The Need to Counter ‘Incendiary Rhetoric’ Against Israel
March 7, 2013 14:22 by Alex Margolin
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who’s made bashing Israel a spectator sport for Israel haters, raised some eyebrows recently when he blithely referred to Zionism as a “crime against humanity.” Secretary of State John Kerry issued a mild protest, saying, “We not only disagree with it. We found it objectionable” and that it made peace work more difficult.
Light as they were, Kerry’s commments were praiseworthy, according to author and commentator Shmuley Boteach, because they represent one of the few times a senior official has made any effort to counter Erdogan’s vile rhetoric at all.
Boteach’s larger point, however, is significant and worth looking at more carefully. The lack of response from Israel over many years of blistering verbal attacks from its enemies and their supporters has played a key role in Israel’s low status today.
It is my strong opinion that overlooking incendiary rhetoric is exactly what led to the global deligitimization of Israel from which we suffer so severely today. The Jewish State is trapped not only in a war of bombs and missiles but primarily in a war of verbs and words. Its major defenses can no longer include just tanks and helicopter gunships but eloquence, articulateness, and factual fluency.
How did Israel, the Middle East’s sole democracy, which respects the rights of women, gays, and everyone in-between, become one of the most maligned and hated nations on earth? How is it possible that Israel retains, in a global poll of citizens of 22 countries conducted by Globescan, the same negative rating as North Korea (50) and is seen more negatively then even Iran, which stones women to death?
The answer is that Israel has paid lip service to the verbal assault against its reputation for decades. Israeli hasbarah has been a monumental failure not because Israel cannot enunciate but because it failed to understand the importance of words. While Israel was developing advanced radar and the Iron Dome defensive shield, the Arabs were unleashing a global army of articulate spokespeople on campuses, the BBC, and CNN. Arab leaders who were Israel’s ostensive allies were criticizing Israel daily at the UN. It did not take long before Israel – defenseless and silent – became one of the great pariah nations of the world.
And the only way to combat now and reverse the growing deligitimization it is to create an army of words warriors who employ the power of spoken truth to champion Israel’s cause.
There is never a cease-fire in the battle for hearts and minds. Just look at activities taking place on campuses in the name of Israel Apartheid Week and the constant onslaught from the BDS Movement. We must speak up for Israel with the same tenacity Israel’s enemies have in delegitimizing it.
Anthony Dayton
4:28 pm
Mar 07, 2013
One of Canada’s main union, the union of the postal service, is rabidly anti-Semitic; it apparently just published a newsletter for its 54,000 members accusing the Canadian government of supporting a country guilty of war crimes. And it uses government funds to do this. Perhaps HonestReporting might have a look at CUPW
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Marjie
9:04 pm
Mar 07, 2013
This is a bunch of baloney!!! I am so tired of blaming Israel for all the negatives that happen in and re the mideast. People want to blame Jews, want to libel and derogate Jews. and all the verbal responses by Israel to try to explain that they are a humane, rational people is fruitless.
Rapproachement will be reached when children are raised with loving attitudes to all- cradle to grave!
mm
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Robert Feinstein
5:54 am
Mar 08, 2013
I believe Israel can successfully turn the trend of demonization around. We must focus on the university campuses. Groups like: Standwithus, the David Project, and Scholars for Peace in the Middle East are doing a good job defending Israel. But we must go on the offensive in our efforts to fight the BDS Movement, et al. How many university students know that Arab League states have real gender, religious and racial apartheid? We must start havfing Arab Apartheid Week events on university campuses. How many university students know that the arabic eord for Black people (Abd) is the same word they use to describe slaves? How many know that some Arab League states still have slavery?
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veryneat
3:14 pm
Mar 11, 2013
Honest Reporting shoud inform its readers of a growing movement, “Israel Truth Week” that has begun in order to counter the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish activities so prevalent on university campuses all over the English-speaking world. The second annual “Israel Truth Week” activities took place last week in Canada and are starting up in the USA. Anyone can find out about this new, very positive movement by conducting an internet search.
