Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth by Noa Tishby

An absolutely brilliant, reasonable, well-researched and well thought-out defense of the state of Israel by one of it’s most fervent and ardent defenders. Noa Tishby is a bit of an Israeli/American celebrity, most well-known for bringing Israeli TV and scripted drama’s like HBO’s In Treatment to American audiences, but she is also long-time activist for Jews and Israeli’s alike, taking on the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) movement, speaking in front of the U.N. General Assembly, writing for The Huffington Post and Jerusalem Post, amongst other outlets, and was recently named one of the 50 Most Powerful Jews in the World. This book is part narrative, part family history, and part historical fact-check on all the potential and possible misnomers and mischaracterizations of Israel, past and present: the historical origins of the Jewish people, how Israel came to be, how the Gaza Strip and West Bank became such flashpoints for Palestinians and the international community, and the myriad hypocrisy’s involving the treatment of Jews, Israeli’s, and the state of Israel by the rest of the world. Tishby is careful to point out that she is no crazy right-wing politician, but is in fact a far-left progressive (mostly) who steadfastly believes that Israel — despite it’s mistakes, of which there have been plenty — is treated grossly unfairly and held to an almost impossible standard by other countries who would not even be considered to be Democratic. It’s complicated, obviously, but Tishby argues that until reasonable, curious people can agree on a pertinent set of history, facts, and narratives as to how we arrived at this point, we will never reach a common sense solution that will benefit both Israeli’s AND Palestinian’s. The status quo cannot hold because no one benefits, but, most importantly for Tishby, until the Palestinian people acknowledge that the Jewish state does in fact have the right to exist AND also denounce terrorism — specifically Hamas — Israeli’s and Palestinian’s will be stuck in a perpetual loop of violence where peace will never be within their reach.

• the conflict is not between the Palestinian and Israeli people but rather between the entire Arab world and Israel
• 21 Arab countries, population 423M, and one Jewish state, population approximately 9M
• Act for Israel, first online advocacy and rapid response organization dedicated to truth spreading and pre-bots troll fighting
• nothing on the ground in Israel — no natural resources at all
• major crossroads for the developing worlds back in the day
• Bible, New Testament, Old Testament: Israel is the home of the Jewish people has a lot to do with these books
• Jewish state did exist in the United Israelite Monarchy approximately 3K years ago, before it split into two separate Jewish states, Israel and Judea
• only people who can date their inhabitance of the land back 2500 years are more are the Jews
• hard evidence supports the fact that the Jewish people are indigenous to the land of Israel
• never a sovereign Palestine — never a state called Palestine
• early 1900’s, entire Middle East was divided between colonial Europe and the Ottoman Empire
• Brits cared about the land because of the Suez Canal
• single body of water that directly connected the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea
• single thing that connected the East to the West, British empire to India, key to the British economy
• in exchange for revolting against the Turks, Arabs asked for independence
• British government went behind everyone’s backs, set an agreement with the French to divide the whole Middle East between themselves
• made a third commitment to the Jews
• 1917, Balfour Declaration — national home to the Jewish people
• Prince Faisal, befriended Lawrence of Arabia, helped Faisal write a speech lobbying for Arab independence AND Jewish independence
• Allied forces divided up the former Ottoman Empire into new and invented states based on colonial interests
• Arabs and Jews lied to by Sykes-Picot Agreement, screwed by it
• Lawrence of Arabia was the first person in the world to become an international superstar in his lifetime, based on himself, real life star
• 1903 — Protocols of the Elders of Zion, document created by Tsar’s secret police force
• said that Jews were part of a global conspiracy to take over the world
• instant bestseller, leading to the massacre and exile of hundreds of thousands of Jews
• Zionist movement emerged. Jewish Enlightenment, promoted secularism, liberalism, and general, not only biblical education
• origins of Zionism was the necessity for Jewish safety and self determination to their ancestral home, movement of Jewish liberation
• Jerusalem is the city’s first name, Zion is her second
• Herzl realized that assimilation did not eliminate hatred and that antisemitism was not going away anytime soon
• nationhood is the modern manifestation of a basic human need: connection to a land and the need for self determination and self governance
• 1896, Herzl wrote The Jewish State, which described it as such
• First Zionist Congress, main points of Zionism established
• a “return to history”
• Zionism is a verb, something that is still in action, a movement, always on the go
• to learn, debate within itself, and to transform
• kibbutz comes from the Hebrew world kvutza, or group
• become one unit
• everyone owned everything equally and worked for everyone else’s and the community’s needs
• kibbutzim made a huge impact on both the ethos of the country and industry — capitalist yet also a light of social democracy
• gender equality
• women’s financial liberation, equality, communal childcare
• Palestine was a rough area, dry and unfertile, throughout history, people who tried to live there suffered from disease
• under Ottoman rule, underdeveloped peripheral region
• became more economically appealing under British Mandate
• thousands of Arabs migrated to Palestine from the region
• huge migration of people, both Arabs and Jews
• “right of return” — not everyone who claims to have been there for generations has actually been there for generations
• Jews did not take Palestine — there was no Palestine for the taking
• 1939, 449,000 Jews and upwards of 861,000 Arabs in the land
• tensions between Jewish Yishuv, Arabs and British escalated rapidly
• political and economic pressure from inside and outside the British government pushed them to end many colonial endeavors around the world
