David Ofek and the Ethics of Documentary in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Fíorscéal, the primary documentary series dealing with foreign issues on TG4, the Irish national broadcaster’s terrestrial Irish language channel, recently featured a programme called “Gaza Luxuries”. Fíorscéal usually repackage French made programmes for an Irish language audience by doing little more than adding a very brief introduction to the topic by a chap called Maolra Mac Donnchadha, and credits in the Irish language.

“Gaza Luxuries”, which mainly deals with the Israeli policy on imports during the embargo on Gaza prior to liberalisation in 2010, is in fact a 2012 English language reissue of an imported documentary made by Eden Productions. An Israeli filmmaker called David Ofek, directed, researched, scripted, and narrated the piece. The documentary was first shown publicly in 2011. Oddly the production company has used differing titles for the film, e.g. “Luxuries”, and “Meatless in Gaza”, which is a very misleading title since meat was not a proscribed item for import.

Whilst the issue of the embargo is a serious facet of the conflict, which any documentary producer is of course more than entitled to examine, “Luxuries”/“Meatless in Gaza” comes across as propaganda because it stripped the issue of context, misrepresented basic truths, and seemingly applied certain extremely prejudicial visual motifs to scenes that may have been the result of influence by the director.

The politics of the director

Israeli born David Ofek has been making documentaries since the 1990’s, and has received a number of awards for his work. He is married to journalist and filmmaker Ayelet Bechar, whose films seem to appear quite often at defamatory pro-Palestinian pro-boycott events.

One of Ofek’s best known works is a documentary called “No. 17” (2003). It displays a pro-Israel tone because it dealt with a terrorist act on Israeli soil in 2002. In the intervening years he seems to have become explicitly pro-Palestinian. Ofek has since made films with anti-Israeli themes like “The Tale of Nicolai & the Law of Return”, which apparently “broaches serious and central questions about the nature of Israel as a Jewish state and a democracy”, although a less charitable reading may suggest it questions the right of Israel to exist as a principally Jewish State.

Indeed in 2009 Ofek signed a petition by anti-Israeli academics, which advocated the boycott of Israel. The boycott (BDS) movement seeks the effective dismantling of Israel, which it deems “apartheid”. The petition demanded international intervention to stop Operation Cast Lead in an unspecified manner, which could include military action. The text used highly demonising language such as “insatiable Israeli violence”. Thus, Mr. Ofek’s signature is indicative of a hard-line political stance.

Impressions

TG4 promoted the programme with these words:

How the Israeli blockade on Gaza is tightly monitored, with essential necessities deemed acceptable but luxuries being denied. At their weekly meeting at the Defense Ministry, the Israeli bureaucrats move on to the next item on their agenda — hair conditioner purchased by the Palestinians.

It is probable that the programme description was provided by the programme maker or production company behind the documentary rather than TG4/Fíorscéal because the same promotional wording was used for other venues.

The example of hair conditioner cited in the description of the programme suggests the filmmakers penetrated the inner sanctum of Israeli decision making. However, the film does not show Israeli “bureaucrats” making any decisions, quite the opposite in fact. None of said “bureaucrats” appeared on camera or in any audio form attesting to or suggesting such a fact. Secondly, it is misleading to suggest these goods were collectively “purchased by the Palestinians” as if somehow taken from The People. The goods were purchased by a small number of Arab or Palestinian traders who nonetheless appear to be doing business in the Gaza Strip, in part through smuggling from Egypt, as the film itself attests.

And echoing that apparent decision making, Maolra Mac Donnchadha stated during his introduction:

Their [luxury goods] availability depends on what mood the Israeli authorities are in that week.

How changeable was the import policy? The film opens with a truck driver stating certain fruits were allowed in four years previously. However, that is hardly relevant since that was a time before the embargo was introduced when Hamas took power. The film makes much of calves exported from Australia with the intent of going to Gaza but by that stage fresh meat, rather than frozen meat, was prohibited. By the time the exporter decided to do anything with the calves, they had grown into mature cattle, which the programme blamed on the authorities. The co-ordinator finally let the cattle in as a gesture at Ramadan. The film mentioned examples of allowing in chickpeas, whilst roasted chickpeas were not accepted because they were deemed a snack, which was not one of the foodstuffs accepted. Such an example was clearly an example of bureaucracy rather than a changeable attitude. No doubt the policy was harsh and inflexible but it can hardly be considered as changeable as the breeze.

The impressions of the documentary, offered by the programme guide and Mac Donnchadha’s words, clearly derive from the use of suggestion and rumour in the film to make its case on these points. The assertions were not even vaguely shown to be the case to anyone possessing a modicum of scepticism.

However, scepticism is not a common feature in foreign audiences, as even illustrated by Fíorscéal’s own stance. Mac Donnchadha’s brief introduction displayed a remarkably one-sided grasp of the issue, as illustrated by comments such as “the violent attack on flotillas sent to assist Palestinians”, when in fact the Gaza flotillas were very clearly intended to provoke violence, and break the embargo as often suggested by the organisers words themselves. The Flotillas were/are merely propagandistic stunts to cause major harm to Israel’s international reputation. Why else do they repeatedly refuse delivery of aid by the UN from the port of Ashdod? Such points should be blindingly obvious any to journalists but Mac Donnchadha never fails to puts the boot in, and whenever this conflict comes up as a topic, programming hostile to Israel is featured, without exception. This betrays a prejudicial political stance taken by the producers.

Rumour, hearsay and omissions

One of the most notable features of the documentary is the he/she-said dynamic to many of the interviews. Peculiar also is the number of conversations conducted by phone, for example individuals ring up other individuals who may have spoken to someone else, such as the “Co-ordinator” who controls imports to Gaza, and comes across as having a near-mythical status. For example, a man who dealt with fruits rang an unidentified individual in the presence of the camera. Said individual relayed a conversation with the Co-ordinator to explain why kiwi’s were disallowed. Whilst this phenomenon occurs in some documentaries, “Luxuries”/“Meatless in Gaza” relies upon it to an unusual extent.

A number of odd omissions appear in the documentary. For example, near the end of the film, Ofek makes a point about delays due to restricted border crossings. He speaks to a truck driver called Dimitri who makes a point of showing him images on his phone of insects that are damaging the grain he is delivering to Gaza. The images could have easily been shown to the camera or sent to Ofek’s own phone to display for the viewer. Surely such a thing would have occurred to an industrious filmmaker?

The above example is a relatively minor quibble but an important element in documentary is to present robust facts to the viewer. There are more serious omissions in the film, such as when Ofek visited an “Israeli human rights organisation” twice that he never actually names. This should be an important fact because he spends several minutes in two parts of the film discussing their findings with regard to foods that are proscribed or allowed. It is especially odd because he takes the trouble on both occasions to mention the name of the lady lawyer he spoke to at the organisation’s office. Her name is Tamar!

Ofek is most likely referring to an NGO called Gisha. They took the Israeli authorities to court in 2010, to try to force them to provide import lists. However, Gisha has come in for criticism due to the highly speculative nature of the lists it produced and for its overall conduct, which is seen as highly dishonest and damaging to Israel. Gisha also produced a rather astonishing pro-Palestinian video game around the time the documentary was being completed. Besides which, foreign funded NGO’s like Gisha and B’Tselem have a dubious reputation for manipulating facts. Therefore, the omission of their name from the documentary is questionable.

