opinion
Worldwide Condemnation of Israel
Doesn’t Help the Search for Truth
BY FIMMA NIRENSTEIN
he tragic death of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen
Abu Akleh, who was killed last week in a firefight
in the Palestinian town of Jenin, has prompted
worldwide demonization of Israel that does not help
the search for the truth of how Akleh died.

We have seen worldwide condemnation — or
rather criminalization — of Israelis and Israeli leaders
by nearly all media outlets, who have uncritically
accepted the narrative of Israeli guilt and criminal-
ity proffered by the Palestinians. Yet regarding the
Palestinian Authority’s refusal to conduct a joint
investigation into the incident, to the point of refus-
ing to produce the very bullet that killed Akleh, there
has been worldwide silence.

This reflexive and all-too-common criminalization
of Israel creates a false and defamatory narrative
of Jewish violence and cruelty. This is nothing less
than the promotion by international public opinion
of the Palestinians’ campaign to resurrect their
“cause” after a period of near-oblivion. To further
this campaign, the PA will never consent to an
objective examination of the evidence relating to
Akleh’s death — likely for fear of what it might find.

Indeed, the Palestinians have already got what
they wanted: clashes and violence in the streets
of Jerusalem, which have been flooded with
Palestinian flags. The Israeli reaction to the clashes
during Akleh’s funeral in Jerusalem, moreover,
proves the intellectual Douglas Murray’s thesis in
his latest book that the West is its own worst enemy.

Israel’s Public Security Minister Omer Barlev has
set up a committee to investigate the conduct of
Israel’s own police at the funeral, even though the
Palestinians clearly intended to exploit the event in
order to spark a demonstration or riot, which the
police attempted to prevent even while defamatory
slogans were shouted and stones thrown at them.

Media coverage of this shocking behavior was
carefully censored. The brother of Akleh, for
example, told those attempting to steal Akleh’s
casket, “For God’s sake, let us put her in the
car and finish the day.” It is not surprising that
the global press refused to report this, choosing
instead to portray the police response as either
unprovoked or inspired by depraved cruelty.

The BBC, CNN and all other media outlets with
reporters at the scene painted the Israel Police in
precisely the same defamatory light.

This capitulation to Palestinian violence and pro-
paganda was not limited to the media. U.S. President
Joe Biden’s Spokeswoman Jen Psaki called the
images of Akleh’s funeral “very disturbing,” while
12 MAY 19, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
the European Union said it was “deeply shocked.”
No one asked how the events actually unfolded,
choosing instead to criminalize and demonize the
Israel Police. Nor was there any interest in the day-
to-day difficulties and hazards faced by the police,
who are charged with the immensely difficult task
of preventing terror attacks and violent clashes
in a country that is permanently at war. Yet even
their leaders have abandoned them. The police
said they were merely trying to ensure an orderly
funeral. Barlev, however, appeared — along with
Israel’s enemies — to suspect otherwise, even
though this is his own police force.

The obvious assumption in such a case, and in
such a context, is that the police did not find them-
selves facing a funeral, but a Palestinian demon-
stration that threatened to become a riot. They had
to confront a mob of people chanting slogans of
hatred and revenge. The mob threw stones at them
— and stones can kill. The police were in an explo-
sive tactical and political situation in which, during
Ramadan and after, Israel has been plagued by
multiple terror attacks and violence on the Temple
Mount. They reacted in a manner that, whatever an
investigation may conclude, was understandable.

That an Israeli minister has forsaken his own
police at a moment of violent and disproportionate
international condemnation represents something
dark and unusual. Certainly, Israel is a democratic
state that is accountable for its behavior. It is logical
for it to publicly provide a response to such a wave
of condemnation. And this took place. Nonetheless,
such an investigation takes resources away from
the Israel Police at a difficult moment, after three
weeks in which 19 Israeli civilians were murdered in
terror attacks. They were killed in the name of the
same flag that covered the streets of Jerusalem at
Akleh’s funeral. It is not even necessary to ask what
would happen if an Israeli citizen carried an Israeli
flag through Ramallah — they would not last long.

It is perfectly legitimate for the US, EU and indeed
Israel to call for a thorough investigation into the
death of Akleh and the violence at her funeral.

