Don't Envy the Israeli Ambassador

The Israeli ambassador to Germany in an interview to a German paper has today said that he “does not envy those Jews who live in Europe these days.” Well, I don't envy the Israeli ambassador. 

He is right to empathise – the poor Jews in Europe, out of loyalty to the Jewish state, continue to defend Israeli occupation and settlement policies, even when they think otherwise. They love Israel because it is the Jewish state, despite the fact that it has become an apartheid state, and that it is run by a corrupt clique. They love Israel because they are afraid of the moment they will no longer love it. And so, they look the other way and try to find justification for the unjustifiable.

The Israeli ambassador is right -  one cannot envy the European Jews, whose leaders sound as if they are Israeli government spokesmen.

The Israeli ambassador is right – Diaspora Jews must break free. They can love the idea of a Jewish state, they can love the fact that when they are in Israel, they are surrounded by fellow Jews, whilst standing up and openly making a stand against the land-grab and the occupation and control of millions of Palestinians by Israel.

By the way, the propaganda line led by Israel’s prime minister and echoed by his ambassador to Germany, that European Jews should flee to Israel for their security sounds like a bad joke. He cannot possibly suggest that they are safer in Israel, unless of course part of the deal on offer is privileged space for all newcomers in the high-tech nuclear bunker reserved for Israel’s ruling elite.   

I don't envy the Israeli ambassador. 

Israeli propaganda should be better

Israelis often feel the need  - when they are not called upon to serve their country in the army – to serve their country on the propaganda front. In this context, Israeli friends occasionally email me links to articles or information, which they think will shed a positive light on Israel. The latest such email that I received, linked to an article by Israel’s outgoing Minister of Finance, Ya’ir Lapid, published a couple of days ago in the Guardian.

It’s written in English and published in a British paper but I expect that the real purpose is to impress the home market. There is a general election in Israel in less than a month and standing up to the gentiles always gets an Israeli politician brownie points. In this article, Lapid tries to deride the recent open letter that was signed by 700 British artists who called for a boycott of Israel because of the continued occupation.

It is shallow and kitschy, stoops to pinkwashing – brandishing Israel’s gay rights to distract from Israel’s occupation wrongs, and leads nowhere.  Lapid besmirches Hamas (not so difficult), under whose rule gays are hanged and climaxes with a personal touch by naming “my friend Gila Tregerman”, whose four year old son was killed by a Palestinian mortar shell.   

Lapid tries to show that he cares about Diaspora Jews, who should “be able to stand safely outside synagogues and do their shopping in a kosher supermarket…” He could ask himself why it is that anti-Semitic attacks in Europe are on the rise whenever Israeli military activity seems to get out of control? And what he wants, Lapid says, is “...modest: for people not to try to kill me just because I’m a Jew.” He knows well enough that if anyone is trying to kill him, it is not because he is a Jew but because he is an Israeli and as surprising as it may seem to him, Palestinian terrorists have been killing Israelis and Israeli soldiers have been killing Palestinians for many years. The attempt to turn this into a “please don’t kill me just because I’m a Jew” is disgraceful and he should be ashamed of himself.  

Had Israel done it

A day after Islamic State published, their video of a captured Jordanian pilot being burned alive, Jordan executed two jihadist prisoners. Earlier today, Jordanian Royal Air Force flew bombing sorties over IS held areas in Syria. The Jordanian king has promised more revenge.

No one in the West got very excited by the Jordanian reaction. A probably jealous Mr Lieberman, Israel’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, has praised the King for his “harsh and decisive response to the event.”

Had Israel reacted similarly in response to a murderous terror attack… It would have become a central story across the world. One or other country would have convened the UN Security Council, Jordan would have recalled its ambassador, European and even US student and teachers unions would have called for Israel to be boycotted, and violent demonstrations in Europe would have turned to attacks on Jewish institutions.

The fact is that nobody gives a damn about the execution of jihadists or the bombing of IS bases. But had Israel done it…