Of border crossings

Much of the documentary became dated whilst it was being filmed because the import rules suddenly changed in July 2010. The final segment of the documentary dealt with the aftermath of Israel’s liberalised policy of importing goods into Gaza, which also expanded the importation of materials for construction projects under international supervision. All goods would be allowed in except for proscribed dual-use items. This turn of events should have surely been deemed good news by Ofek.

However, at this point Ofek starkly misrepresented the truth by focusing exclusively on a reduction of opening days for the Karni crossing, whilst failing to mention that in fact there are several border crossings used for goods going to Gaza from Israel, the Kerem Shalom, Karni, and Erez crossings, while the Sufa crossing is deemed too dangerous.

Attacks at border crossings are a frequent event and so represent a serious security issue. Yet Ofek didn’t mention that traffic through the Karni crossing was cut due to security risks after rocket attacks and attempts to dig tunnels whilst movement through the Kerem Shalom crossing was being greatly intensified, and its infrastructure upgraded.

Here the clear inference was that the import of goods may have been liberalised but Israel is causing unnecessary hardship for truckers, the spoiling of goods, and a lack of sustenance for Gazans. It is hard to believe that the omission of such basic facts could be anything other than an effort to mislead.

A little thing called context

Whilst the materials imported to Gaza were restricted, there was never any question of Palestinians starving, due to the prolific shipment of supplies. As noted, some descriptions of the documentary do state that essentials were allowed into Gaza but there is no mention that there wasn’t a humanitarian crisis, which was an erroneous claim often made by pro-Palestinians.

It is also worth noting that the documentary failed to state that Gaza is a conflict zone. Of course it would be obvious to some but why was there not even brief mention in the narration of the near-daily rocket strikes from Gaza, or the security considerations at the borders that are flash points for conflict? The only mention of security with regard to the liberalising of trade was a rather vague sentence that the issue was important with regard to imports to Gaza. It was a point made by a military official at a meeting between Israeli fruit growers and Arab-Palestinian traders in Gaza, rather than by the narrator.

Ironically, the reality of the conflict was present in the news, whilst the documentary was being shown on Fíorscéal. At the time 200,000 children living near Gaza’s borders had been forced into bomb shelters, instead of attending school, when hundreds of rockets were fired into Israel.

It isn’t overt but there are hints in the documentary that the restricted import policy was an appeasement to the Shalit family (perhaps by the Co-ordinator) or a punishment on Hamas/Gaza whilst their son Gilad was being held hostage. However, this policy was initiated in 2007, at a time when Hamas was engaged in rocket assaults on several Israeli communities. The policy of restricting imports was understood to be an effort to discredit and weaken Hamas, and thereby promote in Gaza the somewhat more moderate Palestinian Authority.

Ethics in documentary

Ofek’s Internet presence is relatively limited but one of his few interviews online features a revealing admission:

[Question] In Home you begin a trend which runs throughout your career, that of blurring the distinction between narrative and documentary?

[Answer] Some of the characters in Home are real. [I play myself and] the grandmother in the film is my real grandmother: The scenes between her and I are almost documentary and are based on what I assume she will say in such a situation. I think this was the first time I did this sort of part-documentary using real characters. And it has worked really well since then. In almost every fiction film I do, there are a lot of documentary elements. And in almost every documentary I do, there are staged scenes.

Similarly reviews of his work note that he crosses boundaries: “Always straddling a fine line between documentary and feature film…”

The above is a troubling admission for Ofek to make. Whilst it is effectively impossible for any documentary maker to remain completely objective since the very decision to look at a certain subject will betray a certain interest, as would pointing a camera in one direction rather than another, it is not a category that benefits from fictionalising. Whilst documentary can be to some extent an expressive form, where the character of the director becomes an element of a piece as is the case in Ofek’s film, it behoves of any documentarian to give the utmost respect to truth, factual content, and evidential material as would befit any non-fiction category. To do otherwise is an ethical abuse of one’s audience.

His interview predates the making of “Luxuries”/“Meatless in Gaza” by two years, and even if there was no staging employed in the documentary in question, it suggests a casualness about the issue, as if documentary relates more to art than fact. Staging might suit a personal piece about one’s family but does not befit that of a conflict issue, particularly a quagmire like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It is impossible to say whether any scenes were staged by Ofek and his team but at the very least it is likely that scenes were influenced to an extent that would be deemed intrusive. For example, there is a meeting in an office where a team of Israeli food exporters are gorging on food. The level of food was almost akin to a banquet, and the camera focused on opulent visuals of food to a significant extent, for example, it lingered on one young man gorging himself on an almost whole chicken carcass. The scene seems an intentional grotesque in a documentary about the restricted access of luxury foods in Gaza.

The prolific consumption of food by Israeli’s represents such a distinctive visual motif in the documentary that it cannot be anything other than intentional, and extremely manipulative. Ofek eats a chocolate biscuit as he rings the phone in an attempt to obtain an interview. A fruit distributor peels a kiwi and demonstrates the variety of ways in which it can be consumed, and discusses how wonderful it tastes. Two men involved with the import/export industry have their food served up in a restaurant, and sit down to eat while having a rather constructed conversation in front of the camera.

Last but not least, a large meat filled roll is put together for Mr. Ofek as seen by a camera located in the cooking area of a van by the side of a road to one of the border crossings to Gaza. The film closes with lengthy shots of him eating the roll as trucks drive by, while he waits for an interview with an official.

Differences in attitude and approach to documentary

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a rich vein for documentary makers over the years. However, the intensive propaganda that has emerged especially in recent decades due to the conflict, results in a considerable test of balance and fairness for any documentary producer. The issue is all the more grave because the films deal with a conflict in a region that is in a state of considerable political instability.

Clearly “Luxuries”/“Meatless in Gaza” is an agenda driven piece that uses a degree of manipulation to carry a negative message about Israel to the very end, even in the face of good news concerning import liberalisation. Nonetheless the film is marginally more subtle than the harsh propaganda on the conflict that passes for documentary. One such example is “Welcome to Hebron” (2007/08), by Terje Carlsson, which was also featured a number of times on Fíorscéal, circa June 2010.

“Welcome to Hebron” failed to represent the context of the tensions between the Jewish settler community and the Palestinians in any meaningful sense, ignored the long history of attacks on settlers, and didn’t mention the repeated massacres and expulsions of the Jewish populace from the area, from the 17^th Century to the 1929 massacre. It attempted to portray their claim as exclusively biblical by citing a sound bite from one settler. Neither was there any mention of the rich Jewish heritage found in the area. Oddly, Leila, the teenage Palestinian girl who is the focal point of the film, actually moved with her mother to the area from Romania roughly ten years previously. Given the horror and oppression, one can only wonder why.

Terje Carlsson’s film is an example of a documentary that treats a segment of it subjects in an abusive fashion because it was clearly made with the intent of showing the Jewish settler populace in as bad a light as possible. Although the film was apparently made over three years, only a few scenes involving the settlers were truly unpleasant, one being the scene of a Jewish woman spitting at Palestinians. However, the spitting motif has been adopted by pro-Palestinian propagandists, some of whom have in turn made their own way to the area to provoke reactions for their cameras, to be promptly screened on Youtube.

The blinkered approach these documentaries adopted stands in stark contrast to that of Nicky Larkin who went to the region with an intense pro-Palestinian agenda. However, his views didn’t blind him to inconvenient truths of the conflict, facts that didn’t suit agendas.

I began to experience the sense of isolation Israelis feel. An isolation that began in the ghettos of Europe and ended in Auschwitz.

