The discourse about Israel in some Western circles versus that now common in most Arab capitals couldn't be more different. Some Westerners are stuck in a ruinous time warp. Consider the following recent happenings.
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Geneva and New York: A new UN Human Rights Council (HRC) report last week accused Israel of apartheid, just in time for the annual debate on "Agenda Item 7," the permanent council item reserved for Israeli "human rights abuses" against Palestinians and other Arabs.
The report was the latest in a litany of one-sided, baseless reports, vilifying Israel and engaging in a full-scale lawfare assault on Israel's very existence as a Jewish state. In February, Amnesty International released its own tendentious report accusing Israel of apartheid.
On deck are two additional reports that are likely to regurgitate such libels against Israel: An April report from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD); and a June report of the HRC "Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel."
Another draft UN resolution currently circulating (sponsored by Pakistan on behalf of the 56-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation) seeks to declare Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria not a "military occupation," but rather a "colonial occupation." This perversion is meant to deny Jews their history by labeling them as foreign invaders serving foreign (colonial) powers, as opposed to being indigenous to the Land of Israel.
And believe it or not, the US State Department piled on top of Israel last week too, by offering $1 million in grant money for NGOs to report on "Israeli human rights violations."
Sharm el-Sheikh and Sdeh Boker: United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett conducted two days of discussions last week to solidify their new regional alliance for peace and security.
Also last week, the first Emirati sovereign wealth fund entered the Israeli market, planning to invest $200 million in Israeli companies in 2022, and a similar sum each year over 10 years; an Emirati think tank published book on Zionism written by Tel Aviv University researchers; the UAE-based retail giant Lula began talks on operation in Israel; and Morocco signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) for a joint research and engineering center.
This week, the foreign ministers of Abraham Accord countries plus Egypt and the US are meeting at David Ben-Gurion's homestead. This is the new Middle East blessedly created by the Abraham Accords! So much for being an "apartheid" state.
Unfortunately, Israel seems to exist in two parallel, contradictory worlds. One universe has been constructed – a false, hackneyed, out-of-date, and threatening universe – that extends from Ramallah to New York, Geneva, and other unfriendly places.
This universe, dominated by so-called Western "progressives" in cahoots with Arab/Islamic radicals, disses rather than embraces the Abraham Accords and is stuck in a time warp where Israel is an evil actor. It is a malign universe where recalcitrant and violent Palestinian leaders are venerated, and admirable Israeli leaders are criminalized. It is a tragic, forlorn universe.
The other universe – real, promising, forward-looking, and stabilizing! – is marked by a peace dynamic that runs from Jerusalem to Dubai, Manama, Rabat, Cairo, and Amman; and from Jerusalem to the most important leaders in the world.
In short, the discourse about Israel in corrupt international institutions and in some aspersive Western campuses and capitals couldn't be more different than the discourse in Arab capitals and other calm and considered decision-making centers. It's confrontation versus cooperation, demonization versus solidarity.
It is time for more Western leaders and democratic activists to discover the true, new Middle East, and the real Israel: a force for peace, progress, security, and stability.
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