Lies About Israel Lead to Lies About Everything

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.

In 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.

Israel has an independent judiciary, a free press, and an excellent record of human rights and compliance with the rule of law.

In 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.

Related reading: “The Case for Israel” – Alan Dershowitz

BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) advocates anti-Israel policies on college campuses, calling Israel an “apartheid” state.

BDS promotes boycotting Israeli products and companies.

Israel has been boycotted by academics such as scientist Stephen Hawking.

It has become commonplace for celebrities to denounce Israel.

Related reading: “Reclaiming Israel's History” – David Brog

Nearly one-fifth of Israel’s citizens are Muslim.

Muslims enjoy the same rights as Jewish citizens in Israel and occupy key positions in the nation’s courts, press and government.

Muslims have their own parties representing them in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

Israel is the only country in the region devoted to democracy.

Prisoners in Israel, be they Jewish or Arab, are well-treated. Israel has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world.

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.

Israel 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.

After Israel constructed the West Bank security fence in 2003, terror attacks against Israelis dropped 90 percent.

Related reading: “Terror Tunnels: The Case for Israel's Just War Against Hamas” – Alan Dershowitz

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.

Related reading: “The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can be Resolved” – Alan Dershowitz

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.

The movement also takes the focus away from other human rights situations that are far more deserving of attention, such as Turkey and Syria.

The 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.

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.

On 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.”

During the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel’s neighbors again sought to utterly destroy the Jewish State. Again, Israel prevailed.

Israel survived another all-out attack in 1973, the Yom Kippur War.

The first of two waves of terror, so-called intifadas, occurred in the late 1980s.

In the early 2000s, Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas refused to accept the Oslo agreement and started a second intifada against Israel.

Israel has faced repeated incursions from terror groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Hamas has launched thousands of rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip — even after Israel completely withdrew from that territory in 2005.

Despite the wars and terrorism, Israel has sought peace with its neighbors. And it did achieve a peace treaty with Egypt on March 26, 1979.

Israel signed a peace treaty with Jordan on October 26, 1994.

According to a report from The Heritage Foundation, Israel’s “overall regulatory framework promotes efficiency and entrepreneurial activity.”

Despite lacking the rich oil reserves that other Middle Eastern countries have, Israel has the most advanced economy in the region.

Israel’s thriving technology sector was built on the foundation of its defense industry’s advancements.

Israel is known as “start-up nation,” ranking just behind Silicon Valley.

Many key tech components were designed in Israel as well as many life-saving drugs and medical devices.

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.

Israel 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.

The historic 1993 Oslo Accords were followed by an increase in terror attacks by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas against Israel.

In 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.

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.

1917’s Balfour Declaration asserted Britain’s support of establishing Palestine as a “national home for the Jewish people.”

In 1922, the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine agreed with this statement.

Israel accepted the U.N.’s final partition of Palestine in 1947.

When the British Mandate expired in Palestine, Israel declared independence and was accepted as a member state in the UN in 1949.

Israel was legally founded in 1948 after the U.N. General Assembly officially approved its creation in 1947 with Resolution 181.

The 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.

WATCH: Anne Bayefsky on the U.N.’s unfair targeting of Israel.

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.

Out 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.

Related reading: "The UN and Beyond: United Democratic Nations" – ed. Anne Bayefsky

In its Declaration of Independence Israel pledges to protect the rights of all citizens regardless of race or religion.

Arabs, even leaders of Hamas, go to Israel for medical treatment and are not discriminated against.

Israel 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.”

Omar 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.

When Arabs and Jews do live separately, it is by choice, not force, due to cultural and religious differences.