"The Palestinian Authority is 100% to blame for the failure of the Oslo Accords," former Shin Bet security agency director Avi Dichter told a packed Tel Aviv audience on Sunday night.
Dichter spoke at the ZOA House as part of a special conference organized by the Zionist organization "Im Tirtzu" in collaboration with Canadians for Israel's Legal Rights.
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The former Shin Bet chief discussed the history of Israel's legal rights and the passage of the nation-state law, which after first being sponsored by Dichter in 2011 was finally passed by the Knesset in July 2018.
"There are no greater hypocrites than the Israeli left," he said of the Left's opposition to the law. "The nation-state law cements in law the Jewish people's national rights, but does not infringe on anyone else's civil rights."
The conference, which was dedicated to the memory of Rabbi Ahiad Ettinger, who was murdered in Israel in March in a terrorist attack, began with a talk by Israeli journalist Amit Segal.
Also present at the conference was Sheffi Paz, a social activist based in southern Tel Aviv. Paz said that while Israel has the legal rights to the land, the government has abandoned southern Tel Aviv and is unwilling to tackle the problems caused by the influx of thousands of illegal migrants from Africa.
Goldi Steiner, founder and co-chair of Canadians for Israel's Legal Rights, said that learning about Israel's rights is the key to combating false claims against Israel.
"There is only one way to counter the ever-growing accusations of apartheid, occupation, and all the lies propagated by anti-Israel organizations like IfNotNow and B'Tselem, and that is through education," said Steiner.
Im Tirtzu CEO Matan Peleg said that one cannot accurately evaluate the Arab-Israeli conflict without first understanding Israel's legal rights.
"When discussing the conflict, it is critical to first understand that the Jewish people have legal rights to the Land of Israel," said Peleg. "This is precisely why we have teamed with Canadians for Israel's Legal Rights to educate students and the broader public about Israel's legal rights."
Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.
