The Color Coded Lexicon of Israel’s Bigotry: It’s not Just PinkWashing

Posted on March 29, 2016 by First.One.Through

Opponents of Israel have come up with a variety of terms to portray the Jewish State in a negative light. Terms like “Zionist Entity” and “Apartheid Wall” are meant to show the country as a transient racist place.

Over the past years, a new term arose which doesn’t paint Israel in negative colors, but begrudgingly acknowledges the country as a liberal democracy, and does so as it calls out the actions as a flimsy veneer to an otherwise disgraceful country.

“Pink Washing” is when entities promote themselves as gay-friendly. The anti-Israel community considers Israel’s actions in this regard a “cynical use of gay rights to distract from and normalize Israeli occupation, settler colonialism and apartheid.”

Below, I offer the rest of the color-coded lexicon of Israel’s “bigotry” against Palestinian Arabs.

PinkWashing– touting Israel’s rights for the LGBT community, in the face of surrounding Muslim countries that execute homosexuals.

GreenWashing– touting Israel’s leadership role in environmental projects and technology, as a mockery of Arab world dropping chemical weapons on its own civilian populace in places like Syria.

OrangeWashing – mentioning leaving Jewish homes in Gaza in 2005, while Gaza voted for Hamas in 2006, let that terrorist group take over in 2007 and then launch three wars against Israel with over 10,000 missiles fired since 2008.

RedWashing – mentioning that Arabs and Muslims are responsible for over 90% of Muslim deaths in wars, while Israel accounts for less than 1% of Muslim deaths, even though the country is surrounded by 8% of the Muslim world.

BlackWashing – noting that Israel is the only country in the region that does not have capital punishment, while the other Arab countries execute people for reasons including adultery, apostasy and withcraft.

SilverWashing – pointing out that Arabs in Israel have the longest life expectancy of Arabs in the region. The second-longest life expectancy for Arabs is in Judea & Samaria/ the West Bank.

WhiteWashing – constantly calling Israel the only democracy in the region, next to the various dictatorships and monarchies nearby. Beyond Syria and Saudi Arabia, even the Palestinian Authority is inept at democracy: it held elections for Prime Minister to a four-year term in 2005, and hasn’t had another election since; they voted in parliamentary elections in 2006, and the terrorist group Hamas got the most seats.

BuffWashing – a slightly off-white/ taupe color has been used to describe Israel’s discussing that Arab population in Israel and its territories have gone up more than the Arab population in any of the surrounding countries.

BrownWashing – the insulting practice of describing the long history of Jews throughout the holy land, dating back over 3700 years, while also noting that Arabs only came to the region en masse in the 7^th century, and that more Arabs than Jews moved to Israel during the British Mandate.

BlueWashing – pointing out that Jews were the only people to ever have distinct self-governing governments in the holy land – three times.

PurpleWashing – is relaying that Jews have been the majority in Jerusalem since 1870, and are the only people who made Jerusalem its capital.

YellowWashing – is the rude process of pointing out that Palestinian Arabs are the most anti-Semitic people in the world, that has a leader that wrote his doctoral paper on Holocaust denial, and that United Nations-run schools in areas controlled by Palestinian Arabs, are the only UN schools in the world that are prohibited from teaching the Holocaust.

GoldWashing – is the terrible tendency of Israelis to point out that they are the only country in the Middle East that built a thriving economy without relying on commodities, that survived the market meltdown in 2008-9, and continues to excel as the oil economy plunges its neighbors into distress.

A few terms have also been introduced beyond the rainbow, as Israel’s “bigotry” and “racism” is quite extensive.

SiliconWashing – is the annoying situation of Israel touting itself as a “Start-Up Nation” and a huge technology powerhouse, while the rest of the region struggles with obtaining broadband.

XXWashing – is the insulting tendency of Israelis to note that they have more women in Parliament than the United States, while the Palestinian Authority territories lead the world in “honor killings” of women per capita.

LegalWashing – mentioning Israel’s rights for living and buying land throughout the holy land as established in international law in 1920 and 1922, while also noting the illegal annexation of Jordanian Arabs seizure of the “West Bank” in 1949, and its expulsion of Jews counter to the Fourth Geneva Convention.

