Post-Tour Online Course
“Understanding Anti-Semitism”, explores questions and issues relating to antisemitism. What is antisemitism? How has it changed throughout history? What happened to antisemitism after the Holocaust? How is antisemitism expressed today?
The need to confront antisemitism where it exists, and to prevent it from spreading, is an urgent need and a concern for all Jews and non-Jews wishing to live in societies that are free from hatred.
Israel needs people to stand up now more than ever as it faces more threats from enemy states, terrorists, and those seeking to delegitimze Israel like the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The need to build support for Israel among young adults is particularly important given the limited knowledge and lack of connection many students have when it comes to this unique nation.
* This course is a joint effort of the Israel Impact Tour & Israel Answers (www.israelanswers.com).
Surge in anti-Semitism, but also in Aliyah
BY DAVID PARSONS // SEPTEMBER 2014
In late May, a young man showed up one afternoon outside the Jewish Museum in Brussels, located on a quiet street in the heart of the Belgian capital. Wearing a baseball cap and a ‘Go-Pro’ camera mounted on his chest, he proceeded to take out a .38 revolver and a Kalashnikov rifle from a satchel and began firing on people at the museum entrance. Within seconds, he had gunned down an Israeli couple, a French woman and a museum worker, and then fled the scene.
A week later, the trail led police to Mehdi Nemmouche, a 29-year old French-Algerian criminal who had been released from jail in Paris in 2012, went to Syria to join the ranks of the Islamic State terror militia, and recently returned to France thirsting to shed Jewish blood. As in the Toulouse shooting two years ago, the shooter had hoped to film his exploits to boost recruiting. Now awaiting trial back in Brussels, he is believed to be the first European jihadist to volunteer in the Syrian war who has returned to kill in Europe.
But with ISIS now rampaging across Iraq and slaughtering everyone in its path, European leaders are worried there will be many more like him. Officials in Britain, for instance, are concerned that twice as many British Muslims have opted to join ISIS in Iraq and Syria than are currently serving in the British army.
Add to this growing threat the dramatic surge in anti-Semitic incidents across Europe in the wake of Israel’s efforts to end Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza over recent months and we are looking at a very volatile mix.
The Anti-Defamation League just released a study which found a sudden spike in the number of anti-Semitic incidents worldwide and particularly in Europe since the beginning of the IDF’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza in early July. This included physical assaults on Jews, threats and intimidation, damage to Jewish synagogues, homes and businesses, public hate speech, declarations invoking blood libels and Nazi atrocities, and anti-Semitic political cartoons.
The majority of the incidents occurred throughout Europe, but others were reported in South Africa, Australia, Turkey, Canada, Morocco and several Latin American countries.
Though many involved said they were only expressing anger at Israel, in most incidents this quickly lapsed into hatred of Jews in general. Protesters often chanted “death to the Jews” and held up signs comparing Zionism to Nazism.
In Paris, several synagogues have come under siege by violent mobs. Near the Peace Palace in The Hague, Muslim crowds have repeatedly held demonstrations featuring the black flags of ISIS and calls for Jews to “remember Khybar” – a reference to massacre of Jews in the Arabian town with Muhammad’s assent.
In Frankfurt, a rabbi received a phone call threatening to kill 30 of the city’s Jews. Elsewhere, a rabbi was assaulted in Casablanca in retribution for the Gaza campaign, breaking his nose and ribs. In far-off Australia, hooligans jumped on a bus filled with Jewish students and threatened them harm.
Meanwhile, both Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined Hollywood stars in accusing Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza.
Given this decrepit state of affairs, it is no wonder that aliyah to Israel is up over recent months, including a rise of 162% from Western Europe. This includes a 250% increase from France compared to last year. In fact, as many as 5,000 French Jews – a full one percent of the community – are expected to move to Israel this year alone. That is an unprecedented figure for a Western country.
Many are being pushed out by the surge in anti-Semitism, while also being lured by the prospects of finding better jobs in Israel.
Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky even claimed that Israel has taken in more Jewish immigrants than Hamas rockets over recent months.
Many of these newcomers are fleeing from Ukraine, where the civil war against Russian separatists in the east of the country has intensified and aliyah to Israel has doubled so far this year.
