Lies About Israel Lead to Lies About Everything
Why would someone like Sebastian Cevallos, a university student in Ecuador, care about Israel? You'd think this tiny country on the other side of the globe from where he lives would have no bearing on his life. But it does. Here’s why.
Follow Sebastian on Instagram @sebascheredia
There are more lies told about ____________ than about any other place in the world.
EcuadorSyriaNigeriaIsraelWhat does Israel have that its neighbors don’t have?
free speechindependent courtsopen and fair electionsall of the aboveA fifth of Israel’s citizens are Arab Muslims, and even have their own political party.
TrueFalseWhy have the Palestinians repeatedly rejected Israel’s offer for the Palestinians to have their own state?
because the Palestinians need much more land than Israel has offeredbecause the Palestinians would be cut off from Iran’s support of their militarybecause the Palestinians have never accepted Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish Statebecause the Palestinians would still need a trade agreement with Israel to surviveThe reason Israel built a wall to separate themselves from the Palestinians was ___________________________________________.
to control the amount of Palestinians taking Israeli jobsto stop waves of suicide bombingsto keep the Palestinians from invadingto stop new diseases from spreading
- Israel has repeatedly offered the Palestinians their own state—and the Palestinians have repeatedly rejected those offers.
Israel has repeatedly offered the Palestinians their own state, and every time, those efforts were rejected for one simple reason: the Palestinians have never accepted Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Palestinian leaders have rejected offers of statehood contingent upon promises of peace numerous times, including in 1938, 1948, 1993, 2001, and 2007.
View sourceIn the peace talks of 2001 and 2007, Israel offered to give back to the Palestinians almost all of the territory Israel currently occupies in the West Bank. Both times, the Palestinians rejected their offers.
View source- Israel has free speech, a free press, independent courts and open and fair elections. Its neighbors in the Middle East do not.
Israel has an independent judiciary, a free press, and an excellent record of human rights and compliance with the rule of law.
View sourceIn a world full of human rights violators, why would the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement single out the most pro-human rights country in the Middle East that has “a boisterous free press, is the model of women’s and gay rights, and whose Arab citizens (1/5 of the country) are the freest in the Arab world”? The reason is that the movement is not about human rights, but about crushing Israel.
View sourceRelated reading: “The Case for Israel” – Alan Dershowitz
View source- Israel is the most tolerant, democratic country in the Middle East, yet leftist politicians and activists are devoted to destroying it.
BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) advocates anti-Israel policies on college campuses, calling Israel an “apartheid” state.
View sourceBDS promotes boycotting Israeli products and companies.
View sourceIsrael has been boycotted by academics such as scientist Stephen Hawking.
View sourceIt has become commonplace for celebrities to denounce Israel.
View sourceRelated reading: “Reclaiming Israel's History” – David Brog
View source- A fifth of Israel’s citizens are Arab Muslims. In fact, they have their own political party.
Nearly one-fifth of Israel’s citizens are Muslim.
View sourceMuslims enjoy the same rights as Jewish citizens in Israel and occupy key positions in the nation’s courts, press and government.
View sourceMuslims have their own parties representing them in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
View sourceIsrael is the only country in the region devoted to democracy.
View sourcePrisoners in Israel, be they Jewish or Arab, are well-treated. Israel has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world.
View source- Israel’s defensive walls and security checkpoints are responses to repeated terrorist attacks—and those walls have been very effective.
Israel’s defensive walls and security checkpoints are responses to repeated terrorist attacks—not an attempt to “encircle the Palestinian population and to seize more land for Israeli control,” as anti-Israel activists claim.
View sourceIsrael built the defensive walls after years of suicide bombings following the 2000 peace talks, in which they offered to give back much of the territory they occupied in the West Bank—an offer the Palestinians rejected.
View sourceAfter Israel constructed the West Bank security fence in 2003, terror attacks against Israelis dropped 90 percent.
View sourceRelated reading: “Terror Tunnels: The Case for Israel's Just War Against Hamas” – Alan Dershowitz
View source- Israel only gained control of the West Bank after Jordan attacked Israel.
Jordan attacked Israel in 1967 during the Six Day War, despite Israel’s pleas to Jordan to not invade. Israel defended itself, defeating Jordan and occupying the West Bank, including its Arab residents, known as Palestinian. In other words, if Jordan had not invaded, Israel would never have controlled the West Bank.
View sourceRelated reading: “The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can be Resolved” – Alan Dershowitz
View source- Anti-Israel activists incentivize Palestinian leaders to reject peace with Israel.
The Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment (BDS) movement incentivizes Palestinian leaders to reject peace by convincing them that Israel can be destroyed if it becomes an international pariah and is economically and diplomatically isolated.
