How should you think about Israel?
Is Israel the incarnation of evil? Or, is Israel the embodiment of all that's good about the human race?
Mahmoud Abbas, the un-elected leader of the Palestinian Authority, wants you to see Israel as the incarnation of evil. He makes his living telling you that Israel is a very bad nation indeed. For example, here's just a sample of what Abbas has said about Israel:
-Israel commits the war crime of ethnic cleansing against 'Palestinians' (Adam Rasgon, "Abbas says Israel carrying out ethnic cleansing", jerusalempost, September 12, 2016).
-Israel has no right to exist ("Mahmoud Abbas tries to take Israel's legitimacy to court," mosaic, July 27, 2016).
-Israel seeks to poison the wells of the 'Palestinian' people (Hank Berrien, "Palestinians accuse Israel of poisoning water. Obama administration criticizes...Israel", dailywire, June 24, 2016).
-Israel commits genocide against the 'Palestinian' people (Larry Derfner, "Accusing Israel of genocide: major fail", +972magazine, September 29, 2014).
-Israel commits a war of genocide against the 'Palestinians' (Jon Queally, "Abbas at UN: world must hold Israel to account for war of genocide", commondreams, September 26, 2014).
-When his new state of 'Palestine' is born, Arabs will move into Israel; but there will be no Jews in 'Palestine' (Jonathan Tobin, "Abbas: Arabs in Israel; no Jews in Palestine", commentary, July 30, 2013).
-Israel has a policy of colonial occupation, brutal aggression and racial discrimination against the 'Palestinian' people (Palash Ghosh, "Mahmoud Abbas' United Nations speech on Palestinian statehood: full text transcript", internationalbusinesstimes, September 23 2011).
-It is 'Zionist' forces who started the 1948 war between Arabs and Jews. They started that war by forcefully expelling Arabs, prompting Arab nations around Israel to 'intervene' (Mahmoud Abbas, "The long overdue Palestinian state", newyorktimes, May 16, 2011).
-Israel commits state terrorism (Jack Khoury, "Palestinian president calls for comprehensive strategy to end Israeli state terrorism, urges UN Security Council to pass resolution to end occupation", haaretz, September 26, 2014).
-Israel commits mass murder against 'Palestinians' (David Rosenberg, "Israel is committing mass murder", arutzsheva, June 23, 2016).
In a September, 2016 speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations, he called Israel's actions 'illegal' six times. He suggested that Israel was responsible for the 1948 failure of the Arabs to destroy Israel. He linked Israel with occupier/occupying/occupy/occupation no fewer than nineteen times (Read: full text of PA president Abbas' speech to UN General Assembly", jerusalempost, September 22, 2016).
That's how Mahmoud Abbas portrays Israel. Of course, if Israel were guilty of these accusations, there'd be no way whatsoever that the 2016 Freedom House annual Report on the state of Freedom in the world would list Israel as the only free country in the Middle East ("Freedom in the world, 2016 Report", Freedom House). To see why Freedom House would list Israel as 'Free', check on the Report's Methodology details. The Freedom House analytic approach is, shall we say, more objective that Abbas.
To see how wrong Abbas is about Israel, take a different look at Israel. Start with a video.
This video is, for me, just a little long--9:24 minutes. But I think it's worth your time. It's titled, "This is what being a light unto the nations really means". It's published by Israelinside. It was first posted February 3, 2016 at israelvideonetwork.
When you see Israel in the news, you invariably see Israel as Abbas portrays it. But is there any brutal, oppressive, murdering nation in the world that also contributes so much to help and to save the world?
Israel is the innovation capital of the world, not the worst and most brutal regime on the planet, as some would have you believe. A nation committed to brutality, oppression and murder does not also commit acts which help and save others. Those brutal regimes are too committed to murder. They have no clue what 'help and save others' means.
The truth is, no nation exists which combines murderous brutality with lifesaving-and-life-improving accomplishment. There's a reason for this: when you are truly brutal (think, Iran, North Korea, Gaza and the Palestinian Authority), you are simply not oriented to help others the way Israel does.
Brutal regimes don't have a culture of innovation. They have a culture of repression. They don't have a culture of 'let's help others'. They have a culture of, 'we'll kill you'.
As the video above suggests, the drive to help others is built into the Jewish DNA.
This is why the UN--no friend to Israel--has recently named Israel as the first and only nation in the world to develop and field a level-3 mobile trauma unit for national disasters outside Israel ("Israeli field hospital ranked best in the world by WHO" i24news, November 13, 2016). No Arab nation has anything close to that kind of 'let's help others' equipment. The Palestinian Authority certainly doesn't. It can't even take care of it's own people. It relies on Israel for that; and Israel answers those calls for medical help.
So where does the reputation for Israeli brutality come from? It comes primarily from pure, raw Arab Jew-hate, the kind of hate that starts with portraying Jews as pigs and apes, leads to incitement to kill Jews (genocide) and ends with seeing any Jewish action to defend itself or protect itself as repulsive, aggressive, brutal and evil.
That's how Israel's defensive security barrier became the repulsive 'Apartheid Wall'. it's how Israel's defensive response to thousands of rockets fired from Gaza became 'genocide against Palestinians'.
Abbas promotes these accusations. The nations of the world seem eagerly to support these accusations. Apparently, these nations can find no bad 'Palestinian'. They can remember no good Israeli.
The truth is, Arabs in Israel are not brutalized by 'a Jewish regime that discriminates against them or oppresses them'. Israeli Arabs do all the things minorities in an Apartheid regime cannot do--go to college, enter professions, serve on the Supreme Court, serve in the national Parliament (the Knesset), serve in high-ranking positions throughout Israel and win a Miss Israel contest. Brutal regimes--like the Palestinian Authority--don't allow those opportunities for religious minorities.
How should you think of Israel? Start with the video you've just seen.
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