Over recent months, this conflict has turned into brutal urban warfare between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian forces, emptying entire cities of their populations. This includes thousands of Jews now living in refugee camps in western Ukraine who have decided there is no reason to go back to their homes and some will now make the move to Israel.
Yet many elderly Jews remain shut up in their homes in eastern Ukraine. There is no power or running water in many towns, the trains have stopped operating, shooting and mortar fire can be heard all around, and competing militias have set up roadblocks everywhere and demand bribes for safe passage.
Nonetheless, efforts are underway to send in rescue teams to bring many isolated and internally displaced Jews out to safety. The Jewish Agency has asked the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem to help fund these rescue efforts, which will eventually lead to their aliyah to Israel.
They will need to be brought out to safety while immigration authorities are expediting their paperwork. The ICEJ has already handed over enough funds to assist several hundred Jews awaiting flights to Israel. We also have committed to help fund this most urgent humanitarian mission to rescue trapped Jews still in eastern Ukraine, but we need your gifts to make it happen.
Meantime, the next set of ICEJ-sponsored aliyah flights for the Bnei Menashe community in northeast India is expected in November. This, too, is a great humanitarian effort to bring home an ancient Israelite tribe that has been waiting 2,700 years to return to the land of their forefathers.
Media Myths and Misconceptions
Most “Media Myths” fall into one of two categories: those that speak about the very character of Israel, and those that focus on the actions of Israel, specifically with the Palestinians. In part-1 and part-2 of the Israel Impact Online Course we have assembled some of the most common misconceptions in both groups.
MISCONCEPTION #1: Zionism is a racist ideology
Misconceptions on the Character of Israel
Response:
Zionism is the Jewish national movement of rebirth and renewal in the land of Israel—the historical birthplace of the Jewish people.The yearning to return to Zion, the biblical term for both the Land of Israel and Jerusalem, has been the cornerstone of Jewish religious life since the Jewish exile from the land two thousand years ago, and is embedded in Jewish prayer, ritual, literature and culture.Rooted in the liberal principles of freedom, democracy, equality, and social justice, Zionism is fundamentally opposed to racism. Israel is a color-blind society, comprised of Jews and non-Jews from at least 100 different countries from diverse ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds.
Israel’s Law of Return, which some critics of Israel accuse of being “racist,” is for Jews, a potent testimonial to the safe and free haven they will always have in the State of Israel after centuries of persecution and isolation. Israel’s uniqueness as a country which grants automatic citizenship to Jews (as well as their non-Jewish immediate family members) who seek to settle there is in no way racist. Individuals ineligible for automatic citizenship under the Law of Return are eligible for Israeli citizenship under regular procedures equivalent to such requirements in other countries.
The false equation of “Zionism equals racism” has its origins in the passage of the Arab and Soviet-sponsored United Nations resolution of November 10, 1975 which declared Zionism a “form of racism and racial discrimination.” The highly politicized resolution was aimed at denying Israel its political legitimacy by attacking its moral basis for existence. The resolution, which U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan described as a “low point” in the history of the U.N., was finally repealed on December 16, 1991. Unfortunately, there have been numerous efforts by Arab representatives at international conferences to reintroduce this heinous equation, most recently at the 2001 United Nations Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa.
Source: Anti-Defamation League; www.israelaustin.com/israelnow/inaccuraciesaboutisrael6.asp
MISCONCEPTION #2: Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is similar to the treatment of blacks in apartheid South Africa
Response:
Even before the State of Israel was established, Jewish leaders consciously sought to avoid the situation that prevailed in South Africa. As David Ben-Gurion told Palestinian nationalist Musa Alami in 1934: We do not want to create a situation like that which exists in South Africa, where the whites are the owners and rulers, and the blacks are the workers. If we do not do all kinds of work, easy and hard, skilled and unskilled, if we become merely landlords, then this will not be our homeland.
Today, within Israel, Jews are a majority but the Arab minorities are full citizens with voting rights and representation in the government. Under apartheid, black South Africans could not vote and were not citizens of the country in which they formed the overwhelming majority of the population.