But such an investigation cannot be objective
if the a priori delegitimization and demonization
of the Israel Police and Israeli security forces in
general continues. If it does, then any investi-
gation will simply be another attempt to further
the Palestinian leadership’s strategy of uprooting
Israeli sovereignty and legitimacy in the interna-
tional community. JE
Journalist Fiamma Nirenstein was a member
of the Italian Parliament (2008-13), where she
served as vice president of the Committee on
Foreign Affairs in the Chamber of Deputies. She
served in the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, and
established and chaired the Committee for the
Inquiry Into Anti-Semitism. She is a fellow at the
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

masterSergeant / iStock / Getty Images Plus
T



opinion
When Will the Israeli Right Stop
Eating its Own?
BY LIMOR SAMIMIAN-DARASH
pawel.gaul / gettyimages
H istorically speaking, those on the Israeli far-
right have tended to challenge the dominant
right-wing party.

We saw this, for example, when the far-right chal-
lenged the Likud Party over Menachem Begin’s
promotion of a peace deal with Egypt that led
to Israel’s withdrawal from the Sinai. Ever since,
the far-right has behaved in a similar pattern. The
satellite parties became ardent opponents of
the ruling party, so much so that they were even
ready to topple the governing right-wing coalition.

In 1992, the right-wing Moledet, Tzomet and
Tehiya parties all quit then-Prime Minister Yitzhak
Shamir’s government over his participation in
peace talks in Madrid. The talks were not right-
wing enough for them. We know how that ended.

Tehiya did not pass the electoral threshold, and
the left under Labor leader Yitzhak Rabin came
to power. If that weren’t ironic enough, it was rep-
resentatives of the Tzomet party who, in the end,
helped approve the Oslo Accords.

Has the lesson been learned? Of course not.

In 1996, it was Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu
who members of Moledet and the National Union
party took issue with. For current New Hope MK
Benny Begin, who is now a part of a coalition
government with Ra’am and Meretz and has the
support of the Joint List, Netanyahu was not right-
wing enough at the time. The result: Opponents
of yielding 3% of the disputed territories in the
Wye River accord brought us Labor leader Ehud
Barak’s government, which sought to cede 97%
of the territories at Camp David. Ironically, the
successors to the opponents of the Wye accord
recently refused a deal to impose sovereignty on
Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, along
with 30% of the territory.

Time and again, the pattern remains the same.

This becomes even more troubling when we look at
what transpired on the left in the meantime. In 1992,
Meretz’s election campaign did not call for Rabin’s
replacement on the grounds that he was insuffi-
ciently left-wing, but rather to “incentivize” him in
that direction. To allow Rabin to form a government,
Meretz compromised on issues of religion and state,
beginning with its acceptance of the Shas party into
the coalition. One of their own, Shulamit Aloni, even
resigned from the Education Ministry in accordance
with the Haredi party’s demand.

In 2008, Meretz’s election campaign asked
voters to choose between Kadima’s Tzipi Livni
and Netanyahu, which again bolstered the domi-
It makes no difference who is at the helm of the right-wing
satellite parties ... The dominant right-wing party
must be bolstered and incentivized, not bullied.

nant party of the left-wing camp. No one argued
that Livni should not have their vote because she
wasn’t sufficiently left-wing.

By contrast, the Yamina party refused to join
a coalition headed by Netanyahu and Blue and
White Party head Benny Gantz because Yamina —
with six Knesset seats — was offered three senior
government positions instead of four.

Meretz’s current willingness to swallow the toad
in order to ensure the coalition remains intact is a
model of political loyalty and humility the likes of
which we have yet to see in this country. Meretz has
set no conditions and issued no threats toward the
government. The right-wing satellite parties, by con-
trast, have never treated the Likud in such a manner.

Now, we have seen the “unapologetic right”
prefer Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid. We watched
them go from satellites to the decisive member
of a center-left government. Then Yamina leader
Naftali Bennett transformed into a left-wing prime
minister. Yet there are those who still fail to recog-
nize the pattern.

The alternative to purely right-wing policies is a
blatant left-wing government. Those who insisted
on focusing on the illegal Bedouin village of Khan
al-Ahmar not only failed to get a more right-wing
or moderate center-left government. Instead, they
got a new left-wing bloc, which includes Ra’am
and the Joint List.

It makes no difference who is at the helm of the
right-wing satellite parties: The lesson must be
learned. The dominant right-wing party must be
bolstered and incentivized, not bullied. Without
the mothership, the satellite will remain lost in
space. And this void will quickly be filled by a left-
wing government comprised of loyalists capable
of compromising quite a bit for the benefit of the
greater cause. JE
Limor Samimian-Darash is a senior lecturer
at the Federmann School of Public Policy
and Government at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem. This op-ed was originally published by
Israel Hayom.

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