• UN Partition Plan for Palestine: Jewish state on about 55 percent of the land, Arab state on about 45 percent of the land, rejected by the entire Arab world
• Ben Gurion was a man of words and actions
• de facto leader of the Jews in the Yishuv and the man who brought Herzl’s vision to life
• Israeli Declaration of Independence was influenced by the U.S. DOI
• secular country, not exclusively Jewish, but open to all religions
• democratic, without any discrimination based on religion, sex, race
• animosity between new Jewish immigrants and the Arabs started pretty much from day one
• local Arab population was fractured, divided into clans, tribes, family allegiances, high rates of illiteracy and poverty
• didn’t have one voice or an organized structure
• war did not surprise outside countries (the U.S., for instance)
• Israeli’s were organized for war, Arab states were not; Jews were fighting for survival
• Egypt took Gaza, Jordan took the West Bank, even though the Partition Plan allocated these territories to the local Arabs for a state of their own
• Arabs indeed did get pushed out
• struggle between two peoples who both claimed the right to the same land
• Arab state not created, and the same countries who started the war did not grant refugees any help or rights
• in years to come, 850,000 Jews were expelled from countries in the Middle East
• nakba, coined by Syrian professor and intellectual Constantin Zureiq, 1948
• self-inflicted and humiliating wound caused by the Arabs themselves
• military and political defeat that was the result of bad choices made by bad Arab leaders
• Nakba is now a branded term, used to attribute victimhood
• 1949, UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees
• UNRWA keeps the Palestinian people in an eternal loop of displacement
• best way to keep war with Israel alive is to maintain a perpetual refugee problem under UN legitimacy, which maintains an international concept of “right of return”
• Golda Meir: “If the Arabs put down their weapons there will be no more war. If Israel puts down her weapons, there will be no more Israel.”
• Right of Return: UNRWA lists 5.6M Palestinian refugees, talking about the “rights” of those people to return INTO Israel, a country whose entire population is about 9M people
• whenever negotiating, the Palestinian leadership will not include language for “no further demands”, which is untenable
• remains of the second Jewish temple predated Muhammad’s ascension from Al-Aqsa by 1100 years — Jerusalem is mentioned in the Old Testament 659 times and zero times in the Quran
• entire Arab world is implicated and should take part in reaching a solution
• West Bank was taken by Israel after the six day war
• occupatio bellica, belligerent occupation: lands which were captured in war, are under military control, and were not officially annexed by the winning side
• before the six day war the West Bank were never recognized by the international community as officially part of any other country — not captured from anyone
• international community argues that international law, including the Geneva Convention, forbids an occupier from changing the status quo in an occupied territory — legal gray zone
• lands never formally “belonged” to Palestinians
• since the end of the Ottoman era, West Bank had never actually been “owned” by any state, but here it is now, held by Israel
• only piece of land that Israel formally annexed was East Jerusalem
• collapse of peace talks in 2000 lead to growth of settlements, Jewish population has almost doubled
• Arafat refused to sign the deal
• when talks collapsed, West Bank erupted in blood
• Arafat’s personal wealth grew to 6.5B according to IMF and Mossad
• peace camp had no plan B
• Arafat gave Israel’s right wing the gift that keeps on giving
• 5 percent of population of Israel in settlements
• Israel should be Jewish, democratic, and strong, disagree on how to get there
• majority of Israeli and Palestinian voices, those who want to find a way to live side by side in prosperity, are getting drowned out by loud nationalistic, radical, or religious voices on both sides
• Rabbi Froman: peace can only come when religious leaders on both sides come to the table and help find an agreeable solution
• written in the Quran that the Jews will return to the Promised Land
• Arab Israelis are a natural part of the fabric of society in Israel
• Arab-Israeli Palestinians, West Bank Palestinians, and Gazan Palestinians are very different in terms of freedoms, rights, governance, international standing, alliances
• first time Palestinian people were referred to as a nation was 1964
• Palestine, the word, was first used by Romans in 132 BC; name was based on a non Middle Eastern tribe to describe the region
• no relation between the biblical Philistines and today’s Palestinians
• Jews are basically the same as in those times
• throughout history there has never been a coherent Palestinian, national, religious, or political identity
• Palestine was used in reference to a geographical location
• UN partition plan was for a Jewish state and an Arab state, not a Palestinian state
• before the establishment of Israel, Arab residents of the land did not have one unified identity
• 1964, PLO established, with a national charter
• Meir: there were Arabs and Jews, no such thing as a distinct Palestinian people of all the Palestinians who live in Jordan
• identity was formed as an answer to Israel, in order to deal with the changing world
• 1949 approximately 150K Arabs stayed inside, became Israeli citizens, with full rights and obligations
• 2020, Israel is 21 percent Arab, 74 percent Jewish
• Arab Israelis enjoy equal rights for men and women and protection for LGBTQ community
• none of these freedoms are granted anywhere else in the middle east
• Arabs are fundamental to Israeli culture and identity
• Muslim Brotherhood is a Sunni Islamist movement originated in Egypt in 1928 and aims to implement Islamic law, Sharia
• Khomeni overthrew the shah in Iran, wanted to use Islam as an instrument of political and military power, a governing ideology, Islam is the solution for everything
• jihad — holy war
• 1987, Islamic Resistance Movement, which in Arabic, forms acronym Hamas
• Hamas doctrine is very clear: no land for peace, no Israel, sharia law
• 2006, Hamas won elections in Gaza
• results of Israel pulling out of Gaza became a huge warning sign
• from college campuses to political rallies, where are the protests against Hamas, a group that is the real life embodiment of exactly what they are protesting?