The situation of Palestinians in the territories—won by Israel in a defensive war forced upon it by its neighbors—is different. The security requirements of the nation, and a violent insurrection in the territories, forced Israel to impose restrictions on Arab residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip that were not necessary inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders. The Palestinians in the territories typically dispute Israel’s right to exist, whereas blacks did not seek the destruction of South Africa, only the apartheid regime.
If Israel were to give Palestinians full citizenship, it would mean the territories had been annexed.[Webster’s Dictionary:Annex—to take possession of a territory and incorporate it.] No Israel government has been prepared to take that step. Instead, through negotiation, Israel agreed to give the Palestinians increasing authority over their own affairs. It is likely that a final settlement will allow most Palestinians to become citizens of their own state.
Meanwhile, Palestinians from the territories are allowed to work in Israel and receive similar pay and benefits to their Jewish counterparts.They are allowed to attend schools and universities. None of this was true for South African Blacks.
MEDIA MISCONCEPTION #3: As a self-described “Jewish State,” Israel is by nature an undemocratic and discriminatory country
Response:
People feel uncomfortable referring to Israel as a Jewish State because it suggests a Theocracy—i.e., a government run by priests or men claiming to know the will of God. Israel is NOT a Theocracy. It is governed by laws drafted by a democratically-elected parliament. It is influenced by Jewish values and adheres to many Jewish religious customs like Shabbat and holidays, but this is no different than the United States and many other “Christian” nations that are shaped by Judeo-Christian values and celebrate Christmas and Easter as national holidays.
Democracy, not religion, is the cornerstone of the State of Israel.As exemplified by its Declaration of Independence, Israel guarantees that its government will be “for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice, peace as envisaged by the Prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”1When its Declaration of Independence was
being written, much debate surrounded the issue as to whether they would even mention the name of God in this foundational legal document of their nation’s birth; the religious Jews felt it was essential, while the nonreligious Jews felt it would infringe upon the FREEDOM OF RELIGION that Israel was to model in a sea of religious intolerance. The result is that God is NOT mentioned by name in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, and is only indirectly referred to as “The Rock of Israel.”
Israel has no state religion and ALL faiths enjoy freedom of worship.Unfortunately, Israel is attacked for its Jewish character, yet the twenty-one Arab States—that have Islam as their official religion and do not allow religious freedom—are regarded as legitimate. It is not unusual that one community should be a majority within a nation and seek to maintain that status; this is true for almost every nation. Moreover, societies usually reflect the cultural identity of the majority. “India and Pakistan were established at the same time as Israel through a violent partition, but no one believes that these nations are illegitimate because one is predominantly Hindu and the other has a Muslim majority, or that these nations shouldn’t be influenced by those communities (e.g., that cows in India should not be treated as sacred.)”2
Basically, the Jewish people are a nation with a shared origin, religion, culture, language, and history . . . like almost all of the other nations of the world; such as Australia, Germany, Norway, and so on. “And why shouldn’t the Jewish people have a state? No one suggests that the Arabs are not entitled to a nation (and they have not one, but 22**) of their own . . . or that Catholics are not entitled to a state (Vatican City) headed by a theocrat (the Pope). To suggest that Zionism, the nationalist movement of the Jewish people, is the only form of nationalism that is illegitimate is pure bigotry.”3
1 www.israelaustin.com/israelnow/inaccuraciesaboutisrael6.asp
2 Myths & Facts Online: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli conflict by Mitchell G. Bard [www.JewishVirtualLibrary.org]
3 Myths & Facts Online: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli conflict by Mitchell G. Bard [www.JewishVirtualLibrary.org]
Does Israel violate international law?
- In the midst of a region filled with tyranny, violence, and human rights abuses, Israel strictly abides by the tenets of international law.
- The Israel Defense Forces incorporate the principles of international law into their basic doctrine. All of Israel’s government and military decisions are overseen by the nation’s Supreme Court.
Israel’s enemies have distorted its human rights record.
The misuse of international law to target Israel has distracted attention from real human rights abuses around the world. - By contrast, Palestinian leaders in the West Bank and Gaza are systematic violators of international law.
- In Gaza, Hamas oppresses women, persecutes minorities, and murders its political opponents.
- The Palestinian Authority frequently employs torture and jails political opponents in the West Bank simply for disagreeing. Learn more about the Palestinian Authority’s “Democratic Deficit”.