View sourceThe movement also takes the focus away from other human rights situations that are far more deserving of attention, such as Turkey and Syria.
View sourceThe BDS movement’s stated goal is to direct economic and political pressure against Israel to force it to give up territory to the Palestinians and give them the “right of return” and full citizenship. The BDS movement fools the public by claiming it supports a peaceful solution. What they don’t say is that they want that solution to eliminate Israel.
View source- Every military action Israel has undertaken has been to protect itself; Israel is a defensive state, not an aggressor state.
As a nation still in infancy in 1948, Israel was attacked by surrounding Arab nations. No other international power aided Israel; despite this, Israel was victorious.
View sourceOn April 16, 1948, Palestinian leader Jamal Husseini told the U.N. that “the representative of the Jewish Agency told us yesterday that they were not the attackers, that the Arabs had begun the fighting. We did not deny this. We told the whole world that we were going to fight.”
View sourceDuring the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel’s neighbors again sought to utterly destroy the Jewish State. Again, Israel prevailed.
View sourceIsrael survived another all-out attack in 1973, the Yom Kippur War.
View source- Israel has been a frequent target of attacks by its neighbors, yet it has sought to make peace with them.
The first of two waves of terror, so-called intifadas, occurred in the late 1980s.
View sourceIn the early 2000s, Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas refused to accept the Oslo agreement and started a second intifada against Israel.
View sourceIsrael has faced repeated incursions from terror groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon.
View sourceHamas has launched thousands of rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip — even after Israel completely withdrew from that territory in 2005.
View sourceDespite the wars and terrorism, Israel has sought peace with its neighbors. And it did achieve a peace treaty with Egypt on March 26, 1979.
View sourceIsrael signed a peace treaty with Jordan on October 26, 1994.
View source- Israel has not only managed to survive coordinated efforts to take it down, it has produced a thriving, innovative economy.
According to a report from The Heritage Foundation, Israel’s “overall regulatory framework promotes efficiency and entrepreneurial activity.”
View sourceDespite lacking the rich oil reserves that other Middle Eastern countries have, Israel has the most advanced economy in the region.
View sourceIsrael’s thriving technology sector was built on the foundation of its defense industry’s advancements.
View sourceIsrael is known as “start-up nation,” ranking just behind Silicon Valley.
View sourceMany key tech components were designed in Israel as well as many life-saving drugs and medical devices.
View source- Israel has repeatedly responded to the hostilities of surrounding Arab states by attempting to negotiate for peace.
After losing the 1967 Six Day War against Israel, the heads of state of eight Arab nations joined forces in Khartoum, Sudan and passed the Khartoum Resolutions, which declared the “three NOs”: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with Israel.
View sourceIsrael responded to repeated hostilities from its neighboring states by signing the Camp David Accords in 1978—the first peace treaty signed between Israel and an Arab state—in which it entered into peace with Egypt and returned their portion of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt.
View sourceThe historic 1993 Oslo Accords were followed by an increase in terror attacks by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas against Israel.
View sourceIn 2000, Israel again sought peace by offering to give the Palestinians 97% of the West Bank and full control of the Gaza Strip—an offer that was denied by the Palestinians.
View source- There are no legitimate legal grounds to question the right of Israel to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish people.
Israel was legally founded in 1948 after the U.N. General Assembly officially approved its creation in 1947 with Resolution 181. There have been three autonomous nations that have governed the land of Israel. The First Kingdom of Israel, the Second Kingdom of Israel. And the modern state of Israel. The Arabs have never had a modern state in the land that we know as Israel. Prior to Israel’s legal founding, Palestine was already home to 80,000-90,000 Jews.
View source1917’s Balfour Declaration asserted Britain’s support of establishing Palestine as a “national home for the Jewish people.”
View sourceIn 1922, the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine agreed with this statement.
View sourceIsrael accepted the U.N.’s final partition of Palestine in 1947.
View sourceWhen the British Mandate expired in Palestine, Israel declared independence and was accepted as a member state in the UN in 1949.
View source- Despite its entirely lawful founding, Israel is the only country in the world today whose origins have been questioned by the U.N.
Israel was legally founded in 1948 after the U.N. General Assembly officially approved its creation in 1947 with Resolution 181.
View sourceThe U.N. is egregiously biased against Israel, targeting it more than any other country by far. In fact, of its first 103 resolutions, the UNHRC dedicated 56 to criticizing Israel — thus targeting Israel more than all other countries combined.
View sourceWATCH: Anne Bayefsky on the U.N.’s unfair targeting of Israel.
View source- The UN Human Rights Council attacks Israel more than every other country combined, including North Korea, Iran, Syria and Russia.