PluralismWashing – is the noxious narrative of noting that Israel granted over 100,000 non-Jews citizenship when it declared statehood in 1948, offered citizenship to non-Jews in the eastern part of Jerusalem when it reunified the city in 1967, and has over 25% non-Jewish population today. This is done to only highlight that when Jordan illegally attacked Israel in 1948, it granted citizenship to everyone EXCEPT JEWS, passed laws prohibiting the sale of any land to Jews punishable by death – which was later adopted into law by the Palestinian Authority. Of course, there is the Palestinian Authority’s publicly-stated goal of having a new State of Palestine devoid of any Jews at all.

The list of affronts to global sensibilities does not stop at “PinkWashing.” Israel has a multi-color rainbow of insults that discredits the Palestinian Arabs’ quest for self-determination, while highlighting the anti-Semitic, misogynistic, racism of Palestinian Arabs themselves.

Related First.One.Through articles:

Israel, the Liberal Country of the Middle East

A Flower in Terra Barbarus

Israel’s Peers and Neighbors

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Adalah, Dismantling Zionism

Posted on January 3, 2016 by First.One.Through

Adalah is also known as the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. It is funded by a number of left-wing organizations including: the New Israel Fund (NIF); the Ford Foundation; the Open Society Foundation (George Soros); Oxfam; and the European Commission.

Adalah claims to be “an independent human rights organization and legal center which… works to promote and defend the rights of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, 1.2 million people, or 20% of the population, as well as Palestinians living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).” It’s agenda is much more aggressive than simply defending Israeli Arabs.

The group seeks to replace Israel as a Jewish State with a bi-national, multi-cultural state.

Adalah protested Israel’s ban of Islamic party in Israel, November 2015. Caption states “Raed Salah, the head of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, gestures in Nazareth on Nov. 17 after an Israeli police raid at the movement’s office.(Atef Safadi / European Pressphoto Agency).” The four-finger “gesture” is the salute “R4bia” supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. The United Kingdom also declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization in December 2015.

Dismantling the Jewish State

Adalah’s goal is a new Israel, which would no longer have any Jewish preferences, such as special symbols for Jews (in the national anthem and flag), nor special treatment for Jews (such as quick and easy approval for Israeli citizenship).

Adalah’s mission can be clearly seen in its “Democratic Constitution” for Israel, proposed in 2007:

Setting Israel’s borders at the 1949 Armistice Lines/ “1967 borders”
The “Right of Return” of all Palestinian Arabs that left the region, together with their descendants, back to Israel
“[T]he return of land and properties [for all Arab refugees] on the basis of restorative justice”
Israel would become a “democratic, bilingual and multicultural state,” replacing the Jewish State, because it views Israel as racist due to “the exclusion of the Arab minority based on the definition of the state as Jewish.”

The group rejects the international laws of 1920 (San Remo Conference) and 1922 (Palestine Mandate) that specifically called for “reconstituting their [Jewish] national home” THROUGHOUT Palestine, as Adalah claims that such international actions ultimately turned Arabs from a majority into a minority “against their [Palestinan Arab] will.”

The organization’s mission is to remove any particular “Jewishness” of Israel, and then flood the country with millions of Arabs to make Jews the minority. Homes would be taken away from Israeli Jews and handed to Arab “refugees.”

Refusing Equality for Israeli Jews

While the group fights against what it calls Israeli laws with embedded “racial inequality,” it shows no interest in promoting equality for Jews.

Where is the Adalah protest that Jews should not be barred from living in Judea and Samaria?
Where are the Adalah lawsuits to enable Jews to pray openly on the Jewish Temple Mount?
Why does the group find it offensive for Arabs with Israeli citizenship to be called “Israeli Arabs” and insists on being called “Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel?” Are they demanding dual citizenship with a future Palestinian State? Will they advocate that Israeli Jews should similarly get dual citizenship?
Adalah highlights that Arabs have lived in the region for generations which entitles them to particular rights in their homeland, yet they deny the history of the Jews and their rights to a homeland in the Holy Land.

Is equality for Adalah only a one-way street where Arabs get access and rights but Jews are denied?

Adalah: Having Your Country and Eating It Too

Adalah’s goals are clear. It seeks a two state solution for the region: one is called Israel, in which Jews are allowed to live as a minority in a bi-national state with a Palestinian Arab majority; the other country is called Palestine, which will have no Jews nor Jewish rights to their holy places.