Source: https://www.israelanswers.com/israel/your-questions-answered
MEDIA MISCONCEPTION #4: Israeli treatment of the Palestinians today is comparable to the treatment of Nazis toward the Jews, and policies of “ethnic cleansing”or “genocide”
In a speech to visiting delegates of Europe on Dec. 12, 2004 by Arnold Roth—and reported in Unity Coalition for Israel on December 14, 2004—it was stated that “a German survey of German-born Germans found that more than half think there is no difference between Israel’s current treatment of the Palestinian Arabs and what the Nazis did to the Jews. 68 percent of Germans believe that Israel is waging a ‘war of extermination’ against the Palestinians.”
Response:
Absolutely no comparison can be made between the complex Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the atrocities committed by the Nazis against the Jews. The Nazis’ “final solution” to the “Jewish problem”was the deliberate and systematic extermination of European Jewry. Hitler’s final solution led to the calculated, pre-meditated murder of six million Jews and the destruction of many thriving Jewish communities across Europe. Israeli policies toward the Palestinians are dictated solely by its need to defend its population and combat threats to Israel’s security, while promoting a negotiated resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nor can Israeli actions or policies be characterized as acts of ethnic cleansing or genocide.Nothing of the sort is occurring, or has occurred.
At the outbreak of violence in September 2000, 99% of the Palestinian population was living under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, and not under Israeli administration. While there have been tragic casualties through this conflict and instances when Israel has felt compelled to impose harsh measures in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, there is no Israeli ideology, policy or plan to persecute, exterminate or expel the Palestinian population. Labeling Israeli treatment of the Palestinians as akin to the Holocaust, “ethnic cleansing” or “genocide” is an attempt to conjure up an emotional reaction through inflammatory rhetoric.
Those that make the comparison between the Jewish state to the Nazis and Hitler, who perpetrated the greatest and largest act of anti-Semitism in world history, have not chosen this comparison innocently or dispassionately. It is a charge that is purposefully directed at Jews in an effort to associate the victims of the Nazis’ crimes with the Nazi perpetrators, and serves to diminish the significance and uniqueness of the Holocaust. To make such a comparison is such an act of blatant hostility toward Jews and Jewish history that it clearly bespeaks of a deeper hatred.
Source: www.israelaustin.com/israelnow/inaccuraciesaboutisrael6.asp
MEDIA MISCONCEPTION #5: Israel discriminates against its Arab citizens
Response:
Israel is one of the most open societies in the world. [Out of a population of 7,282,000, Jews make up 75.5%, Muslims 16.2%, Druze 1.6% and unaffiliated citizens 3.9%. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_groups_in_Israel) As of May 2008, the percentage of Israeli residents who are Arab is 19.8%], about the same as it was when the country was established in 1948.(www.palestinefacts.org/pf_basics.php,2002)
“Arabs in Israel have equal voting rights; in fact, it is one of the few places in the Middle East where Arab women may vote. [In 2001,] Arabs held 10 seats in the 120-seat
Knesset. Israeli Arabs have also held various government posts, including one who served as Israel’s Consul-General in Atlanta. Ariel Sharon’s cabinet includes the first Arab minister, Salah Tarif, a Druze who serves as a minister without portfolio. Arabic, like Hebrew, is an official language in Israel. More than 300,000 Arab children attended Israeli schools. At the time of Israel’s founding, there was one Arab high school in the country. Today there are hundreds of Arab schools.
The sole legal distinction between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel is that the latter are not required to serve in the Israeli Army. This is to spare Arab citizens the need to take up arms against their brethren. Nevertheless, Bedouins have served in paratroop units, and other Arabs have volunteered for military duty. Compulsory military service is applied to the Druze and Circassian communities at their own request.
Some economic and social gaps between Israeli Jews and Arabs result from the latter not serving in the military.Veterans qualify for many benefits not available to non-veterans. Moreover, the army aids in the socialization process.
On the other hand, Arabs do have an advantage in obtaining some jobs during the years Israelis are in the military. In addition, industries like construction and trucking have come to be dominated by Israeli Arabs.
. . . The United States has been independent for [over 230] years and still has not integrated all of its diverse communities. Even today, nearly 40 years after civil rights legislation was adopted, discrimination has not been eradicated. It should not be surprising that Israel has not solved all of its social problems in only [60] years.”
