Israel Matzav

A response to 'Jewish Voices for Peace'

Third, your organization is the founder of Muzzlewatch. Muzzlewatch is a blog that claims that voices criticizing Israel are under censorious attack. The irony of this claim is that when some of us went to Muzzlewatch to debate your group’s claims, they shut down all comments. Permanently. The fact that you would disrupt a speech with the claim that your claims can’t otherwise be heard is sheer hypocrisy.

Fourth, your banners are mistaken. What delegitimizes Israel are groups such as yours which serve as the vanguard of the numerous organizations that attack Israel regularly. What helps to delegitimize Israel is that many haters of Israel (as well as haters of Jews, just so we are perfectly clear on this point) use groups such as yours as shills, because you are Jewish, to enable their movements to avoid or to take cover behind you guys when they are justly criticized for singling Israel out in ways they don’t single out other nations that do far worse. In other words, you serve as a fig leaf for Israel’s enemies.

Fifth, your group and others like it have done more to damage the possibility of peace than has Hamas. What you have effectively done is give the Palestinians the confidence and belief that their waiting strategy is likely to succeed in defeating Israel over time. You have strengthened those who would refuse peace deals like Olmert’s and Barak’s.

Sixth, it is precisely peace offers such as Barak’s and Olmert’s which undermine the many false claims your organization makes in general and even specifically with your lying banners in this event. The fact is the occupation could already be over, the Palestinians could have their own state over approximately 98% of ’67 borders with additional land inside Israel to compensate for the other 2%. The Palestinians could have eastern Jerusalem with either sovereignty over their holy places or able to enjoy international sovereignty over the Holy Basin. The Palestinians could have received over $30 billion in reparations and even a limited return of original Palestinian refugees to Israel.

Yet, here you are complaining that the occupation continues and that an embargo on Gaza – a place which has launched thousands of rockets at Israel and is making great efforts to arm itself to the teeth – should be lifted thus easing the way for more arming of those who have no problem shooting rockets at Israeli civilian centers in order to cause both terror and death.

And I could go on and on.

My point, however, is different.

If you had the true courage of your convictions, you would make every effort to convince the Palestinians to negotiate for peace and to close a deal.

Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, hecklers, Jewish Federation General Assembly

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:48 PM