As “Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel” are part of the broader Palestinian people, they would have citizenship in both countries, while Jews would be limited to just living in Israel. Over time, it is easy to visualize a future where those two Palestinian Arab states would merge. Goodbye Israel.

Full page NIF ad in The Jewish Week, November 20, 2015
stating it supports “Israelis working for a shared society” and claiming those opposed to NIF have an “ultranationalist agenda”

“Pro Israel” groups like the New Israel Fund state that they “are working for civil rights, social justice and religious tolerance.” Those are noble goals. However, why does NIF support organizations like Adalah which seek to destroy the Jewish State? Why does NIF label those people who want to see Zionism flourish in the Holy Land as “ultranationalist?”

Adalah openly opposes the vision of Zionism’s founders, as well as international laws which called for re-establishing the homeland of the Jewish people. How can NIF give Adalah funds ($1.875 million from 2008-2014) and claim that it is “pro-Israel?”

However the NIF chooses to stretch the definition of “pro-Israel,” it is certainly is not pro-Zionism.

Related First.One.Through articles:

Liberals’ Biggest Enemies of 2015

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Liberals’ Biggest Enemies of 2015

Posted on December 31, 2015 by First.One.Through

Hillary Clinton is no FDR

In October 2015, the Democratic presidential candidates held a debate. The debate moderator quoted a line from Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he ran for president in 1932 “judge me by the enemies I have made,” and asked the candidates to describe enemies they are most proud of. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton responded “well, in addition to the NRA, the health insurance companies, the drug companies, the Iranians, probably the Republicans.” This response drew huge applause from both the Democratic audience and the left-wing media.

It was nice of Clinton to mention at least one foreign entity when she recalled her enemies. After all, she was Secretary of State for four years during the War on Terror. However, I guess she felt that she did not do a very good job fighting Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Boko Haram or other radical jihadist groups to mention any of them. She certainly did not want to draw attention to her handling of Libya where she overthrew the government and then let the Islamic State take over the country. Or the way she oversaw leaving Iraq, letting the Islamic State take over that region. Or her refusal to engage in Syria to let Syrian leader Assad kill hundreds of thousands of his own people… and cede some of that country to the Islamic State too.

The radical jihadists probably view Clinton as their best friend.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with Libyan soldiers declaring victory,
October 2011 (photo: Reuters)

Clinton did not highlight foreign enemies because they got the better of her. The one foreign entity that she mentioned was Iran, where she ultimately supported a deal that left the Iranian nuclear infrastructure intact.

No, Clinton mentioned DOMESTIC enemies. She mentioned the NRA (the National Rifle Association) which fights to protect the second amendment of the Bill of Rights. The right that the NRA defends have arguably much greater standing than Clinton’s favored group, Planned Parenthood (which she loudly defended in her remarks), which performs and advocates for procedures that are not specifically enumerated in the U.S. constitution.

Clinton’s calling out of Republicans as an enemy was also telling. Was she targeting 41% of American citizens, or just the Republicans elected to government office?

In a two-party system such as the United States, the democracy requires each party to exist. The other party is not an enemy which seeks to harm the country that must be vanquished. It is a counter-party with a different set of priorities and/or policies to govern. Each party serves an important and essential role in balancing budgets and laws to avoid a run-away system of governance by executive fiat.

Yet the person with arguably the most experience in government of any of the presidential candidates, believes the worst enemies she has encountered are: a group that tries to defend the U.S. constitution; and either half of the country or the other political party that enables America’s democracy to exist.

Perhaps Clinton should familiarize herself with the rest of FDR’s 1932 speech in which he also said “we are not Democrats, we are not Republicans; we are a people united in a common patriotism…. My friends, my policy is as radical as American liberty. My policy is as radical as the Constitution of the United States.”

Today’s leading liberal put fellow Americans in her crosshairs. Her battle plan is to shape a democracy of her liking, bending to her interpretation of law.

Liberal American Jews’ Number One Enemy is Israel

American Jews tend to vote Democratic in presidential elections, as roughly 70% of Jews are registered Democrats. J Street, a left-wing group did a poll in September 2015 that concluded that 68% of Jews would vote for Hillary Clinton (the 68% figure would actually be the worst showing for a Democrat amongst Jewish voters since Michael Dukakis secured 64% of the Jewish vote in 1988).