A Classic Example of Media Distortion
The “Massacre”at Jenin
In 2002, spurred to act by a series of suicide bombings that took the lives of some 87 Israeli citizens and wounded 570 others, the Israeli Defense Force attacked what it believed to be a terrorist stronghold in the heart of the West Bank town of Jenin, a place of densely packed buildings and labyrinthine alleys and home to a close-knit core of Palestinian fighters thought to be responsible for 25 per cent of the bombings.
What happened that day was said to be a massacre on the scale of Bosnia, Kosovo and Chechnya, with entire buildings flattened and hundreds of Palestinian civilians killed.
People around the world assumed this to be true because United Nations aid workers, The Independent, the Times of London, The Guardian, BBC News and a host of other media organizations across Europe reported it to be so. “Massacre evidence growing,” a headline on BBC’s website blared on April 18, 2002.
There was just one small problem. None of that happened.
The truth would come out eventually, Canadian reporter Martin Himel reports in his documentary, Jenin: Massacring Truth. But the damage was done. The myth of the massacre endures to this day, even though the BBC was backpedaling within days of the initial reports. Little more than 10 days after accusations of a massacre were posted on the BBC’s website, British military expert David Holley, a major in the British Territorial Army and military adviser to Amnesty International, was quoted on the same site saying Israel was right to challenge the UN observers’ claims. . . “Massacre is an overused word,” Holley said, “and not very helpful in situations like that.”
Three months later, in August 2002, the United Nations and Human Rights Watch put the final fatality figures at 26 Palestinian fighters, 26 civilians and 23 Israeli soldiers.
But the genie was out of the bottle, and once out, it would prove next to impossible to put back in.
The “massacre” is now part of the historical record, promulgated in part by a Palestinian documentary film, Jenin, Jenin, that equated the Israeli incursion into the town with war crimes and ethnic cleansing, and by the refusal of many European journalists who covered the initial story to admit they got the facts wrong . . .
Himel managed to get his hands on camcorder footage taken by both Van Caspel’s unit and, remarkably, that of Palestinian fighters in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, to take viewers inside what in actuality was a nasty urban firefight, full of frenzied confusion and near-panic.
“I tried to put the (viewer) right into what it’s like to fight urban warfare, to be in it,” Himel explained by phone from Israel . . . Himel wanted his film to reflect both the macro view and the micro view of what happened that day in Jenin. The micro view is the personal story of an Israeli reservist who mourned the death of friends who died in the heat of battle, their memory stained by lingering accusations of a massacre. The macro view is the wider story of how the media cover conflict zones, and how so many journalists managed to get this story wrong.
. . . Himel’s film includes interviews with Palestinian fighters in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade who were there at the time—ironically, Himel says,Palestinian fighters are far more forthcoming than many of the journalists he tried to talk to—as well as senior editors at BBC-TV; The Independent’s senior defense correspondent, Kim Sengupta; the Daily Telegraph’s David Blair (who defends his view of events by saying he reported what he saw and merely reiterated first-hand accounts of Jenin residents he talked to); the Toronto Star’s Olivia Ward, who disputes the accuracy of some of the conclusions drawn at the time; and the Times of London’s Janine di Giovanni . . .
BBC’s initial reports of a massacre were the most damaging, because BBC is widely considered to be the standard bearer for reportage from the world’s combat zones. BBC News assignment editor Malcolm Downing tells Himel in the film that, because of its reputation, people are naturally inclined to believe that what the BBC says to be true is true . . . BBC showed little skepticism toward initial claims of massacre from the Palestinian side, Himel says, whereas CNN’s domestic service was more circumspect.
In an interview with Palestinian senior negotiator Saeb Erekat, CNN’s anchor at the time asked if Erekat would return and retract his statement if initial claims of more than 500 casualties proved to be inaccurate. “If (Israeli claims of 70 casualties) are right and your initial numbers were wrong,will you come back here on our network and retract what you said?” Absolutely,” Erekat said.“Absolutely.And I hope the numbers will be nothing. I hope the numbers will be zero.”