And as I made the effort to empathise, to look at the world through their eyes. I began a new intellectual journey. One that would not be welcome back home.

For all his preconceived notions, Larkin possessed an impressive intellectual honesty, which led him to turn against the very foundations of his own deeply held beliefs, regardless of the financial and social consequences because it should be noted that balanced documentaries are hardly welcome in Ireland:

The problem began when I resolved to come back with a film that showed both sides of the coin…. But only one side was wanted back in Dublin. My peers expected me to come back with an attack on Israel. No grey areas were acceptable.

However, one need not go through a voyage of discovery to make a worthy documentary about the conflict. Louis Theroux’s recent documentary entitled “The Ultra Zionists” (2011) is such an example. The piece took a definite pro-Palestinian line as indicated a number of times by unjustified judgements in Theroux’s narration, and being a BBC production, the prejudicial title was another indicator of bias.

Nonetheless “The Ultra Zionists” lacks the polemical tone of other documentaries about the conflict because Theroux treats both his subjects and the audience with a fundamental respect. He does not whitewash the negative qualities that subjects may possess but neither does he use them as a means. He doesn’t ram his message down the viewers collective throat, and is sufficiently professional to allow the subject(s) to lead him forward. Indeed the programme features some revealing footage, such as the predictable violence of the supposedly peaceful protests after prayers at the security barrier near the Palestinian village of Bil’in, which displayed a starkly different reality to the constructed take on the conflict, sometimes found in the media.

It should also be noted that the complicity of the media or its mere presence can cause or escalate violent incidents. This phenomenon ought to be an ethical dilemma for both journalists/photo-journalists and documentarians.

It does seem that filmmakers like David Ofek do not need to abandon their beliefs to make a reasonable documentary about issues appertaining of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, like any other documentary maker on any other topic, they need to make choices that are cognisant of an obvious ethical responsibility to the subjects captured on camera, their audience, and the impact it will have on the societies involved with the issue. Ofek stated “My film takes the active approach. If a filmmaker can make a difference, so can the individual.” Indeed, and just like “the individual”, the filmmaker ought to be guided by moral responsibilities toward others.




This article was also published at Crethi Plethi.

Inciting fear of Israel at the Sunday Times?

The Sunday Times featured an interesting article in its edition dated the 4th of March 2012. In the print edition of the newspaper, the article in question is entitled “In a flash, your details are sent to Israel”. It is also listed on the Sunday Times website as “In a flash, your details are on a server in Israel”. From a journalistic point of view the piece is more interesting for the headline rather than the content.

The article features the by-line “A torch app is among those now found to be exploiting users, write Robin Henry and Peter Newlands”, and indeed the article focuses on the worrying finding that advertising and marketing companies are using smart-phone apps to transmit a given user’s personal information to computer servers in several parts of the world.

However, it is bizarre for the headline to focus exclusively on Israel because mention of the nation is only featured in three paragraphs of the rather long twenty-one paragraph piece (twenty-nine if including the companion article to the side), which takes up more than half a broadsheet page. The article mentions America (specifically the United States) more frequently than Israel. The piece refers to a firm called LeadBolt repeatedly which is located there, and seemingly the prime focus of investigation for the journalists. The article also mentions China, India, and Germany. The piece mentions the Israeli city of Petah Tikva once but also mentions the cities of Los Angeles, and New Dehli.

To quote the three passages of the subscription-only article that mention or refer to Israel and the city of Petah Tikva:

Using software to monitor the transmission of data from a Google android mobile phone onto which a range of basic apps have been downloaded, The Sunday Times discovered private information — including telephone numbers, email addresses and the phone’s location — being sent to companies in China, India, Israel and America. […]

One app, Cute Dog, which downloads images of puppies for the phone’s background screen, sent a stream of information, including the phone number, network, and ID number, to lead LeadBolt’s servers in America. The ID number and phone’s GPS (Global Positioning System) co-ordinates were transmitted to a server located in Germany but registered in the city of Petah Tikva, Israel.

The identity of the server’s owner could not be established but numerous hi-tech companies, including some of the world’s biggest technology firms have offices in the city.

The article evokes a 2010 controversy where a much-publicised row broke out in the Middle-East over BlackBerry smart phones, which offered an encrypted communication link that numerous Arab nations feared Israel/Mossad and the US would exploit. However, in this case the reader’s own personal information is going to Israel!

To identify this country in the headline suggests the nation itself, rather than some private business enterprise, will put personal information to some sort of malign duplicitous use. Arguably it plays on the Mossad false-flag paranoia that every anti-Semitic conspiracist evokes for serious terrorist incidents, such as the Anders Behring Breivik massacre last year.

Whilst the article in question does not make any unfair claims about Israel per se, the rather extraordinary finger-pointing of the headline nonetheless illustrates both an unhealthy if not obsessive need in the media to cast Israel in a very negative light, and the disturbingly negative way in with a certain segment of the public views Israel, even above that of states like China, which of course the media itself bears more than a little responsibility for.




This article was also published at Crethi Plethi.

Dervla Murphy seeks the dissolution of the Jewish State – Part 1

 

Part One: The issues raised

On the 9^th of February 2012 the Irish Examiner featured an extraordinary article by Dervla Murphy calling on Irish President Michael D. Higgins not to visit Israel. Like many news outlets, the Irish Examiner is slanted against Israel but the intellectual dishonesty of Ms. Murphy’s article stands out, as does the extremism of purposing a one-state solution.

Part one of this article looks at the broad issues surrounding Dervla Murphy’s open letter. Part Two is a lengthier article analysing the views of the critics that Ms. Murphy quotes prolifically.

Staged image al-Dirat, Jan 25 (AFP).

A photograph of dubious origin

A large image of a Palestinian man in intense agony is the first thing that greets the reader of Dervla Murphy’s article. It is a particularly emotive image to lead an article with. Beneath are the words:

Palestinian worker screams after an Israeli driver drove a trailer over his legs, as Israeli forces stopped workers building at house at al-Dirat on Jan 25.

Interestingly, this photo is only one of several libellous images that surfaced recently. It was published by the international media outlet AFP. CAMERA pointed out that the event was likely to be staged due to a number of obvious inconsistencies, in terms of the visuals of the event, subsequent accounts, and the absence of the relevant local Palestinian and UN agencies reporting a serious casualty. The controversy erupted at the end of January, after a number of mainstream news outlets ran the same image. The issue continues to rumble on so it is telling that the Irish Examiner chose to run it at this stage, when there are a vast number of alternative photographs at their disposal.

The image is part of a recent rash of staged photographs, including one of a supposed Israeli soldier with his boot planted on the chest of a girl lying on the ground, while he points a rifle at her. It turned out to be from a piece of street theatre staged in Bahrain, which pro-Palestinian activists attempted to turn viral. Such images are a key part of a demonising campaign to delegitimise Israel’s very existence.

The cynicism of this behaviour is illustrated by the all too common use of children as a pro-Palestinian propagandistic tool because it is such an understandably emotive subject. The 2000 Al-Dura case is the most famous of these proven mainstream media hoaxes. Recent fabrications were made about Israel’s treatment of Palestinian children in the judicial system which caused a great deal of diplomatic damage in Australia.

Murphy’s open letter as published in the print edition of the Irish Examiner

 

Who is Dervla Murphy?