Regarding the U.S.A., many liberal Jews focus their efforts on attacking conservative American policies. When it comes to Israel, liberal Jews are twice as likely as conservative Jews to berate the Jewish State.

In October 2013, the Pew Research Center conducted a poll with the following findings:

50% of Republican Jews had a very strong emotional attachment to Israel, compared to 25% for Jewish Democrats
67% of Republican Jews feel that Israel was given to Jews by God, while only 30% of Democratic Jews felt that way
Meanwhile 56% of Jewish Democrats felt that Jewish “settlements” in Judea and Samaria hurt Israel’s security, while only 20% of Republican Jews considered Jews living in homes east of the Green Line a security threat
Under President Obama, 66% of Republican Jews felt the US was not supportive enough of Israel, while 62% of Democrats thought that Obama had it just right

J Street pushed very aggressively against the current Israeli government run by Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu as detailed in “The Fault in our Tent: The Limit of Acceptable Speech” including advocating that the U.S. government should vote against Israel at the UN Security Council.

Like J Street, the left-wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz held a conference in the United States in 2015, along with the liberal group the New Israel Fund, NIF. The HaaretzQ conference included peculiar (alarming?) demonstrations of removing the Israeli flag from the stage as it offended some speakers, and a Haaretz columnist describing Jews who move to Israel as committing a “crime”, as Jewish Aliyah should be illegal. That line received wide applause from the liberal crowd.

Palestinian Authority member, Saeb Erekat, speaks at the Haaretz and New Israel Fund conference in Roosevelt Hotel, NYC, on December 13, 2015. Photo by Amir Levy/Flash90 *** Local Caption *** ???? ?????? ???? ??? ??? ???? ????? ????? ?????? ????? ?????????

Palestinian Authority member, Saeb Erekat, at the Haaretz and New Israel Fund conference in NYC, on December 13, 2015. (Photo by Amir Levy/Flash90)

Another left-wing group, Jewish Voice for Peace, JVP, claims to advocate for “social justice, equality, human rights, respect for international law, and a U.S. foreign policy based on these ideals.” The group’s interpretation of their mission is that Israel, by its very nature as a Jewish State, cannot meet these ideals, so their mission is to push the U.S. to dismantle the Zionist project. JVP’s 2015 conference loudly supported the BDS, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement of Israel.

Even the president of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, a less radical liberal Jewish group, described a handful of Jews living in Hebron in just 3% of the city as a “self-imposed existential threat” to the country.

Liberals have become convinced that most Jews and the Jewish State are the enemies of peace. It’s a line familiar to anyone that has read the Hamas Charter.

Recently, liberal groups have focused their attention on checking off each of Natan Sharansky’s “3 D Test” of anti-Semitism: demonization; double standards; and delegitimization.

Demonizing the Israeli Defense Forces, as groups like NIF fund Breaking the Silence
Double standards for Israel, the most liberal country for a thousand miles in any direction, as JVP reserved its criticism, condemnation and calls for divestment only against Israel
Delegitimization, as the Haaretz conference and speakers sought to remove Jews and Jewish symbols from the land

Jewish liberals think like Hillary Clinton: the enemy is from within, and must be stopped by all measures possible.

Conclusion

Tuvia Tenenbom wrote a book in 2015 called “Catch the Jew!” where he assumed a Sacha Baron Cohen/Ali G/ Borat kind of persona in Israel and the West Bank. At times he pretended to be Jewish, Christian or Muslim, and sometimes German or Israeli. He was a “Master Agent” and donned whatever role would get people to open-up and speak freely about their thoughts about Israel, Palestine, Jews and Arabs.

Tenenbom’s book spared no one. He saw racism and petty-mindedness in every corner of the Holy Land. The food and land received the accolades, while the residents of the land and consumers of the food were roundly criticized.

However, Tenenbom’s conclusion broke the region into shades of black: while he cringed at Jewish and Arab racism, he at least understood it. There’s a selfish motivation to wanting an Arab-free or Jew-free country. However, he viewed the liberal Europeans who fund NGO’s to “Catch the Jew” as a more vile form of racism, a deeper shade of black. How racist can one be to travel over a thousand miles to criticize Jews?

But the darkest shade of black, the worst kind of person to Tenenbom, were the self-haters. Groups like Rabbis for Human Rights and individuals like Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy were skewered the most. Tenenbom concluded that Germans do not have to openly be anti-Semitic anymore; they can just fund self-hating Jews and let them destroy Israel by themselves:

“If logic is any guide, Israel will not survive. Besieged by hate from without and from within, no land can survive for very long.”