Of its first 103 resolutions, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) dedicated 56—over half—to criticizing Israel. In other words, the council wrote more resolutions aimed at Israel than at all other countries combined.
View sourceOut of all of the UNHRC’s special sessions called to address emergency human rights situations between 2006 and July 2014, 4.7% focused on Sudan, 4.7% focused on the Ivory Coast, 4.7% focused on Libya, and a stunning 33% focused on Israel.
View sourceRelated reading: "The UN and Beyond: United Democratic Nations" – ed. Anne Bayefsky
View source- Israel’s Declaration of Independence pledges to protect the rights of all citizens regardless of race or religion—and Israel does just that.
In its Declaration of Independence Israel pledges to protect the rights of all citizens regardless of race or religion.
View sourceArabs, even leaders of Hamas, go to Israel for medical treatment and are not discriminated against.
View sourceIsrael is the only country in the entire Middle East that doesn’t segregate and oppress its minority population. According to a 2013 report by US based research group Freedom House, Israel is the only country in the Middle East rated “free.”
View sourceOmar Barghouti, co-founder of the BDS movement, attends Tel Aviv University. Despite a 175,000 signature petition to have him removed, the university has stuck to its inclusive policies and refused.
View sourceWhen Arabs and Jews do live separately, it is by choice, not force, due to cultural and religious differences.
View source
Why would someone who lives in Ecuador—that’s me—be preoccupied with… Israel? The countries are separated by two continents and an ocean. Nothing that happens in Tel Aviv has much, if any, effect on what happens to me in Cuenca.
Except for this: I always want to know the truth about things. And I hate lies. And there are more lies told about Israel than about any place in the world. I have come to realize that if you believe lies about Israel, you will believe lies about almost anything. And if you know the truth about Israel, you’re likely to think straight about most things.
In other words, Israel is a kind of truth test. Fail this test, and you’ve fallen into a fantasy world of untruth, a funhouse mirror of the real world.
That’s a pretty bold statement, I know. But I stand by it—and I’m not even Jewish. In fact, only about 1,000 Jews live in the entire country of Ecuador. So how did Israel even get on my radar? you might ask. That’s easy.
Israel is very hard to ignore, no matter where you live. Did you ever meet someone who didn’t have an opinion about the Jewish state? So, sometime during my high school years, Israel got my attention. And I started to do some research.
At first, I thought, “Wow, this is a complex issue.” Was Israel the victim or the aggressor in the Middle East? Did it oppress its minority population or was it a bastion of civil rights? Was it a colonizer of Palestinian land? Or did it have legitimate claim to that land? Why did the United Nations pass resolution after resolution condemning Israel, but say nothing about Syria or North Korea? Why did Israel’s neighbors pledge themselves to its utter destruction?
All this attention, focused on a country you have to squint to see on a globe, a country one-tenth the size of my own and with one-half the population. It was all very confusing. So I pushed on. And the more research I did, the clearer the picture became.
Israel has free speech, a free press, and independent courts. It has open and fair elections. Its neighbors don’t. Women have full rights and are active in every profession, including the military. That’s not true of any of its neighbors.
Neither is this: Tel Aviv hosts one of the largest gay pride parades in the world, and the only one in the Middle East. A fifth of Israel’s citizens are Arab Muslims. In fact, they have their own political party. The holy sites of all religions are fully protected within its borders. Can’t say that about its neighbors.
More research led to even more revelations. Israel has repeatedly offered the Palestinians their own state, and every time, those efforts were rejected. Why? For one simple reason: the Palestinians have never accepted Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. And the wall Israel built to separate themselves from the Palestinians? The wall most of the world condemns? The only reason the Israelis built it was to stop waves of suicide bombings. It worked. The bombings stopped.
This stuff isn’t hard to find out. Nor was it hard to find out—despite the lack of Western media coverage—how many Syrians fled to Israel during the Syrian civil war to have their injuries treated and lives saved in Israeli hospitals.
And then I realized that Israel is like a North Star of truth, a way to set your moral compass. If you can’t locate this star, you’re guaranteed to get lost in a sea of lies. How many rockets does Hamas have to launch, how many times does Iran have to threaten to blow Israel off the face of the earth, before this becomes clear to you?
Yes, life is complicated. As young as I am, I know that. There are shades of gray. But some things are pretty close to black and white. They just are.
Why anyone who values freedom and democracy wouldn’t wish Israel well, wouldn’t be willing to take its side when it’s threatened, I find hard to understand. I guess not everyone is interested in truth.
Well, I am—which is why Israel means so much to me. Even in Ecuador.
I’m Sebastian Cevallos for Prager University.
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