Top Ten Anti-Israel Lies, part 2
LIE #6
Plans to build 1,600 more homes in East Jerusalem prove Israel is 'Judaizing' the Holy City.
The Truth: Enemies of Israel exploit this phony issue. Jerusalem is holy to three great faiths. Its diverse population includes a Jewish majority with Muslim and Christian minorities. Since 1967, for the first time in history, there is full freedom of religion for all faiths in Jerusalem. Muslim and Christian religious bodies administer their own holy sites. Indeed, the Waqf [Arab authority] is allowed to control Jerusalem's Temple Mount, even though it rests on Solomon's temple and is holy to BOTH Jews and Muslims.
Meanwhile, Jerusalem's municipality must meet the needs of a growing modern city. The unfortunately-timed announcement during U.S. Vice President Biden's visit of 1600 new apartments in Ramat Shlomo, was not about Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, but for a long established, heavily populated Jewish neighborhood in Northern Jerusalem, where 250,000 Jews live [[about the same population as Newark, N.J.)—an area that will never be relinquished by Israel.
LIE #7
Israeli policies endanger U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Truth: The charge that Israel endangers U.S. troops in Iraq or the AF-Pak region is an update of the old "stab in the back" lie that Jews always betray their own friends, and the libel spouted by Henry Ford and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion that "Jews are the father of all wars."
U.S. General Petraeus has stated he considers Israel a great strategic asset for the U.S. and that his earlier remarks linking the safety of U.S. troops in the region to an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal [[which 2/3 of Israelis want) were taken out of context. A resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would benefit everyone, including the U.S. But an imposed return to what Abba Eban called "1967 Auschwitz borders" would endanger Israel's survival and ultimately be disastrous for American interests and credibility in the world.
LIE #8
Israeli policies are the cause of worldwide anti-Semitism.
The Truth: From the Inquisition to the pogroms, to the 6,000,000 Jews murdered by the Nazis, history proves that Jew-hatred existed on a global scale before the creation of the State of Israel. In 2010, it would still exist even if Israel had never been created. For example, one poll indicates 40% of Europeans blame the recent global economic crisis on "Jews having too much economic power," a canard that has nothing to do with Israel.
The unsettled Palestinian-Israeli dispute aggravates Muslim-Jewish tensions, but it is not the root cause. During World War II, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a notorious Jew-hater, helped the Nazis organize the 13th SS Division, made up of Muslims. Unfortunately, in addition to respectful references to Jewish patriarchs and prophets, the Koran also contains virulent anti-Semitic stereotypes that are widely invoked by Islamist extremists, including Hezbollah [[whose agents blew up the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires in 1994), to justify murdering Jews worldwide. The disappearance of Israel would only further embolden violent Jew-haters everywhere.
LIE #9
Israel, not Hamas, is responsible for the "humanitarian catastrophe" in Gaza. Goldstone was right when he charged that Israel was guilty of war crimes against civilians.
The Truth: The Goldstone Report on Israel's defensive war against Hamas-controlled Gaza, from which 8,000 rockets were fired after Israel's unilateral withdrawal in 2005, is a biased product of the UN's misnamed Human Rights Council. The UNHRC is obsessed with false anti-Israel resolutions. It refuses to address grievous human rights abuses in Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and beyond.
Faced with similar attacks, every UN member-state including the U.S. and Canada would surely have acted more aggressively than the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] did in Gaza.
Yet, Richard Goldstone, a South African Jewish jurist, signed a document prepared by investigators whose main qualification was rabid anti-Israel bias. He accepted every anonymous libel against the IDF. But he insisted that hearings in Gaza be televised, guaranteeing that fearful Palestinians would never testify about Hamas' use of civilians as human shields and their hiding of weapons in mosques and hospitals. Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz denounced Goldstone's Report as a modern "blood libel" accusing Israeli soldiers of crimes they never committed.
LIE #10
The only hope for peace is a single, bi-national state, eliminating the Jewish State of Israel.
The Truth: The one-state solution, promoted by academics, is a non-starter because it would eliminate the Jewish homeland. However, the current pressures on Israel are equally dangerous. In effect, the world is demanding that Israel, the size of New Jersey, shrink further by accepting a three-state solution: a PA state on the West Bank and a Hamas terrorist state controlling 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza. All this, as Hezbollah, Iran's proxy in Lebanon, stockpiles 50,000 rockets, threatening northern and central Israel's main population centers.
In 2010, most Middle East experts believe that the only hope for enduring peace is two states with defined final borders. But too many diplomats, pundits, academics and church leaders ignore the fact that current polls show that while most Israelis favor a two-state solution, most Palestinians continue to oppose it.
