….when your main allies profess values of democracy, liberty, and the rule of law, support for colonial settlement, ethnic cleansing, relentless militarism, and racist laws take a little bit of explaining.
Explaining Israel’s colonialism, ethnic cleansing, militarism, and racism has not been easy for Israel’s apologists, precisely because the truth has a way of wanting to be heard, as evidenced in recent rewritings of Israel’s history, which shows that its creation was expedited by the ethnic cleansing of two-thirds of the Palestinian residents. How could Israel ever become a reality when the population of Palestinian Arabs outnumbered Jews two to one and Palestinians owned 90% of the land compared to only 7% by Jews.
The “miracle” that was Israel, it turns out, had less to do with divine intervention than with the beginnings of Israeli-on-Palestinian violence that has continued to this day. When the UN followed up its statehood declaration with Resolution 194 only six months later, of which Article 11 states,
… that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible,
it presumably meant what it said.
The world, with the exception of the US, quickly learned the truth about the ethnic cleansing that occurred. Israel now insists that, honoring the resolution, returning land to the Palestinians via the “Right of Return,” is a transparent attempt to eliminate Israel by means other than war, as if turning Israel into an honest country, not one fabricated on historical lies, would be detrimental to its existence. So the lies continue, at least in the US media.
Not so for the British, Europeans, and peoples of the Middle East, who were neglected for years by Israel’s hasbara (propaganda) efforts to fabricate a different reality.
Mark Elf, who runs Jews sans frontiers, a British site, recently remarked on this fabrication.
Never in the field of human conflict
have so many lies been told to defend the indefensible. I was reminded of one of Churchill’s most famous speeches by the headline of an Ha’aretz editorial. It refers to the onward march of the boycott Israel movement in the UK and it’s titled “The Battle for Britain.” It shows the Zionists in a blind panic over the power of truth against the nasty racist project known as the State of Israel. The Zionists’ panic oozes from every line.
Britain has become in recent years the battlefield in Israel’s fight for its existence as a Jewish state.
Next up we get a taste of the forthcoming hasbara campaign. Just as an aside here. Hasbara, apparently, literally means “explanation.” It has a hallowed place in the Zionist ideology and project because when your main allies profess values of democracy, liberty and the rule of law, support for colonial settlement, ethnic cleansing, relentless militarism and racist laws take a little bit of explaining. Hasbara serves notice on would be Zionist activist that settling in Palestine isn’t enough. You have to be prepared to lie for the war criminals you have chosen to support. So here’s a bit of hasbara (propaganda) to be getting on with….
The Ha’aretz article is oddly defensive of Israel for this liberal newspaper as it speaks to the boycott situation in Britain:
On Wednesday, representatives of the new British University and College Union (UCU) will be meeting in Bournemouth. On the agenda is another proposal to boycott Israel’s academic institutions. These proposals have become as regular and as predictable as Qassam attacks on Sderot. The fact that studies at the Sapir Academic College in Sderot are not taking place because of the constant rocket fire from Gaza, even though the college is not in occupied territory and Gaza is no longer occupied, apparently does not bother British academia. The fact that Hamas, which controls the Palestinian Authority, does not recognize even pre-1967 Israel, and commits acts of terror against civilians, does not matter either. These nuances did not stop one boycott initiator from saying last week that justice in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is entirely on one side.
Is there anyone defending Israel who has not bought into the new hasbara line concerning Palestinian terror, while ignoring Israel’s state terrorism during years in which it wantonly killed thousands of Palestinian civilians, including over 800 children in the last six years, all for the purpose of colonizing Palestinian lands? Is there no longer a military occupation going on?
Mark Elf goes on to attack Ha’aretz for its attack on British boycotts:
The boycott movement clearly has many anti-Zionists on board but it’s mostly aimed at the occupation that Israel could end but hasn’t ended. Also, whilst the Law of Return does lie at the heart of Israel’s racist state structure, it is the denial of the right of return to Palestinians that is considered the villain of the piece/peace.
When a paper that brings us such courageous reporters and commentators as Amira Hass and Gideon Levy has to resort to this kind of dishonesty, Zionism is truly on the ropes. Yes, it will go on for some time to come but the Zionists are all out of arguments. They still have their killing capacity and no shame when it comes to hasbara (propaganda), but the edifice is built on sand.
Are the Zionists out of arguments? Someone should tell that to the blogging Zionists, who seem years behind the latest hasbara. Silence aside, Israel is still occupying the West Bank and Gaza (by siege) and still engaged in colonizing Palestinian land.
Sections reprinted by permission of Jews sans frontiers.
http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/