Dervla Murphy is a well known Irish travel author, who has been writing about her experiences since the 1960’s. She is a distinctly left-wing author, who expressed support for the oppressive communist regime in Cuba. Considering her ideology, it is fitting that she is also a seasoned pro-Palestinian. She spent an extended period of time in the West Bank, where she visited the “sinister” settlement of Kirya Arbat.

Ms. Murphy planned to travel on the Gaza Flotilla in 2011, despite her advancing years, although it appears she didn’t attempt it in the end but features in a rather insulting promo where the Irish Ship to Gaza campaign urge people to “stay human”. She subsequently visited Gaza in 2011, and is currently writing a book about her encounters with Israelis and Palestinians, which looks set to be a piece of intensive pro-Palestinian propaganda if her article in the Irish Examiner is any indicator.

When Murphy was twelve, her family took in Charlie Kerins, the then IRA Chief of Staff, for several weeks in 1943 when he was on the run. As a leading member of the IRA, Kerins can be considered a Nazi collaborator because the IRA was co-operating substantively with Nazi intelligence at a time, and they believed the Reich would install the IRA as the government come an invasion. Many in the IRA were interned as a result. Thus harbouring Kerins could be seen as an act of treason at a time when the Irish State was attempting to stay neutral during World War II. Interestingly, she describes his subsequent execution for killing a policeman in rather heroic terms, as recounted in her book on Northern Ireland, entitled “A place apart” (1979).

Why an open letter?

Ms. Murphy’s article is extraordinary for several reasons. Firstly, it proports to be an open letter to beseech President Michael D. Higgins not to visit Israel. Open letters are an interesting facet of the publishing world because they have a sense of independence from the publication that carries them, whilst op-eds (opinion pieces) have a stronger association with the publication itself. Thus, there is essentially no requirement for any sort of journalistic ethics since an open letter is still a mere letter.

One purpose of open-letters is to challenge the stance of the person to which it is addressed. Even though the piece is addressed to Michael D. Higgins, his own views are not addressed. Rather the letter treats a number of appalling things Israel has supposedly done as a given, and quotes the views of a large number of extreme anti-Israel activists. This is an odd approach to pursuasion because Higgins is certainly no stranger to these accusations or the stances of anti-Israel activists. If anything he would be far more familiar with them then Ms. Murphy herself. Higgins is commonly seem as Ireland’s most senior anti-Israel politician.

Higgins has done vastly more to criticise Israel than Ms. Murphy has over the years. Higgins’ own stance is ignored and the piece simply advances a particular solution to the conflict, namely the nullification of Israel as a Jewish state. As a result it would seem this “open letter” is in essence a further effort to delegitimse Israel, with zero requirement for journalistic ethics as befitting the format.

By your quotes we shall know thee

Perhaps the most interesting feature of Dervla Murphy’s relatively lengthy article is the large number of anti-Zionist Jews she cites. She quotes Tony Judt, Judith Butler, Vitzhak Laor, Udi Aloni, and the Olga Document, the culmination of meetings by a group of anti-Zionist Jewish-Israeli academics.

Through a patchwork of selective quotes, Murphy uses their words to make more of the points than she actually does herself. Three non-Jewish people are quoted. These are two Palestinians and an Arab man, two of which are quoted very briefly. It is surely an odd way to construct a letter or article.

Indeed Murphy disingenuously ties up her article by asserting a concern for Israeli citizens themselves:

For the President of Ireland to visit Israel as a state guest would contribute to block that road to peace. By condoning the actions of a government that consistently flouts international law, you would be betraying the citizens of this country, the defenceless Palestinians and the many non-Zionist Jews who are so deeply ashamed of the state of Israel as present constituted.

Jewish anti-Zionists like Tony Judt and Ilan Pappé are cited by pro-Palestinians more commonly than non-Jews. A notable feature of the pro-Palestinian movement is the prolific use of Jewish critics, whether they are academic or not, to publicly attack Israel. These critics include victims of the Holocaust. This is surely an odd fact since the pro-Palestinian movement is a vast international phenomenon, in which a limited number of anti-Israeli Jews would represent a very small minority.

While some Jewish people attack Israel on their own initiative, there seems to be a ploy of promoting Jewish critics in the movement because, although related to the issue, they appear to be greatly over-represented given population size. An example of this phenomenon is the common mischaracterisation by pro-Palestinians of the Neturei Karta, as representative of mainstream Judaism, when in fact they are a small group of Ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionist extremists.

Considering the extreme sensitivity of the pro-Palestinian movement to accusations of anti-Semitism, it does seem that the prolific use of Jewish critics is intended to deflect accusations of racism. Using such sources targets the common belief amongst some that anti-Semitism is behind the intense criticism of the Jewish State. It also allows the pro-Palestinian critic to go further in their demonisation of Israel for the simple reason that a number of Jewish people are doing it too.

Using Jewish and Israeli-Jewish critics also undermines understanding of why Israel, as a Jewish state, ought to exist. The rebuttal of the right of a Jewish state to exist is a recurrent feature of Ms. Murphy’s article. Consequently, her article is a highly manipulative work, advancing an extremist agenda, whilst disingenuously inferring or proclaiming a concern for Jewish welfare in virtually every paragraph.

Have Jewish people stopped supporting Israel?

Murphy repeatedly cites numerous Jewish people to suggest the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement is some sort of solidarity movement. Her stance infers that there is a very substantial support among Jews for this campaign, and the one-state solution. This is total nonsense.

Many Jews and non-Jews alike have refuted the precepts of the BDS movement. It includes 41 Nobel laureates who affirm the BDS movement is:

• antithetical to principles of academic and scientific freedom,
• antithetical to principles of freedom of expression and inquiry, and
• may well constitute discrimination by virtue of national origin

Her article invokes what academic Ted Lapkin refers to as “the meme of the ‘disaffected Jew’”, which has been greatly exaggerated in the media. The fact remains that the great majority of Jewish people the world over support Israel, as surveys attest.

In a 2010 annual survey of Jewish American opinion, when asked “Should the Palestinians be required or not be required to recognize Israel as a Jewish state in a final peace agreement?”, no less than 94% of those asked said it was required. This survey was taken by moderates that identify as Democratic Party supporters. Jewish support for the dissolution of the Jewish State is marginal at best.

Another study in 2011 by Brandeis University’s Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, found that 63% of American Jews still feel connected to Israel, and 75% said that caring about Israel is a significant part of their Jewish identity. This was affirmed by younger and older people surveyed. Despite many being exposed to intense pro-Palestinian activism on US campuses, surveys indicate Jewish students still support Israel.

A survey of Jewish people in the UK found that “British Jews strongly identified with and supported Israel, with nine out of 10 having visited it.” Regarding strength of opinion, 72% agreed Israel’s action in Gaza in 2008 and 2009 was “a legitimate act of self-defence” and 77% favoured the two-state solution as the only solution to peace.

A survey of Israeli citizens, taken a few months ago by the Brookings Institute, showed that most Israeli citizens want the Palestinians to recognise Israel as a Jewish state, with 2/5^ths wanting it as a precondition for future negotiations. The survey included Arab-Israeli citizens, and interestingly, a significant number believed Israel was an apartheid state a la BDS propaganda but at least 60% thought Israel was not apartheid.

Black und White pro-Palestinianism

Before getting into the substance of the points in the article, Murphy starts off appropriately enough by leaving the reader in no doubt as to where she stands, when she addresses Higgins:

Were you, as President, to visit Israel, you would be signalling to all the world that this country approves of a truly vicious regime.

