Last week, friends forwarded me a
mailing they had recently received from AIPAC. Included with the letter
touting AIPAC’s accomplishments and the expected call for donations was a
map-style fold-out insert,
headlined with the ominous message: “Israel Faces Increasing Threats.”
Under that headline, taking up more than half the page, is a photo of an
Israeli policewoman shepherding to safety an Israeli woman who clearly
has been the victim of a bombing attack.
For all of us who worry about people in Israel, this is one of those
iconic, hit-you-in-the gut pictures. It brings to mind the awful attacks
that Israel saw so many of in the 1990s and early years of the 2000s.
A little research confirms that this reaction is right on target, given that the photo is from a suicide bombing
that took place in 1997. Yes,
1997. Which begs the question: why use a 16-year-old photo to
illustrate a headline referring to current threats facing Israel?
|
Site of an explosion in Jerusalem, Israel, in 1997. (Bryan Mcburney / AP) |
Given that suicide bombings in Israel have, thankfully, been rare for some time now, with the
last one
taking place more than five years ago, the most innocent explanation is
that someone in AIPAC’s design department reasoned, “suicide bombings
happen in Israel all the time, so what’s the difference how old the
photo is?” If that’s what happened, then AIPAC needs to do a better job
educating its own staff. The less innocent explanation is that someone
at AIPAC thought to themselves, “American Jews respond viscerally to
images of innocent Israelis wounded in terrorist attacks, so we’re going
to put this specific image front and center, even if doing so actively
misleads American Jews about the situation inside Israel.”
The
precipitous drop in terror attacks in Israel
is a rare good-news story out of Israel that, regrettably, has largely
been overlooked by the media. This in part no doubt reflects the fact
that tragedy and bloodshed, not their absence, sell papers. It may also
reflect the cynicism of those who want to exploit fear and sow hardline
political sentiment inside the American Jewish community—whether in
order to promote hawkish political positions or to raise funds.
None
of which is to suggest that there have not been terror attacks against
Israelis more recently than 1997, both in Israel and the West
Bank. Suicide bombings in Israel were a horrific fact of life into the
early 2000s, at which point Israel’s “separation barrier”—which for the
most part prevents Palestinians in the West Bank from accessing
Israel—turned the tide. Since then there have continued to be
attacks against Israelis, including
settlers in the
West Bank and Israeli tourists in
Europe. And of course, Israelis living near Gaza still live with the very real fear of rocket fire.
In
truth, the title of AIPAC’s publication is absolutely correct—Israel
indeed faces increasing threats. However, the photo on the cover and the
material contained in the publication are misleading. AIPAC wants
American Jews to believe that Palestinian suicide terror is a defining
reality in Israel today—despite evidence to the contrary. Its broader
message is that the region is in flux, the sky is falling, and the
faceless, homogeneous Arab and Muslim hordes are at the gates, wanting
only to kill Jews and destroy Israel. This message stands in stark
contrast to the one offered only last week by Meir Dagan, the former
head of Israel’s Mossad, who argued that the current regional flux
presents a “
unique opportunity for Israel to seek different alliances.”
The
AIPAC message stands in contrast, too, to the reality articulated by
every living former leader of the Shin Bet in the recent movie,
The Gatekeepers. All
of these men—whose entire professional lives were devoted to Israel’s
security—today sound nothing like AIPAC and a lot like Peace Now in
describing the high costs to Israel of maintaining the occupation and
the imperative of achieving peace and a two-state solution. For them,
the greatest potential threat to Israel comes not from outside forces
but from within, and stems from the failure of Israeli leaders to truly
pursue peace. Anyone who doubts the validity of this outlook—despite its
unimpeachable sources—need only note that even as the incidence of
Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israelis is falling, attacks by
Israeli extremists—often referred to as
Price Tag attacks—is
rising dramatically. These attacks have targeted Palestinians, the IDF,
and Israeli peace activists. They have been aimed at Palestinian
private property, mosques, and churches. Increasingly, they have spread
across the Green Line to targets inside Israel proper.
In
short, the real threats to Israel’s security and its future—its very
viability as a prosperous, democratic nation with a real Jewish
character and at home in the community of nations—stem not from external
enemies but from Israeli policies that are antithetical to peace and
the two-state solution, including an unwillingness to confront Israel's
home-grown extremists. AIPAC should stop the worn out fear-mongering
tactics and start focusing on these very real, increasing threats, for
Israel’s sake.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/25/aipac-illustrates-current-threats-facing-israel-with-bombing-photo-from-1997.html
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