Liberals often laugh at conservative Americans who proudly wave their flag. I used to think it was because liberals thought conservative Americans to be primitives who “cling to religion and guns” as Senator Barack Obama said when he ran for office in 2008. However, in 2015, it became clear that liberals do not look down in a condescending manner at fellow countrymen, but stare across their neighbor’s yard through a rifle scope.

In 2015, liberals declared that the enemy is from within. What battles will that bring in 2016?

Related First.One.Through articles:

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The Democrats’ Slide on Israel

Joe Biden Stabs a Finger at Israel

Parallel and Perpendicular Views of Iranian Nuclear Deal

Rick Jacobs’ Particular Reform Judaism

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Full page NIF ad in The Jewish Week, November 20, 2015
claiming those opposed to NIF have an “ultranationalist agenda” and implying
that Israel without NIF intervention would be an illiberal, racist country

The Fault in Our Tent: The Limit of Acceptable Speech

Posted on July 26, 2015 by First.One.Through

Some passionate and eloquent liberals have bemoaned the state of inclusiveness among Jews today. Leon Wieseltier, editor of the New Republic, penned an angry piece “J Street’s Rejection Is a Scandal” about the exclusion in 2014 of J Street from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Angry voices are again being heard about J Street due to their position in favor of the Iranian nuclear deal promoted by the Obama administration. Is Wieseltier correct in that we only seek to hear our own voices and that “the orthodoxies and the bubbles and the closed loops and the echo chambers are everywhere?” Is there a “red line” that J Street and others have crossed and therefore deserve to be excluded from the broad tent of acceptable conversation?

Individual Hate Speech

Many countries have laws that ban hate speech. Sometimes the exact language is clearly spelled out about what cannot be said publicly and sometimes it is more general in nature.

For example, several European countries, including Germany, have laws that prohibit Holocaust denial. Those countries took such steps not simply because such expressions offend Jews, but because of the continent’s failure to step in and protect Jews which led to their slaughter. Silence became complicity which must never be allowed to happen again.

For its part, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted Resolution 16/18 whose goal is “Combating Intolerance, Negative Stereotyping and Stigmatization of, and Discrimination, Incitement to Violence and Violence Against, Persons Based on Religion or Belief.” The resolution was drafted principally at the behest of Islamic countries who were worried about the spread of “Islamophobia.”

The various laws against hate speech all seek to curtail an incitement to violence and harm. The banned speech relates to a specific group of people (ie. Muslims) and not a concept (for example, a religion like Islam). While a person can legally say disparaging remarks about a concept (“Communism is evil”), one risks breaking the law by attacking a group of people (“All Communists should be beaten up”).

Banned Groups

Hate Speech laws are typically drafted against individuals. However, laws are also drafted against groups that incite violence. Israel banned two political parties, Kach and Kahane Chai in 1994 as they were defined as terrorist organizations. The groups’ ideology was based on the teachings of Rabbi Meir Kahane who called for expelling Arabs from Israel, thereby running afoul of the premise of calling for negative actions against people. Israel has also banned some Arab parties from running in elections which supported terrorism.

BDS, Hamas and Iran

Liberals and J Street supporters feel that BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions), Hamas and the Iranian nuclear deal should be rightly within civil discourse. However, do these topics and groups support violence against people, or are they just broad discussions about policies and ideas?

BDS: Reasonable people can arrive at different conclusions about Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria. Some feel that all the settlements are completely legal as called for in international law in 1922, while others feel that Jews living east of the Green Line is against international law as recently stated by the UN Secretary General. Those competing viewpoints would fall within legal and acceptable conversation, both in public society and in an open-minded pro-Israel community.

However, inciting hatred against settlers is inciting violence. Calling on the economic strangulation of Jews who legally purchased homes and businesses is akin to hate speech. As such, new laws are being passed which specifically outlaw supporting BDS.

Hamas: Hamas is a rabidly anti-Semitic organization that calls for the complete destruction of Israel. It has fired well over 10,000 rockets into Israel, killed thousands of people in hundreds of attacks. Since completely taking over Gaza in 2007, Hamas has engaged in three wars against Israel.