Such a black and white stance, with no centre ground to speak of, is a common feature of the pro-Palestinian movement. The reality is that Higgins wouldn’t merely be visiting Israel. He would also be visiting the West Bank and Gaza, which would in effect be a telling expression of his interest in the Palestinians and a just solution to the conflict.

By using the phrase “pressing that button…” in relation to free-speech, Murphy insinuates that Israel somehow manipulated Irish government ministers into attending an Israeli film festival late last year:

Last November, to my Palestinian friend’s disappointment, we failed to organise a boycott of a four-day, state-funded Israeli film festival in Dublin….

Freedom of speech is a tricky one and the pressing of that button gained Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore’s attendance at the opening night.

This illustrates an all too common contempt for free speech amongst the pro-Palestinian brigade. Indeed, even a number of more moderate supporters of the Palestinians were angry that the IPSC, of which Ms. Murphy appears to be a member, attempted to prevent any showing of the films, and intimidated those that wished to attend. The IPSC has a right to protest but it has no moral right to shut down such an event.

Perhaps the Government is uninformed about “Brand Israel”. This global campaign, also launched in 2005, is funded by various Israeli government agencies and major pro-Zionist international (mainly US) groups. Its primary purpose is to promote Israel as a “normal” country involved in tourism, sports, innovative science, a vibrant youth culture, and so on. On its behalf, all Israel’s consulates and embassies are kept busy.

The “Brand Israel” campaign was in actual fact an attempt to present Israel as something more than a state involved in conflict. Perhaps all the nations of the world engage in such activity. Brand Israel is not an attempt to whitewash the conflict because the content rarely addresses such topics. Rather it was an effort to counter the continual coverage of the Middle East, which presents Israel in a one-dimensional way. Despite Ms. Murphy’s exaggeration over its scale, it could never be more than a modest response to continual high-level mainstream coverage.

As much as Ms. Murphy would like us to think otherwise, Israel is also a fairly “normal” country that functions “normally”, with many lives that are relatively untouched by the conflict. Ms. Murphy, and her pro-Palestinian associates, would have us turn away from and refute this obvious truth about Israel.

Israeli’s ain’t “normal”

One of the more absurd paragraphs illustrates the remarkable nerve of Ms. Murphy’s attitude on Israel:

Israelis have the power to oppose the occupation through BDS, the most powerful non-violent means available. Things change the minute you say “we cannot continue to act as normal”. To work to the side of the occupation is to participate in its normalisation. And the way that normalisation works is to efface or distort the reality of the occupation within public discourse. As a result, neutrality is not an option.

Bizarrely, Ms. Murphy believes any ordinary Israeli person is not entitled to live a normal life, even if they do not actively participate in the machinations of the Jewish State! Oh no, Israeli’s are not entitled to be “normal”, that particular reality, in which several million Israeli’s live is somehow bad or wrong since it represents complicity with the “occupation” to be involved in its apparent “normalisation”.

Ms. Murphy infers the reality of the “occupation” is somehow undermined in discourse because “normalisation” “distort[s]” or “efface[s]” the reality of the occupation. Quite how this happens is unclear. It is a particularly absurd argument, especially since there is prolific coverage of the conflict in Israel, perhaps more so than in any other nation of the world, and much of said coverage comes from distinctly left-wing sources like Haaretz that are very critical of the “occupation”. This bizarre theory does suggest that Murphy and associates want Israeli’s to simply stop functioning as human beings.

Oh wait, that is actually what they want! According to Ms. Murphy and her ilk, there can be no neutrality. Every Israeli must choose a side, and furthermore it must be Ms. Murphy’s side! All Israeli’s must advocate BDS strategies to bring the nation to its knees, even though they will no doubt harm their own lives in a very serious way, that of their families, their friends, those they love… It leads one to ask does working a job in Israel to feed one’s family also contribute to “normalisation”?

BDS and its link with the one-state solution

Almost without exception, the individuals Ms. Murphy quotes, strongly advocate both a BDS approach to bring Israel to heel, and then a one-state solution to the conflict! Murphy seeks a one-state solution, a la Rwanda, which Judith Butler cited as an example of such a bi-national solution. Murphy states:

BDS is the most powerful non-violent means available. If millions say, “we cannot continue to act as normal” while the repression continues, then things would change and everyone would be much closer to binationalism, which is the only solution.

The only solution to the conflict for these anti-Zionists is the creation of one state that in demographic terms would subsume the Jewish people under an Arab-Islamic majority regime. The remarkable fact is that the leaders of the broad Arab-Islamic culture of the region express considerably more genocidal intent toward the Jews than the National Socialists of 1930’s Germany did! Sadly, it seems people they represent have little objection to this approach, as suggested by independent surveys.

Omar Barghouti, a principle figure of the BDS campaign also advocates the one-state solution, which he understands to be the destruction of Israel:

It is not the occupation of the West Bank that is the problem, but the existence of Israel itself.

Blind to the blindingly obvious

Perhaps the most fundamental impression one gets of Dervla Murphy’s article, is its abject failure to address any of Israel’s worries or make any attempt to understand their perspective, however minimal:

For whatever reason, Ireland’s Government (and most others) choose to “continue to act as normal”. To maintain friendly relations as though Israel’s repression of the Palestinians were some isolated error of judgement, when in truth it is central to the state’s existence and has been since 1948. […]

…neutrality is not an option. We all have a moral duty to be hostile to a government that deliberately and relentlessly inflicts so much suffering on successive generations of a people who did nothing to deserve the Zionists’ colonisation of their territory.

The stark extremism of Ms. Murphy’s views are illustrated by the fact that she clearly thinks Israel ought not exist at all, and never should have. This is in part because she strongly advocates a one-state solution, which will nullify Israel, and also because she cites the year of 1948, when Israel came into existence, rather than 1967 when the “occupation” of the West Bank and Gaza started.

Citing 1948 illustrates her profound bias over the conflict. Israel faced an existential threat from no less than eight armies attacking it within a day of its existence. The respected historian, Benny Morris, who has been cited prolifically by pro-Palestinians in the past, acknowledged the violence on the Israeli side but put it in the context of the times, namely a vicious sectarian conflict on both sides. Morris also acknowledges that Arab leaders told many Arabs to leave so the eight armies invading Palestine could wipe the region clean.

There was no doubt the Arab forces would do anything other than drive the Jews into the sea in 1948. Indeed the head of the Arab League openly threatened mass genocide of a future Jewish in 1947. At the time, the Arab nations of the Middle East initiated a move that would make the region Judenrein in two decades, other than a marginal Jewish populace in Tunisia. Massacres and expulsions were the order of the day for the ancient Jewish populace of the region. Israel had the generosity to take these people in, and now Ms. Murphy wants this state nullified.

Dervla Murphy seeks the dissolution of the Jewish State – Part 2

Part Two: A look at the individuals cited Murphy’s article

On the 9th of February 2012 the Irish Examiner featured an extraordinary article by Dervla Murphy calling on Irish President Michael D. Higgins not to visit Israel. The intellectual dishonesty of Ms. Murphy’s article stands out, as does the extremism of advocating a one-state solution.

The second part of this article analyses the views of the critics that Murphy quotes as a test of their credability. There is also further analysis of some points she made in her open-letter. Part one looks at the broad issues raised by her article.

Tony Judt

Murphy gets down to business by referring to the “many Jewish supporters” of the BDS movement:

Tony Judt was among many Jewish supporters of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanction) campaign.

