A new online course offered by the Education Ministry aims to provide the thousands of young Israeli students who represent the country at various cultural and academic events overseas every year with the necessary tools to contend with the rampant delegitimization and criticism of Israel.
Among the subjects covered in the course are Iran, the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement and the Palestinians.
In one of the online lectures, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon instructs students on how to respond when asked, "Why do you kill Palestinians?"
"We need to explain that in fact, in all these instances, these are Palestinians who, at their own initiative, take knives, screwdrivers and scissors to try and kill Jews," Nahshon explains in the lecture. "The Palestinians here lie big time, they lie to the entire world. They say: Look, these are executions – and we see that in fact these are situations in which if they [the Israeli security forces] hadn't stopped the male or female terrorist, they would have continued to kill other people."
Nahshon also touches on the perpetually controversial issue of Israeli settlements in his lecture.
"We are told that because there are settlements, there is no peace. … That is simply not the truth," he says. "There were no settlements before the [1967] Six-Day War, and there was no peace then. When we left the Gaza Strip, we evacuated all the settlements and in return we got Qassam [rockets] and Hamas. Whoever thinks the conflict is a result of the settlements simply does not understand anything, and that needs to be explained."
The lecturers, who include ambassadors and professionals from various fields, also teach students about the legal status of Jerusalem, Israel's many achievements, the BDS movement and how to respond to allegations Israel is an apartheid state.
In another lecture, Talia Gorodess of the Tel Aviv-based think tank Reut Institute tells Israeli students they would be wise to listen to and even embrace those who have legitimate criticism of Israel because that would minimize the impact of those who seek to delegitimize the Jewish state's existence.
Gorodess says that while Israel's approach was once, "If you aren't with us, you are against us.' We say, 'No, the opposite is true. If you aren't against us, you are with us. If you have criticism, which is annoying and loud, and you aggravate me, but you recognize the State of Israel's right to exist – welcome [to our tent]."
Israeli musician Idan Raichel also appears as part of the Foreign Ministry's online course.
In his lecture, Raichel talks to students about building bridges between cultures. "Music has its own language, it is the most basic common denominator," he tells students, and recommends they "ask students from other countries what kind of music they like because that is where the exciting dialogue will start. "