Supporting Hamas in any way is supporting terror. It should be banned completely in public society and in the pro-Israel tent.

Iranian nuclear deal: The Iranian nuclear agreement took various turns over the past several years. As Iran openly calls for the destruction of Israel, any group supporting Iran or helping Iran obtain weaponry would be supporting violence against Israel.

While the Iranian deal may arguably slow down Iran’s pathway to nuclear weapons, it certainly gives Iran tremendous financing and weaponry. As such, 78% of Israelis oppose the Iran deal in its current format.

J Street Views

J Street has taken provocative stances on these three issues.

On BDS, the group technically states that it opposes the BDS movement, while it supports efforts that do call for BDS, particularly of communities east of the Green Line.
On Hamas, the group’s own website states that “Hamas is a political movement with an important and significant base of support within Palestinian society… and we support efforts by third parties to achieve reconciliation [between Fatah and Hamas which Israel opposes] and a unity government.” One could similarly say that the Nazi party was a political party.
On Iran, the group launched a major campaign to support the deal, in direct opposition to pro-Israel groups such as AIPAC and the government of Israel itself. J Street was even against Iranian sanctions in 2009.

20150724_072448
Full page J Street Advertisement supporting Iran Deal
New York Times July 25, 2015

On these issues which directly harm Israelis and the state of Israel, J Street has sided against the stated desires of the government of Israel. Each time, they have taken stances which closely align with Israel’s enemies which seek to harm the country and its citizens.

Further, and most alarmingly, J Street has urged the Obama administration to vote against Israel at the United Nations Security Council, which is the sole voice of support in many instances. That action was so reprehensible, that even devout liberal politician Gary Ackerman (D-NY) said “I’ve come to the conclusion that J-Street is not an organization with which I wish to be associated….America really does need a smart, credible, politically active organization that is as aggressively pro-peace as it is pro-Israel. Unfortunately, J-Street ain’t it.”

PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat at J Street Conference
March 2015 (photo: J Street)

A Related View from Tisha b’Av

The Talmud relates a story about the reason the Second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed:

In Gittin 56ab the Talmud tells the story of zealots who wanted to fight the Romans as they got ready to attack Jerusalem. These zealots burned decades worth of food that had been stored in Jerusalem in order to force the residents of the city to confront the Romans.

These zealots undoubtedly considered themselves pro-Jewish. They thought that by destroying all safeguards and alternative options, they could force the rest of the Jewish people to adopt their position in the battle against Rome.

J Street, like the zealots 2000 years ago, view themselves as pro-Israel. While some parts of the Arab and Muslim world (f/k/a Romans) may seek to attack and destroy Israel, J Street views their approach to the conflict as the only logical course of action. As such, they have engaged in co-opting the US government to take positions against those sought by the government of Israel. Like the zealots who burned all of Jerusalem’s food supplies (now known as US support), they feel that Israel stripped of all of the territories won in 1967, without a Gaza blockade, and with a nuclear pact in place with Iran will secure Israel’s future. J Street is pursuing global and US pressure to make that happen, rather than seeking to convince the Israeli government.

Bookmark designed for J Street Conference
(Photo: Lisa Goldman)

In the minds of many, the J Street positions have made them the a modern-looking version of Neturei Karta, the anti-Zionist Chasidic sect, similar to the clean-shaven Jewish outreach people who market a more modern version of Chabad outreach.

Debating the merits of different approaches for how Israel deals with hostile neighbors is within constructive debate. Consistently arguing in favor of Israel’s enemies that seek to destroy the country and kill its people is akin to inciting violence.

Review the statements and positions of J Street here and consider whether such voices deserve to be heard in your community.

Israel, the Liberal Country of the Middle East

Posted on March 26, 2015 by First.One.Through

105

Summary: Israel is by far the most liberal country of the entire Middle East and North Africa region (MENA). It is also probably the most liberal country from Western Europe to Australia and down to South Africa.

Diversity of population. Israel has a diverse population. The majority, 75%, are Jewish, about 20% Arab Muslims, and the balance of 5% a mix of Christians, Baha’i, Druze and others. Almost all of the MENA region is 90%+ Muslim, with a large number being almost completely Arab Muslim (Morocco; Tunisia; Iran; Yemen; Iraq; Jordan; Turkey; Algeria; Gaza and EGL; Saudi Arabia; Libya; Egypt; Syria). Lebanon is the only other country in the region with some diversity.