She quotes a statement by Tony Judt, shortly before his death, perhaps to add an emotive element:

Not long before his death he repeated his call for the EU to use its “enormous leverage” and say to Israel: “So long as you break international law, you can’t be part of the EU market”.

He defined our reason for not doing this as “ridiculous self-blackmail”. His Dutch and German friends said to him: ‘We couldn’t do that! Think of what we did to the Jews. We can’t use economic leverage against Israel. We can’t be a critic of Israel… Why? Because of Auschwitz…”

Quoting Judt allows Murphy to push the outrageous assertion that self-blackmail is behind the EU’s failure to bring about sanctions against Israel. The notion is inferred that Israel also blackmails the EU. It is an all too common charge that Israel uses the Holocaust cynically in the West to gain favours.

Judt conflates two very different things: criticism of Israel, and sanctions, to advance his point of view.

Judt continued: “I understand that. Many of my family were killed in Auschwitz. However, Europe can’t live indefinitely on the credit of someone else’s crimes to justify a state that creates and commits its own crimes… […] the European bad conscience is part of the problem.”

The EU maintains ties with Israel because it is clearly in their economic interests to do so. It is a small but hugely productive economy, of which many major international companies have research bases. Israel also produces more than its fair share of cutting edge technology, especially in the field of health.

Israel should not be special because it is Jewish. Jews are to have a state just like everyone else, it should have no more rights than Slovenia and no fewer.

Here Murphy suggests through Judt’s voice that the EU give more rights to Israel than other states. That is complete nonsense. The truth is that the EU, and its member states, frequently lambast Israel, far more so than other nations that have a contested human rights record. China is one such example.

It is worth pointing out that Tony Judt was a troubling individual, not because he criticised Israel, for that was his right but rather due to the way in which he attacked it. He called Israel an “anachronism” that should be done away with, and dismissed as a “cliché” the idea that attacks against Israel can be motivated by anti-Semitism. He also excused suicide attacks against Jews because “the Palestinians have no other weapons.”

Bizarrely Judt blamed Israel for the increased incidents of anti-Semitism outside Israel. He stated in “Israel: The Alternative”

Today, non-Israeli Jews feel themselves once again exposed to criticism and vulnerable to attack for things they didn’t do. But this time it is a Jewish state, not a Christian one, which is holding them hostage for its own actions. Diaspora Jews cannot influence Israeli policies, but they are implicitly identified with them, not least by Israel’s own insistent claims upon their allegiance. The behavior of a self-described Jewish state affects the way everyone else looks at Jews.

This argument illustrates the absurdity and irrationalism at the core of Judt’s thoughts on the subject. To quote Leon Wieseltier in the New Republic:

He [Judt] finds himself “implicitly identified” with Israel’s actions in, say, Jenin. But he was nowhere near Jenin. He killed nobody. Indeed, he is ferociously opposed to the killings, and to the policies of the Sharon government in the territories generally. All he has to do, then, is to say so, and then to express his anger at the suggestion that he is in any way responsible for what he, too, deplores. For the notion that all Jews are responsible for whatever any Jews do, that every deed that a Jew does is a Jewish deed, is not a Zionist notion. It is an anti-Semitic notion. But Judt prefers to regard it as an onerous corollary of Zionism (“not least by Israel’s own insistent claims upon their allegiance”). He refuses to place the blame for this unwarranted judgment of himself upon those who make it. Instead he accepts the premise of the prejudice, and turns on Israel. He makes a similar mistake in his evaluation of “the increased incidence of attacks on Jews in Europe.”

It is a paragon of anti-Semitism (and racism more generally) to judge all Jews by the actions of some. Why would anti-Zionists target all Jews when some like himself shout so loudly against Israel?

Clearly the answer is difficult to come by but it would seem that at some level Judt may have identified with this extremism, almost as a rejection of his identity as a Jewish individual, and partly agreed with the stance of the anti-Semites who targeted Jews. Why else would he blame Israel rather than the perpetuators? Perhaps it is fitting for Ms. Murphy to have quoted such a confused divided individual.

It is worth adding that pro-Palestinians criticise opponents who state that certain Jewish critics are self-hating. It would be wrong to suggest all Jewish critics of Israel are likely to be self-hating. However, self-hatred is apparent among various minorities, where some people internalise the oppressive views of others, and come to dislike their identity. This issue would likely manifest in Jewish people too, especially given such cultural antipathy that portrays them as extremely immoral, greedy, cunning etc.

Lisa Taraki

Dervla Murphy wrote:

In the words of Lisa Taraki, a co-founder [of the BDS movement], “the basic logic of BDS is the logic of pressure — not diplomacy, persuasion or dialogue”.

Murphy affirms that pressure is the way to go with Israel, rather than dialogue. A stark admission to make that illustrates the author’s extremism. Despite the nonsensical point about a “logic of pressure”, Lisa Taraki is a Professor of Sociology at Bir Zeit University near Ramallah, and a prominent speaker who seeks to boycott of Israel at an economic, artistic, and academic level. To quote Taraki’s speech more comprehensively:

What Palestinians are beginning to realize now with the failure of the political process and dialog, is a new logic of BDS; not a logic of persuasion but of pressure. . . . It’s not a boycott of individual Israelis, but of institutions, and the major cultural institutions are complicit in the domination of oppression. . . . The problem is the Israeli state and what upholds its power . . . virtually all Israeli institutions are complicit.

Taraki claims the BDS movement does not seek the boycott of individuals. This is an obfuscation because in reality a boycott would not merely discriminate against institutions, it would discriminate against individuals, even if they only have a loose association with the relevant institutions. One example is BDS activists pressuring universities all over the world to stop programmes for Israeli students. Rather than seeking a selective boycott, the BDS movement seeks the complete isolation of every sphere of Israeli society on the basis of a certain nationality tied to religion and ethnicity/race.

The common pro-Palestinians cry of “Israel is a belligerent that won’t see sense any other way” is proffered when some object to the draconian measures advocated by the BDS movement. This view is echoed by Ms. Taraki, and is akin to the “string ‘em up, it’s the only language they understand” sentiment of the caricatured London cab driver, as found in publications like Private Eye. It leads to the question of who exactly walked out of peace talks at Camp David in 2000, when the offer of 91% of territorial demands was acquiesced to, and who walked away from Olmert’s offer in 2008 of virtually 100% of all territorial demands with land swaps? Should we actually boycott the Palestinians instead?

It should be noted that in order to justify the academic boycott, Ms. Taraki attempted to suggest Israeli universities are somehow unfree, and used to forward a supposed colonial enterprise. In reality, it is well known Israeli universities are a breeding ground for post-Zionist ideology.

PACBI (Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel), the pre-eminent BDS organisation which Taraki co-founded, claims that “resistance in all its forms is a legitimate right” of Palestinians. It is a significant statement because such groups describe terrorism as “resistance”. Thus they advocate terrorism as one form of morally legitimate “resistance” since all forms have that status.

PACBI is part of a larger Palestinian Non-Government Organization Network, which is affiliated to an organisation called Ta’ayush, which led the notoriously anti-Semitic attacks on Israel during the UN Durban I “anti-racism” conference.

Lisa Taraki is also on the board of Al Haq, a Ramallah based NGO. It is a prominent BDS group that also defended terrorism as resistance. Other board members include Shawan Jabarin who was heavily involved with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror group. Al Haq was also heavily involved at Durban.

