims of this boycott appear to be the seriously ill Palestinians who do not have the ability to ignore this cynical attempt to destroy normalization with Israel.

They say it's good for your health

I have just completed the annual eye tests for glucoma and the like and I suddenly thought to myself how we have come to take these routine tests for granted. If I review the various tests I automatically do each year, even routine blood tests it does seem that there is a great effort in preventative medicine here in Israel.

Life expectancy in Israel at birth is: 79.32 years (2005 est.), males: 77.21 years and female: 81.55 years. the comparable figues for the UK are 78.7 yrs, 76.23 yrs and 81.3 years. by the way the figures for the USA are even lower than the UK. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

With all the controversy of boycotts, the charges of apartheid and racism, the reality is that in the medical field these charges just reflect ignorance.

In a letter to a paper this weekend by the head of a department in the hospital in Safad, he writes: " I invite anyone to visit my hospital to see for themselves the complete equality the Arab citizens enjoy not only as professionals but also as patients".

I must add that I have a number of friends working in the Haifa University and their comments re the academia echo that of the doctor.