Many people think there is a lot of mis-information about Israel, along with misunderstanding and incorrect information.
Debating the issues amongst yourselves rarely prepares you for using a reasoned discussion with a stranger of opposing views. Its more likely it will just be a vociferous, heated argument where the loudest person wins.
In our family we’ve been considering for some time how we would conduct a civilised discussion with a stranger, if the need arose. And more especially how our kids will cope as they leave home and enter university or the workplace, where others may have a more rehearsed opposing argument.
The web site of the StandWithUs.com campaign contains seventeen pages of counter arguments that debunk spurious propaganda about Israel.
It doesn’t contain every argument, and some parts of recent Jewish history such as the demonisation and expulsion of the Jews from Iraq is not covered – you can read a personal account of this in the book “The Last Days in Babylon” by Marina Benjamin
BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour interview
Amazon: Last Days in Babylon
BDS Cookbook:
The ‘BDS’ or ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions’ movement advocates the demonization of Israel and her actions.
See… How to Confront and Defeat BDS
Responding to BDS: Five-Minute Recipe
Countering BDS Israel Apartheid Claims:
see… Responding to Israel Apartheid Week
Other reference web sites:
Beyond Images
We Believe in Israel
Mohammed Amin
History of Israel
“This is not Jewish”
These two pages (by the same American Jew) are interesting to read, even if you don’t agree with them. At least they are an insight into how others may take a perspective.
how-to-criticize-israel-without-being-anti-semitic
how-to-support-israel-without-being-racist
Extract from an article by William A. Jacobson – 23 February 2014
First and foremost, Israel is a majority rule democracy. South African Apartheid was the subjugation of the majority by the minority based on racial classifications — the exact opposite of Israel.
Israel is a multi-racial and multi-ethnic society in which the dividing lines, as in many countries and certainly all Mideast countries, is religion not race. In Israel the religious minority has full voting rights, members in the parliament and in the Supreme Court, and all the civil freedoms of the majority. Even the Jewish majority (about 80%) is multi-racial and multi-ethnic, including half the population being refugees and their descendants from Arab countries, Ethiopia, and other non-Western places.
Minority rights in Israel may not be perfectly protected, but they are protected better than in any other Mideast country. Even in the U.S., how many times do we hear about “institutional racism,” and “white privilege” and other alleged systemic legal and cultural biases? How many times are laws challenged because of disparate impact on minorities? Does that make the U.S. an Apartheid state?
The West Bank is under military rule not for racial reasons, but for security reasons. The so-called “Apartheid Wall” (which is a fence in most places) was not built for racial reasons, but only after several hundred Israeli civilians were killed by suicide bombers in buses, restaurants, and even Passover Seders. The barrier played an important part in stopping that suicide bombing campaign. Even the checkpoints, which have decreased in numbers over the years, to this day stop attacks. Israel repeatedly has offered to exit virtually all of the West Bank in exchange for peace — offers that have been rebuffed at Camp David and numerous other times.
At every level, the accusation of “Israel Apartheid Week” is nothing but propaganda.
William A. Jacobson is Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Securities Law Clinic at Cornell Law School.
Here is just one counter argument on StandWithUs.com
POINT 6: The Jews lost their connection with Palestine after the Romans expelled them in 135 AD. Then all of a sudden, 2000 years later, they decided to reclaim it.
COUNTERPOINT: Jews maintained a continuous presence in Palestine and periodically flourished there in the two millennia after the Roman defeat.