It should be noted that delegates declared the intention of using the Durban I conference as a weapon to harm Israel, and indeed the pro-Palestinian NGOs at the event enshrined the methods for Israel’s demonisation. Jews were denied the opportunity to serve on committees at Durban I, and faced pamphlets asking “What if Hitler had won?” etc.

Udi Aloni

Murphy quotes Udi Aloni at length:

As the Israeli-American writer and film-maker Udi Aloni explains: “The local strain of apartheid policy nurtured by Israel is precisely the reason why so many Jews all over the world have joined the BDS campaign, key issue for those who are trying to prevent violence against Israel while simultaneously countering its arrogant and aggressive policies… thus BDS actions do not amount to negative, counter-productive moves, as many propagandists try to portray them… they are actions of solidarity, partnership and joint progress serving to preempt, in a non-violent manner, justified violent resistance aimed at attaining the same goals of justice, peace and equality.”

Through the above quote, Murphy claims that the BDS movement takes action in order to prevent violence from happening! The BDS movement emphasises its peaceful intent but that claim should be treated with scepticism when numerous BDS organisations actually legitimise “resistance” in all forms.

Udi Aloni is a prolific advocate for BDS and the one-state solution through his films and books. Despite his limited English skills, he typically waxes lyrical on the prospect of peace with a nation united. His statement from which Murphy quotes, is a paragon of one-sided left-wing absurdity, which not only seeks to nullify Israel as a Jewish state, it lacks any requirement for Palestinians to end terrorism after an immediate withdrawal from the settlements. He baldly states:

The three very basic principles of BDS are:

• An immediate end of the occupation
• Full equality to all Palestinian citizens of the state of Israel
• Legal and moral Recognition of the Palestinian refugees’ right of return

The sentence “From the River to the Sea all People Must be Free” is given prominence of place on Aloni’s website. It clearly echoes the common pro-Palestinian chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, which represents a denial of Israel’s right to exist.

Aloni doesn’t seem to think Israel has any right to exist, even in the pre-1967 borders because it is cast as a humiliating 60 year occupation:

You roll your eyes, use your loving words in the service of your conquering people and call upon the Palestinians to surrender in a tender voice. You bestow upon Israel the role of liberator. Upon Israel — that for over 60 years, has been occupying and humiliating them.

Aloni attacked Judge Goldstone viciously in an article that gave out about Goldstone after he refuted some of findings of the highly prejudicial UN Report on Gaza. Aloni asserted: “Judge Goldstone is, in fact, legitimizing apartheid.” but Aloni himself has an unfortunate way of dealing with facts to suit his own purposes.

Aloni erroneously claimed Jewish settlers are subsidised by the US taxpayer. He claimed Israel is not a real democracy, and cites, as proof of Apartheid, the limited citizenship of Arabs in East Jerusalem who are unable to vote. However, the Arabs of East Jerusalem aren’t Israeli citizens as most refused it. Therefore, voting rights are limited but they are able to vote in local municipal elections, and the more important Palestinian legislative elections. He even expects Israel to build housing for Palestinians in the refugee camps because they do so for Jewish settlers. However, Israel only has control over Area C in Oslo II, which represents Jewish habitation. He also presents his mother as a disenchanted Zionist:

“Mom, is all this apartheid?”

With the sigh of a betrayed lover she indicated that, yes, this is apartheid. My heart broke.

Yet Udi is the son of Shulamit Aloni, often described as a hard-core Stalinist, whose anti-Zionist zeal is so intense it borders on the anti-Semitic:

We are a nefarious people. What we are doing in the West Bank is worse than all the pogroms done to the Jews.

Like other anti-Zionist Jews, it seems Aloni has issues with his identity. Even though he already does a great deal for his Palestinian friends, he still feels that he cannot “perform” his Jewishness (!) without reservation:

After so many years of this horrific occupation, when we lost our human side, I felt as a Jew living in Israel that the only way I can perform my Jewishness now is with the unconditional solidarity with my Palestinian brothers and sisters.

  

Vitzhak Laor

Dervla Murphy then cites poet Vitzhak Laor in her article to suggest Israel behaves in a manipulative fashion to try to sway public opinion abroad:

In 2008, Israeli writer Vitzhak Laor revealed that Israelis accepting foreign ministry funding for taking their culture or artistic work abroad were obliged to sign a contract undertaking to act faithfully, responsibly, and tirelessly to provide the ministry with the highest professional services. The service provider is aware that the purpose of ordering services from him is to promote the policy interests of the state of Israel via culture and art, including contributing to creating a positive image for Israel.

So much for freedom of speech, if the “service provider” disagreed with some of the state’s policies.

One would expect some sort of contract in any situation where tax payers money is doled out to artists. It is hardly in any nations interest to fund projects that would do significant damage to its standing, and to expect financial aid to simply reinforce “free speech” illustrates the absurdity of Ms. Murphy’s view. Israel has in fact aided films that are far from positive in their portrayal of Israel, for example the film Waltz with Bashir which had real international impact.

It should be noted that the claims of Vitzhak Laor need to be treated with scepticism. He wouldn’t be an impartial source on the topic because he is so virulently anti-Zionist that he has often rewritten very basic history, in the past:

…the claim that Israel faced an existential threat in 1967 was a propaganda lie. It would have been possible to unravel the complicated situation caused by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, but Israel and the United States decided to exploit the Egyptian mistake.

… But the only concession we needed to make, even back in 1967, was giving up the messianic claim that this is our land, from the Bible, and therefore we have a right to it.

The astonishing dishonesty or stupidity of the above quote is difficult to fathom. Laor thinks Israel didn’t face an existential threat even though Nasser repeatedly stated such charming sentiments as “This is our chance Arabs, to deal Israel a mortal blow of annihilation, to blot out its entire presence in our holy land”, and “The Arab people is firmly resolved to wipe Israel off the map”. These and other comments were made the month preceding the war itself, and just a few days after he had ordered UNIFIL peacekeeping troops out of the Sinai. UNIFIL took him seriously enough to leave within a few days. Soon afterward Egypt blocked the Strait of Tiran for Israeli shipping, which is an act of war in its own right. Within a very short time, five nations amassed troops at Israel’s borders. Laor also makes a comical claim that all Israel had to do was give up on its historic Jewish claims as if the surrounding Arab nations would ever leave a principally Jewish state in peace!

Laor went as far as to add credence to the Al-Dura travesty, propagated by the French media, which has been used as a method of incitement in the Arab world since. Laor’s misrepresentations are so extravagant that some are tempted to say he is a dishonest individual.

Judith Butler

Dervla Murphy cites Judith Butler’s particularly extreme view that there cannot and should not be any sense of normal life in Israel, and neither is any Israeli entitled to neutrality over the issue of BDS, (the absurdity of this stance is addressed in Part One of this article under ‘Israeli’s ain’t “normal”’):

Modai’s [the Israeli Ambassador to Ireland] claim the film festival was non-political should be considered in the light of University of California professor Judith Butler’s thinking on BDS and normalisation: Israelis have the power to oppose the occupation through BDS, the most powerful non-violent means available. Things change the minute you say “we cannot continue to act as normal”. To work to the side of the occupation is to participate in its normalisation. And the way that normalisation works is to efface or distort the reality of the occupation within public discourse. As a result, neutrality is not an option.