In a later interview with Himel, Erekat admitted he made a mistake . . . But first impressions stick, veteran BBC correspondent James Reynolds tells Himel in the film. “Going around the world right now, if one was to ask anyone who watched the news of it, what do they think of Jenin, they think ‘Jenin massacre’,” Reynolds tells Himel . . .
Many European journalists at Jenin didn’t bother to talk to Israeli soldiers and their commanders after the fighting, Himel says, even though they were standing just meters away. “I thought it was extremely important to do what these other journalists did not do,” Himel says. “When they were in Jenin, they spoke to Palestinians who gave them a very graphic account, which turned out to be inaccurate. They did not take those graphic accounts and then sit with Johnathan Van Caspel or with the Israeli IDF and really ask them what their side was, and bring an equal version out of it. They didn’t. I really felt that if I was going to put Johnathan Van Caspel’s side out there, I really had to get a hold of the people who were fighting against Johnathan Van Caspel.Which I did.Which is not simple.”
The controversy over Jenin hints at a deeper, wider issue, however, and that is the entire tone of media coverage on Israel and the Middle East. “What’s really going on here is confusing, because the real dialogue is not whether there was a massacre or not a massacre,” Himel says. “The real dialogue is: Is Israel or Palestine legitimate or not legitimate? It’s all a matter of point of view. For people who feel Israel is an illegitimate state, it doesn’t matter if it was one person here and two people there. Whatever Israel does is going to be wrong, because it’s an illegitimate country.
“That’s the real discussion. The massacre thing just echoes the real discussion. Sometimes I say to myself that everything would be better if we just had the real discussion.”
5 Facts You Need to Know
1. In the summer of 2000, Israel offered the Palestinian Arabs 97% of the land they claim to be fighting for, making Israel the first and only country ever to offer the Palestinian Arabs a homeland.
This offer was rejected with no counteroffer from the Palestinians.
2. Like the United States, Israel is a democracy. Israel’s Parliament includes men,women, Jews, and Arabs.
3. Israel ensures complete equality of all individuals irrespective of religion, race or sex. These civil rights are granted in Israel’s Declaration of Independence and Declaration of Establishment.
4. There is no “Occupation” by the Israeli Government. [There is official documentation that refers to these areas as “Disputed Territories” rather than “occupied” ones; unfortunately, these terms are often used interchangeably.]
5. Israel gained control of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza (sometimes referred to as the “disputed territories”) in 1967 after defeating Egypt, Syria and Jordan in a pre-emptive strike after those countries surrounded Israel with troops, launched repeated terrorist attacks, and threatened to “put an end to Israel.”
6. Three major attempts to destroy Israel have been carried out by the Arab World: in 1947, 1967, and 1973. Although many neighboring Arab countries today still wish to destroy Israel, Israel still seeks peace. Israel has forged peace agreements with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994), and have lived in peace with these countries ever since.
7. The West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza were never controlled by any Palestinian government or organization until 1993, when Israel agreed to give the Palestinian Authority certain controls under the Oslo Peace accords.
8. Israeli Settlements in the West Bank and Gaza are not illegal under any international law.
9. There have been roughly as many Jews displaced from Arab Nations as Arabs displaced from Israeli territory. Israel has absorbed the Jewish refugees, yet the Arab world refuses to accept the Palestinian Arabs into their countries.
10. The combined land size of Arab countries is 650 times the size of Israel—i.e., Israel is the size of New Jersey, and the Arab countries are the size of the United States, all of Central America, and Mexico combined.
Q&A: Understanding Anti-Semitism
1. Give one reason why “Zionism” is not equivalent to racism.
2. Give one example from Israel’s Declaration of Independence that proves the
fundamental democratic nature of the State.
3. Upon Israel’s rebirth in 1948, what were the circumstances in which Arab inhabitants of
the land fled to neighboring countries?
4. Give three facts that show how Arabs in Israel have equal rights.
5. How many estimated casualties were originally reported by BBC in the Jenin “Massacre”?
a. How many actual casualties were there?
b. What does this show us about the common weaknesses that prevail in media
distortion, specifically in regards to reporting on the Middle East?
6. Give two examples of the “double standard” to which Israel is subjected, that other
countries are not.
7. List three facts in each of the above lists of “stats and facts” that educated you in the
realities of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. How can you share these facts with those in
your sphere of influence?
