Apr 2001
In this issue:
Features
Top 10 New myths of Zionism
Israel was built on a set of pretexts that the historical record has substantively swept aside: A land without a people for a people without a land, the fairness of the UN partition plan and the Arab governments ordering the Palestinians to leave in
Issue: Oct, 2007
9. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East
Usage: Israel deserves a preferential treatment based on the fact that it is the only country in the region that follows the western standards of democracy.
Need to debunk: Israel defends its policies as the result of a democratic process, and promotes the “glass-house” argument that other countries in the region have few rights to complain about Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians in light of their own practices.
7. And having refused, Yasser Arafat launched the Second Intifada to get his way through violence
Usage: The Camp David talks was a failure due to Palestinian’s unwillingness to compromise – and therefore Arafat’s preference for violence over negotiation.
Need to debunk: The start of the second intifada, or al-Aqsa intifada, was in fact a spontaneous eruption of Palestinian anger and frustration at the continued grip of the occupation.
5. Palestinian school books teach hatred of Jews
Usage: Creating the false perception that Palestinian children’s hostility towards Jews is the result of the Palestinian indoctrination in school.
Need to debunk: The notion that animosity towards Israel is down to education materials and not a brutal 40-year military occupation and its accompanying land theft and wanton violence suits Western preconceptions of hateful, irrational Arabs targeting victimized Jews.
3. Israel has withdrawn from Gaza
Usage: As a sign Israel doesn’t want occupation, they withdrew from Gaza and dismantled settlements – displaying they want an end to the cnflict.
Need to debunk: The pullout from Gaza was a practical necessity as the 16,000 settlers cost a disproportionate amount of security and money to protect, and despite no settlers, Gaza remains as under siege as ever.
1. The wall is a security measure
Usage: Justifying the theft of hundreds of thousands of dunums of Palestinian land around the main settlement blocks, including agricultural resources and water aquifiers.
Need to debunk: It frames colonisation as a self-defensive measure, not as an aggressive exercise in bypassing international law.
For te full version of this article, see NOX15.