And of course Ms. Murphy includes the by now obligatory “I’m-not-a-horrid-anti-Semite-because-I-am-citing-a-Jew” point by referencing the tragedy Butler’s ancestors faced, as she did with Tony Judt:

Many of Butler’s family were holocaust victims. She grew up in the US in a household sympathetic to Israel.

In reality, Judith Butler is not another disenchanted Jew, of which the pro-Palestinian movement make much of. She is in fact a virulent anti-Zionist who seems to bend over backwards to defend anti-Semitism, and in essence seeks the end of the Jewish State. Many of her other views are also bizarre. For example, as a “Queer Studies expert”, she thinks that people with gender dysphoria should go through dangerous and life-changing transgender operations at will, without psychological evaluation beforehand.

The Olga Document

Ms. Murphy continues her theme of Jewish criticism of Israel by citing a text written in 2004:

Eight years ago, a large group of Israeli scholars and activists met at Givat Olgo… they issued the Olga Appeal. It notes: “The state of Israel was supposed to be a democracy; it has set up a colonial structure combining unmistakable elements of apartheid with the arbitrariness of brutal military occupation… We are united in a critique of Zionism, based as it is on refusal to acknowledge the indigenous people of this country and on denial of their rights, on dispossession of their lands, and on adoption of separation as a fundamental principal and way of life. Adding insult to injury, Israel persists in its refusal to bear any responsibility for its deeds, from the expulsion of the majority of Palestinians from their homeland more than half a century ago, to the present erection of ghetto walls around the remaining Palestinians in the towns and villages of the West Bank.”

The Olga Appeal seeks to stimulate debate about binationalism…

Ms. Murphy whitewashes the intent of the text, the aim of which appears to be to demonise the State of Israel. Its authors included extremist academics like Anat Biletzky who was one of the “scholars” who claimed in 2002 that Israel was going to perpetuate a vast act of mass genocide against the Palestinian populace, come an invasion of Iraq. If they were speaking the truth, was their crystal ball a tad dirty?

To quote an analysis of the Olga Document (or letter) in Commentary Magazine:

Israel, the letter says, is a “death trap” and “the biggest ghetto in the entire history of the Jews”; “military operations and wars has [sic] become the life-support drug of Israel’s Jews.” It goes on to state that “we are living in a benighted colonial reality — in the heart of darkness”; and that Israel seems “determined to pulverize the Palestinian people to dust” by subjecting them to “the nightmare of apartheid, the burden of humiliation and the demons of destruction employed by Israel unremittingly, day and night, for 37 years.” Out of “racist arrogance,” the document claims, Israelis across the political spectrum “depict the Palestinians as subhuman.”

Judging by the extraordinary language used in the text, it is a tract that features sentiments that bear more than a passing resemblance to unhinged self-hating racism. The letter calls Israel the biggest Jewish Ghetto that has ever existed. It also claims that “Israel’s Jews” are somehow addicted to the violence of militarism, conflict and war.

The text is a nonsense that betrays in the authors a very limited appreciation of truth. For example, it claims Israel is attempting to completely destroy the Palestinian people. Yet census figures indicate that the Palestinian people of Gaza and the West Bank had increased from one million people in 1969 to roughly four million by 2004. A four-fold increase in populace in less than forty years is a substantial achievement, which is simply incompatible with any claim of genocide, unless the highly professional IDF are in fact the genocidal equivalent of Dad’s Army!

Other than some extremists who make utterances that are rightly condemned, and given substantial coverage in the mainstream media, Israeli’s do not depict Palestinians as sub-human. By contrast the Palestinian-Arabs continually incite hatred for Jewish people. The letter also makes the claim that the Arabs are “indigenous” to the land, which infers the Jews are not. The Jews do conform to the true definition of an indigenous displaced people, making it a denial of Jewish history.

The question of Israel being an apartheid state in any way akin to South Africa is also an absurdity. All citizens of Israel have the same right to vote, and stand for election to the Israeli Parliament. Some cite the divergent laws in the so-called “Occupied Territories”. That is another canard. Under the Oslo Accords, Israel was to administer the zones with Jewish occupation, and the Palestinians their own. The Jewish zone (Area C) comes under military law, which is effectively the same as laws in Israel itself, whilst the Palestinians have their own legislator. Thus, the apartheid-accusers use the very results of a peace process, intended to devolve and create a Palestinian State, as a club to beat Israel with!

Mazin Qumsiyeh

Murphy quotes Mazin Qumsiyeh, another BDS advocate who seems to have a limited grasp of the historical facts of the conflict:

In the land of Canaan, Jews, Christians, and Muslims working together to make the change need more pressure from outside and are beginning to show some progress.”

Ms. Murphy also mentions Arab-Christians as working together with Arab-Muslims to rid themselves of the awful scourge of Israel. Whilst there are quite a number of strongly! pro-Palestinian Christians, the Christian presence has been devastated in the Palestinian territories, and the broader Middle-East.

The town of Bethlehem once had an 85% Christian population at the end of the British Mandate. Areas under Jordanian control experienced a large exodus of Christians, especially East Jerusalem, which lost roughly two-thirds of its Christian populace in a mere nineteen years! Furthermore, a bitter civil war erupted between Lebanese Christians and Muslims during the 1970’s, in part at the instigation of the PLO after they were pushed out of Jordan. These issues had an impact on Bethlehem but it was still over 60% Christian by the 1990’s. However, there has been a mass exodus of Christians since the Pa! lestinian Authority took over in 1995. From the very start Arafat marginalised the Christian populace, and today Christians make up around 15% of the town. By contrast, Israel is the only nation in the Middle East where all can practice their respective faiths unmolested.

The failure of Islamic-Arab society to show tolerance toward their Christian brethren throughout the Middle East would surely cast doubt on Ms. Murphy’s suggestion of a bi-national Jewish-Islamic state, where there is monumentally more hostility toward Jews than Christians. The truth is that such a state would be a short step away from the mass genocide or at best the mass expulsion of Israel’s Jews.

Ali Abunimah

Near the end of her article, Ms. Murphy quotes an inspirational tract:

Ali Abunimah, a young Palestinian-American, emphasises a crucially important point: “By talking of a common future and imagining it, we engage in the act of creating it; we introduce a different prospect to endless war. It is only through shattering taboos and articulating a vision that we can move the idea… from the far margins to the centre of discussion. Simply by admitting the notion to the range of possibilities, we change the landscape.”

In actual fact Ali Abunimah is a 40+ year old Palestinian journalist. He is a seasoned figure on the BDS scene. Whilst he is young in comparison to Ms. Murphy’s years, it is misleading to present a middle-aged man to the reader as some sort of innocent Palestinian youth.

Mr. Abunimah is far from the dovish individual he is presented as being. He is the co-founder of Electronic Intifada, which says a lot for his extremism, and has written tracts with the likes of Omar Barghouti. In 2009 he twittered “Isn’t it the time for a popular Palestinian revolution in the form of a third intifada?” and made other charming statements such as “Supporting Zionism is not atonement for the Holocaust, but its continuation in spirit.”, and “Ending the occupation does not solve the problem. The Jews do not view all human beings as equal. The 1948 borders were calculated to harm Christians, Arabs, Palestinians and Muslims.” which echoes the views of Barghouti.

Conclusion

Ms. Murphy has cited and quoted quite a number of individuals to advocate a very hard-line approach against Israel. They are presumably cited as paragons of virtue, at least with respect to this issue. Yet none of these people stand up to a modest level of scrutiny, to which they were subjected in this article.




This article was also published at Crethi Plethi.