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Abie Werth
4:23 am
Mar 12, 2013
As long as the Arabs supply oil to most of the world, they have the the stage, and the worlds attention. Hitler said it.”If you tell a lie enough times people will believe it.” I hope it works with the truth.” What does Israel have to sell to the world to compete with oil? It is intelligence and knowledge, but being Jews we give that away.
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Marc de Vancouver
9:05 am
Mar 20, 2013
How about doing it the same week as Israel “apartheid” week, or the week before? Let’s educate before the bigots get to them. This way we can be pro-active, instead of REactive!
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Augustus Silverton
7:25 pm
Mar 13, 2013
When I said on yahoo: ” ERDOGAN is an ASSHOLE”, they thumbed me down, most people.
I said this because of the good Noam Chomsky, who had to free some unrightfully persecuted Curds in Turkey. The gov there only freed those two People, because it had to uphold its image.
Turkey is only backing Israel to “please” the USA. Erdogan is a patriot like the massmurderer ATATUERK, who for the Curds, is a HITLER, and WAS. Like Saddam, Atatürk has “eliminated” actually millions of Curds. Saddam two million, Atatürk about surely some not fewer than hundredsa of thousands of massmurdered Curds.
All the while, rightwing newspapers are slamming social help receivers. total discrimination. fascism-racism.
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Augustus Silverton
11:32 pm
Mar 13, 2013
Turkey is concerning its cities a modern country, but is surely aBUSED by some of the minority of exploitive Russians and others, who have “sex-slave-trade” gangs, “human trafficking”, terrible, PBS reported.
I think any real abuse and violence has to be ended.
That UK spokesperson of the British foreign EU minister, has spoken well, but I’d wish more ANGER against that TOTALLY MAD “boko haram” in AFRICA, “boko haram” means ” the WEST is EVIL”, and is an alkaida-near real terrorist group. They just now murdered some 37 WORKERS which were first taken hostage (NY Times Herald Tribune March 11, 2013, Page 3: ” Hostages BELIEVED (:///) in NIGERIA”. In Kenya, Im sure Kenyatta is corrupt.
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Augustus Silverton
11:37 pm
Mar 13, 2013
… Hostages “believed” KILLED in NIGERIA — by “BOKO HARAM”.
I think when sey koll sem elves like dat, THEY are “DA EVIL WEST”, haha:
“The West, the EVIL”, I CAN understand from my Hebrew. “RA” means EVIL in hebrew. “RAM” in “AFRICAN”, haha. “BOKO” must be the word for “West”. So by calling themselves by all that IS bad IN THE WEST, THEY ARE ALL OF THAT — more, much more than “us”, if you wanna go down on their “niveau”, which is quite low, and see all groups as homogenous, which they never are … ahaha my god these murderers of “JIHAD”, hamas hizbolla alkaida taliban … why can they “rule”, they ARE MURDERERS who SHOOT SMALL YOUTHS, KIDS !!! stop taliban and alkaida. I will dot that.
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Augustus Silverton
11:45 pm
Mar 13, 2013
And hey, Fellas, Achim we Achot:
Good method to see who is INSANE: Download Peerblock and add all lists til u got 15. update.
then utorrent. now share “auschwitz – the nazis and the final solution” and any docus about antisemitism, for example “muslim antisemitism” or “Radical Islam”, and docus about the by china gov massmurdered FALUN GONG, “China – A century of revolution”, “China’s Great Wall” etc) —
now see who’s TRYING (unsuccessfully!
to “LOG” YOU !!!
YOU can now turn on the “Logging” option in Peerblock, for proof purpose. Most of the anti-P2P and even PRO-HITLER insano institutes ARE in CHINA. and some HINDU universities too. “MAHAMADOU YOGYARTA”, ie. Da ppl there are EVIL !
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