Yair Lapid
Photo: Yoni Hamenachem
The simple facts
Dershowitz’s film reminds Yair Lapid that case for Israel based on basic facts
After much postponement, I recently watched Alan Dershowitz’s film "The Case for Israel". The renowned US attorney opens the film by declaring that he is both pro-Israel
and pro-Palestinian, and that he supports the two-state solution, but…
How dare they refer to Israel as an apartheid state? He asks with genuine amazement. Arab society features apartheid of women, apartheid of homosexuals, and apartheid of Christians, Jews, and democracy. Gays are being hanged in Saudi Arabia, genocide is taking place in Sudan, and women across the Arab world are murdered for not wearing a hijab or for falling in love with the wrong man.
Dershowitz is neither a philosopher nor a filmmaker. He is not even a rightist. We have become accustomed to the case for Israel being only made by members of the rightist camp, yet Dershowitz supports us precisely because he is a leftist law professor at Harvard University who deals with human rights.
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Yet despite all of the above, eight out of the eight last United Nations’ resolution pertaining to human rights happened to deal with Israel – the only state in the region where minorities have the right to vote and a country whose legislature includes Arabs almost from day one.
Does the global Left – as well as the Israeli Left – truly not care about the horrific Taliban regime, the terrible oppression of women in Gulf states, and the mass hanging festivals in Iran? Isn’t it clear to them that all West Bank roadblocks, which undoubtedly cause an ongoing human tragedy, would be dismantled within 24 hours if only the Palestinians were kind enough to stop killing Jews?
And how come they are always talking about the 750,000 Palestinian refugees while forgetting the 800,000 Jewish refugees kicked out of Arab states? Why doesn’t anyone remember that the Palestinians already had four real opportunities to establish their state, yet each time they preferred to revert to terrorism?
And who dares to refer to the security fence as an “apartheid fence,” while disregarding the fact that it was built, in line with international law, only after more than 1,000 Israelis were murdered in less than three years?
I was watching Dershowitz’s film, yet instead of feeling happy I felt a little dumb. After all, I was familiar with these facts before, just like any other Israeli is familiar with them, so how come we are always on the defensive, always apologizing, and always losing the battle for global public opinion?
It is true, of course, that millions of petro-dollars are being used for anti-Israel propaganda (whoops! I’m again buying into their story- this is not anti-Israel propaganda but rather, pure and simple anti-Semitism.) But how the hell did we manage to get to a situation where the truth – the basic, simple, fact-based truth – has gone out of fashion?
