Influential Israeli party leader Yair Lapid visited NYC in what emerged as a textbook example of Israeli secular and liberal thinking. Accusing the BDS movement of carrying out the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and trying to mobilize American Jews behind Israeli policies, Lapid’s conspiracy theories highlighted why Israel’s stock keeps plummeting internationally.
Israeli politicians are not known for holding themselves to that high a standard when it comes to accuracy in assessing the historical record of Israel-Palestine or Middle East. Yet, as Israel’s international popularity is diminishing and, reflectively, its propaganda doesn’t get the job done quite as efficiently as it used to, one can notice an ever-increasing, unparalleled disrespect for facts among leading Israeli political figures.
Yair Lapid, one of the most influential liberal Israeli politicians, is accusing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement of carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2011. Lapid made these claims in Manhattan’s Park Avenue Synagogue in New York City.
It doesn’t stop there. Lapid had much more to share with us. The BDS movement is also responsible for the Syrian civil war and for the terrorist attacks in London and Madrid. To quote from The Jerusalem Post article:
“Lapid said the way to fight BDS is to move from defense to offense and remind the world that the people behind it are those “responsible for 9/11, for terrorist attacks in Madrid and London and for the 250,000 people killed in Syria” – and American Jewry can help make Israel that case.”
Let us contemplate this for a second. Before launching the BDS call on July 9, 2005, the tiny, left-leaning core group of individuals behind the BDS initiative, first carried out the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States. Then, in 2004, over a year prior to the BDS call, the same small group of Palestinian leftist activists organized the Madrid train bombings. Then, on July 7, 2005, the same Palestinian grassroots organizers carried out the London bombings. And then, two days later, they issued the BDS call based on international law.
This is news to me. Live and learn, I suppose.
I’m trying to picture a centrist Palestinian official proclaiming in New York City that those behind the State of Israel are “responsible for 9/11, for terrorist attacks in Madrid and London and for the 250,000 people killed in Syria”. Something tells me such a public statement might become a diplomatic scandal. This, however, didn’t become anything. It was a non-event.
Anyone who investigates political jargon comes across lies, at times brazen lies. That being said, rarely do we see someone reach Lapid’s levels of willful distortion of facts.
What is more interesting, though, is how Western governments have given Israel carte blanche not just to occupy Palestinian territories and enforce an apartheid-like political system in the West Bank, but carte blanche to take falsifying history to another level. And Western media follows suit.
Putting the hypothetical of a Palestinian politician aside for now, think about a high profile Iranian or Russian politician saying what Lapid said. Or representative of the Assad regime. In New York. Western media and governments might have a thing or two to say about it. Those Iranians and Russians, they simply have no respect for facts.
For Israel, its global image is not the only problem. A growing number of European and American Jews are becoming either indifferent towards or weary of Israel’s antics. Besides these two categories, there is also another promising phenomenon: an increasing number of European and American Jews are becoming involved in political activism and strategizing against Israel’s occupation and apartheid.
Keeping this in mind, Lapid’s statements on how “American Jewry can help” by spouting his lies on BDS is almost as disturbing as these lies themselves. Lapid elaborated this further:
“We need the Jewish community. We need you –– We are ready to provide you with whatever support you need but in this battle you are our foot soldiers on the front lines.”
Is it just me or is there a tiny bit of desperation in the air? It must eat up Israeli policy-planners that it has come down to this. It was better when the Second Intifada started. It was a whole lot better when the First Intifada started, not to speak of the 1967 war. But now Israel’s honeymoon with American Jewry might be coming to an end.
“The way to defeat BDS is for us to stand together, and to stand tall,” Lapid vowed in New York. But American Jews will not stand together nor tall behind the way Israel currently carries on – and there is not a thing Lapid or any other Israeli politician can do about it.
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