“One need not destroy one’s enemy. One need only destroy his willingness to engage.” —Sun Tzu

No one could reasonably be expected to know everything about the Palestinian Arab/Israeli conflict, yet there are recurring canards that one should be prepared to address with some degree of expertise. To promote their hatred of Israel, Palestinian Arabs employ a number of strategies to subvert the legitimacy of Israel:

1. Keep the supporters of Israel on the defensive. Claim that Israeli policies are criminal; the Jewish state is an international war criminal; Jews have no right to national self-determination; and Israel occupies Arab land, and therefore has no right to exist as a state.
2. Declare that Jews have no legal, moral or historical connection to the land of Israel.
3. Proclaim that UN General Assembly Resolution 3379, adopted on November 10, 1975 that “determine[d] that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination,” still reflects the true nature of the Jewish State.
4. Attack Israel as an apartheid state that engages in organized oppression and control over Palestinian Arabs.
5. Point out even Israel’s minor faults as proof of her being a failed state.
6. When criticized for inflammatory verbal assaults on Israel, assert a slanderous campaign is being waged to inhibit legitimate criticism.
7. Use the First Amendment and claims of infringement of “freedom of speech” to justify the right to be heard in schools, universities and public access television.
8. Profess to be human rights activists, not Israel’s enemies, in order to validate the repudiation of Israel and Zionism.
9. Stress that the global BDS campaign (Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions) has exposed the “essential nature” of Israel’s relationship with the Palestinian Arabs as a combination of “military occupation, colonization, ethnic cleansing and apartheid.”
10. Continually avow the desire for a two-state solution, without the slightest intention of ever accepting any Israeli terms to solve the conflict, no matter how generous. Israel will be blamed when the talks collapse in any event.
11. Demand concessions from Israel, but never concede anything, especially incitement to violence or the ultimate goal of the destruction of Israel.
12. Repeat over and over “Israel is the obstacle to peace.”
13. Assert that there is a direct link in solving the Palestinian Arab-Israel conflict to the problems in the Middle East. Once the conflict is resolved, all other disputes in the region will be settled.
14. Affirm that the Jewish “settlements” are an impediment to establishing an Arab state and a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
15. Use water as a weapon. Although the Palestinian Authority (PA) has not implemented any of the water-saving methods Israel uses or adopted any water projects to improve their situation, claim that Israel is using their water, and the PA demands more water.
16. Security fence and check points: Highlight incidents, real or false, of abuse and humiliation as Palestinian Arabs navigate these barriers to enter Israel for work, medical treatment or other activities.
17. When the world refuses to take Palestinian Arabs seriously, resort to violence: Hijack a plane; stone, stab or run over an Israeli; start an intifada—all in the name of seeking justice.
18. Refute accusations that Palestinian Arab authorities are systematically removing any trace of archeological evidence of Jewish presence and history on the Temple Mount.

The Media as an Enabler

Very often the media plays a willing participant in this charade. Journalist Zev Chafets quotes NBC’s former Tel Aviv bureau Chief Martin Fletcher, who admitted that during the first Intifada he knew the Palestinian Arabs were manipulating the media by portraying themselves as “David” against the Israeli “Goliath,” an image he exploited in a 1988 report. “The whole uprising was media-oriented,” he acknowledged, “and, without a doubt, kept going because of the media.” Fletcher confessed to accepting offers from young Palestinian Arabs to film violent attacks against Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria.

According to investigative journalist Edwin Black, there is a systematic, almost daily, campaign by local Arab or left-wing Israeli activist’s to physically harass and taunt deployed Israeli soldiers to goad them into reacting against in-your-face insults so they can be recorded. The response to these provocations is used by the media to disparage the IDF and prosecute individual soldiers. The films are edited to eliminate the baiting so that only the reaction is seen.

At Nabi Saleh, a small Palestinian Arab village 20 kilometers northwest of Ramallah, demonstrations are staged on Fridays to incite Israeli soldiers. Black writes, “The youngest children were in the vanguard… trained to taunt the IDF within an inch of the soldier’s nose to provoke an adult response against a child … The children have been schooled to vigorously wave a flag and pole as close to the soldier’s eyes and nose as possible.”

In mid-December 2017, Ynet reported the IDF arrested Ahed Tamimi, a 16-year-old Palestinian Arab from Nabi Saleh “charged with 12 different counts for six different incidents, including aggravated assault, hindering a soldier in the line of duty, incitement, threatening a soldier’s life and stone-throwing.”