Supporting Evidence: Though the Roman army slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Jews, sold thousands more into slavery and forbade Jews to enter Jerusalem during the Jews’ second revolt in 135 AD, Jews remained the majority of the population. They simply moved to other parts of the country. “The center of Jewish habitation moved to the north and east of the country, and especially to Galilee, which had suffered little destruction, and was still populated to an overwhelming extent by Jews. The center of Hebrew religious scholarship, too, was moved…to various successive Galilean villages and towns….Rabbis abounded in this region.” Historian Michael Grant [61]
Supporting Evidence: The Romans also allowed the Jews to maintain some autonomy in what was now called Palestine. Shortly after the Jewish revolt in 135 AD, the Romans established a Jewish Patriarchate located in the Galilee. “[T]he patriarchate became a unique office which…attracted Jewish loyalty while also permitting a considerable degree of administrative and even, to some extent, political autonomy.” Historian Michael Grant [62]
Supporting Evidence: Thousands of Jews remained in the Galilee, Safad (which became a center of Jewish mysticism), Tiberius and Hebron with smaller numbers in Gaza, Rafah, Ashkelon, Jaffa and Jericho. They produced the Palestinian Talmud in the 3rd century; and tried to retake Jerusalem in 625 AD, just before the Muslim conquest. [63]
Supporting Evidence: “The Arab geographer Abu Abdallah Mohammed-known as Mukadassi-writing in the 10th century, describes the Jews as the assayers of coins, the dyers, the tanners and the bankers in the community.” [64]
Supporting Evidence: By the time of the Crusades (c. 1100 AD), about 300,000 Jews lived in Palestine and they joined forces with the Muslims to fight the Christian invaders. The Crusaders decimated the Jews, herding them into synagogues that they then set on fire. [65]
Supporting Evidence: Once Saladin expelled the Christians, Jews again began to flourish in Palestine. They looked upon Saladin’s victory as a sign of their return to Zion. “God is zealous for his name and has had mercy for his people.… In the year 4950 of the creation [1190], God awakened the spirit of the king of Ishmael, and he and all of his army went up from Egypt and laid siege to Jerusalem, and God delivered it into his hands…. And he bid a proclamation be made throughout the city… saying: Speak unto the heart of Jerusalem, that whoever from the seed of Ephraim wishes may go unto it….”Jewish poet Judah al-Harizi, 1214 “The belief that the redemption would begin at this time prompted Jews from many lands to move to Palestine. By 1211, groups of immigrants were already arriving, including a large number of the leading Tora scholars of France, England, North Africa, and Egypt…” [66]
Supporting Evidence: In 1491, a European Christian pilgrim described the many Jews in Jerusalem: “There are not many Christians but there are many Jews, and these the Moslems persecute in various ways…The Moslems know that the Jews think and even say that this is the Holy Land which has been promised to them….in spite of all the troubles and sorrows inflicted on them by the Moslems, they refuse to leave the land.” Martin Kabatnik, Journey to Jerusalem, 1491 [67]
Supporting Evidence: “During the sixteenth century, there developed a new effervescence in the life of the Jews in the country. Thirty communities, urban and rural, are recorded at the opening of the 16th century.(*) They include Haifa, Sh’chem, Hebron, Ramleh, Jaffa, Gaza, Jerusalem and many in the north. Their center was Safed. Its community grew quickly….The 8,000 or 10,000 Jews in Safed in 1555 grew to 20,000 or 30,000 by the end of the century.” 16,000 lived in Safad in 1700, at a time when only a handful of European cities even 10,000 inhabitants.(**) [68]
Supporting Evidence: When the Ottoman Turks took over Palestine in the 16th century and began to restore it, their tax registers showed an increasing number of Jewish families in Jerusalem:(*)
1525: Muslims: 3,670 Christians: 714 Jews: 1,194
1553: Muslims: 11,912 Christians: 1,956 Jews: 1,958 [69]
Supporting Evidence: “Throughout the Middle Ages, sizeable Jewish communities existed in Jerusalem and Safed, and smaller ones in Nablus and Hebron.” Historian Walter Laqueur [70]
Supporting Evidence: In 1864, thirty-four years before modern Zionism, British officials estimated that Jews were the majority population in Jerusalem. “The population of the City of Jerusalem is computed at 15,000 of whom about 4,500 Moslem, 8,000 Jews, and the rest Christians of various denominations.” [71]