Equal Justice. Israel administers its legal system to all levels of society. Consider that both a former Prime Minister and President were sentenced to jail for general crimes such as bribery and sexual assault (as opposed to a method to remove a dictator). They were afforded no special privileges compared to ordinary citizens.

Salim Joubran, Israeli Arab Supreme Court Judge

Women’s Rights. Women in Israel have full rights of equality including the ability to vote, inheritance, walk in public alone, drive, etc. These are rights that are not found in much of the MENA region. Saudi Arabia has virtually no rights for women. The new 20th Knesset will have 29 women– 24% of the parliament, significantly higher than the 16% of women in the US congress.

Ayelet Shaked, Member of Knesset

Free Speech, Assembly and Press. Israel permits freedom of expression. Freedom House ranked Israel as the only country in MENA with a free press for several years, and just added Tunisia. The MENA region continues to be the most repressive in terms of freedoms in the entire world, such as Turkey which leads the world in jailing the most journalists.

Thousands of illegal African immigrants protest in front of parliament

Freedom of Religion. Israel allows people of all faiths the freedom to practice their religion. This compares to much of the MENA region which has criminal laws against apostasy– changing one’s religion from Islam to something else- even though such right is guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A growing number of countries in Europe have begun to restrict freedom of religion including bans on minarets at mosques, head coverings in public and permitting kosher and halal foods.

Mormon church in Jerusalem built with assistance of Israeli government

Gay Rights. According to a gay rights group, ILGA, Israel was the only country to get a perfect score on gay rights in the region between Western Europe, South Africa and Australia. For example, Israel permits gay couples to adopt children and serve openly in the army , something which many western countries do not permit. In some MENA countries such as Iran, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Mauritania, gays are actually publicly executed by the government.

Gays in Israel

Environmental Matters. Israel is a “green” country. It leads the world in recycling plastic, having surpassed Europe in 2012. It created the first commercial wind farm in MENA and the first permanent bike sharing program. It leads the word in drip irrigation technology. It was one of only two countries in the world to have more trees entering the 21^st century than it had in the 20^th due to forestation efforts.

Wind Farm in the Golan

Open Public Office. People of all backgrounds and faiths are allowed to serve in the Israeli government, to become Prime Minister, serve in every branch of the military and Supreme Court. The new 20^th Knesset will have 17 Arabs – 14% of the parliament. This compares to 8% black representation in the US Congress. Many countries, like Syria, restrict the participation of people who are not Muslims from participating in public office.

Ayoub Kara, Druze MK from Likud Party

Death Penalty. Israel only has a single reason for sentencing someone to death – crimes against humanity – which it has carried out only once: fifty years ago for Adolf Eichmann for his role in the Holocaust. Much of the MENA region uses capital punishment for a range of offenses including: apostasy; adultery; drug trafficking; being gay; murder; witchcraft; and prostitution.

Abortion. Abortion is legal in Israel for a variety of circumstances. It is illegal in almost the entire rest of the MENA region, with the exception of Tunisia.

The Arts. Israel is the only country in the MENA region to have both an opera house and a ballet company. Opera exists in Israel, Oman and Syria and ballet companies are in Israel, Tunisia, Egypt, UAE and Iran.

Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center

Animal Rights. Israel became only the third country/ entity (after the European Union and Norway) to ban the sale of cosmetics that were tested on animals.

Human Body Rights. Israel permits full control of a person’s body including tattoos, body piercings and prostitution. More neighboring countries are enforcing bans on tattoos and piercings such as Turkey. Lebanon and Israel are the only countries in MENA that permit and regulate prostitution.

Protecting Women. Israel passed a law that bans the use of underweight models to prevent women from becoming anorexic.

Israeli model Bar Refaeli

Universal Healthcare. Many countries in the Middle East provide universal healthcare including: Israel; Kuwait; Bahrain; and UAE.

Israel. An open society in the middle of the Middle East.

First One Through

Israel Analysis. We primaried Bowman!

Tag Archives: liberal

The Color Coded Lexicon of Israel’s Bigotry: It’s not Just PinkWashing

Adalah, Dismantling Zionism

Liberals’ Biggest Enemies of 2015

The Fault in Our Tent: The Limit of Acceptable Speech

Israel, the Liberal Country of the Middle East

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