According to the indictment, Ynet added that she “threw stones at Israeli security forces, threatened them, participated in violent rioting and incited others to participate in the clashes.”

Her mother, Nariman Tamimi, was also indicted for participating in the attack, and for another episode in which she and her daughter were involved the previous month. She was also “charged with incitement to terrorism on Facebook.”

The New York Times described the scene: “A teenage girl, a kaffiyeh over her denim jacket, screaming in Arabic, repeatedly punches, slaps and kicks a heavily armed Israeli army officer, who faces her impassively, absorbing some blows, evading others, but never hitting back.” The assault went viral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QYIEu7SJVE

The Times reported that two years ago, Ahed “was videotaped biting the hand of another Israeli soldier who was trying to arrest her brother. And in 2012, when she was 11, she was photographed raising her fist and yelling at another Israeli soldier—an action that earned her an award from Turkey.”

Instead of applauding the restraint of the soldiers, Ahed is portrayed as a symbol of the resistance against Israel and a victim of Israeli “occupation.”

The West Response: Unrelenting Appeasement

The West responds to these false narratives in a Pavlovian manner. Instead of acknowledging the myths as absolute falsehoods, and attempts to deflect from the real issues, the West acquiesces and continues a long-standing policy of appeasement, which only prolongs the dispute.

Why does the West persist with this failed policy? There are several possibilities. Diplomats, politicians and their advisors are often wedded to or obsessed with securing a diplomatic solution no matter what the cost. In the process, they are willing to overlook any problems that will preclude signing an agreement.

One example involves Dennis Ross, the chief US Middle East peace negotiator from 1988 to 2001. In his book “The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East,” Ross relates how Yasser Arafat, former chairman of the PA, claimed that in all the archeological excavations conducted during 34 years near the Western Wall, they “found not a single stone that the Temple of Solomon was there, because historically the Temple was not in Palestine [at all]. They found only remnants of a shrine of the Roman Herod.”

At the 2000 Camp David summit, Yasser Arafat alleged that “Solomon’s Temple was not in Jerusalem, but Nablus.” Ross understood that in making this outrageous charge, Arafat “was challenging the core of Jewish faith, and seeking to deny Israel any claim in the old City.” This absurd assertion and Arafat’s history of incitement and involvement in the murder of Israelis should have signaled that the US was once again being duped and played as a fool. Yet Ross and President Bill Clinton ignored Arafat’s rantings, because an agreement was their ultimate goal.

Why Palestinian Arabs Are Not Being Held Accountable for Their Actions

British journalist Alan Johnson postulates that an anti-Zionist mentality has “taken root” in the West based on the unproven assumption that Israelis and Palestinian Arabs are dissimilar people. Israelis “have agency, responsibility and choice; Palestinian [Arabs] do not.” The Palestinian Arabs are viewed as children and are rarely, if ever, held accountable for behaving immorally.” He says, “It’s time to stop infantilizing the Palestinians.”

Johnson adds that the implicit justification for this double standard is that Palestinian Arabs are a “driven people, dominated by circumstances and moved by emotions, qualities associated with the world of nature. Israelis are the opposite, masters of all circumstances, rational and calculating, qualities associated with the world of culture.”

Aside from absolving them from any barbaric behavior, this “pathology of paternalism,” notes Josh Benjamin, former board member of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, does not address their viability as legitimate peace partners. Instead, the focus is diverted onto the moral nature of the Jewish state.

“It’s ironic,” he says, “that the same voices supposedly calling for Palestinian autonomy undermine this autonomy by perpetually absolving them of their responsibility to act morally.” Are they “so barbaric that we can’t, at the very least, expect them to withhold their public relishing in the brutal bloodshed of innocent civilians? Or should we instead paternalize them by placing every inch of their moral accountability on Israeli shoulders?”

A Final Note

Given the significant funds allocated to Israel advocacy each year, can one presume that our leadership and students are equipped to debunk the lies outlined above? An interesting exercise might be to ask them how they would respond.

By Alex Grobman, PhD

 Alex Grobman, a Hebrew University-trained historian, has written a number of books on Israel including “BDS: The Movement to Destroy Israel,” “Erosion: Undermining Israel Through Lies and Deception,” “Cultivating Canaan: Who Owns the Holy Land?” and “The Palestinian Right to Israel.”