• Free Gaza … from Hamas
• wall separating Israel from the West Bank is a lightening rod around the world, no one happy
• everyday Palestinians who suffer the most
• legal, political, social limbo
• West Bank situation is working for no one, due in part to Israeli [policies and due to in part Palestinian leadership
• Palestinians must no longer define themselves by what they resist, but instead on what they want to create
• BDS = Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions — economic warfare on Israel
• not a movement for justice or peace
• want Israel to not exist
• try to claim that they are only against Israel’s policies, not specifically Jews in Israel, but this is a lie
• Arab global boycott movement started in 1945, formation of the Arab League
• first collective action was a refusal to do business with Jews in Mandatory Palestine
• Sharansky created a standard to separate legitimate criticism of Israeli policies from antisemitism — Demonize, Double Standard, Delegitimize (right to exist)
• if a person or organization criticizes Israel but expresses any of the above, we have a winner
• Soda Stream has a factory in the Negev desert, made by Arabs and Jews working together in harmony
• BDS costs Palestinian economy approx 2B annually
• web of financial and personal connections between BDS and supporters of terrorism, supporters of Hamas
• need to encourage private capital and investments in Palestinian economy
• international and local trade, land reallocation, easing travel abroad, expanding unemployment in Israel
• responsible Palestinian leadership
• Israel is the only country in the region with the same values as Western Democracies
• BDS is intentionally hiding its agenda
• cleverly aligned itself with various human and civil rights movements and with the anti apartheid agenda, yet nothing but a false cognate
• synthesis: when you take widely separated things and put them together to create something new — way to describe Israeli’s
• nothing cohesive, Eurocentric, or “white” about Israeli society
• racism exists among Jews themselves, of course
• millions of people who migrated to Israel were not treated the same at the start
• new breed of Jew — not a nebbish-y shtetl dweller but a feisty, survival driven fighter
• aggressive on the outside but sweet on the inside, a Sabra
• Sabra is rough around the edges until you get to know her
• most fundamental aspect of Judaism is its ability to adapt, be rigid, and flexible at the same time
• Israel is a parliamentary democracy, 120 seats in the Knesset
• anyone can start a party, all they need is a coalition to run the government
• rest of Israeli society — outside of Charedi’s — resents them for not having to serve in the military and pay taxes for a population that insists on seclusion
• Charedi community has created it’s own education system, sponsored by taxpayers
• precludes its students from taking core subjects like math and science
• lack of basic education creates a built in dependency on the state for financial support
• Judaism is decentralized and encourages dissent
• highly encourages questioning one’s faith
• Israeli’s are now contributing to almost every field of the world’s economy
• produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Canada
• first viral social network, drip irrigation technology
• more companies registered on the NYSE and NASDAQ than any other country in the world per capita, more start ups per capita, more academic papers in the field of medicine per capita, more venture capital funds per capita
• only country in the middle east in which you can practice any religion you want freely while making out with your same-sex partner on the beach
• from 2015 to 2019, UN General Assembly adopted more resolutions against Israel than against Iran, Syria, North Korea and Russia combined
• disproportionate number of UN resolutions against the only Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East
• misconception that Zionism is racism has only strengthened — Zionism is about having a Jewish state, not an exclusively Jewish state
• Anti-Zionism only targets one nation on earth
• Jews are 2 percent of the U.S. population, target of 50 percent of national religion based hate crimes
• no difference between the establishment of Israel and Pakistan — safe haven for persecuted groups, land disputes, control religious sites of other religions, established only a few months apart
• no calls to boycott Pakistan by far left and their Islamist fellow travelers
• Antisemitism is not just a prejudice, it is a conspiracy theory — subconscious bias
• Anti-Zionism is the politically correct version of antisemitism — anti-Israelism
• favorite arguments against Israel …
• colonialism — Israel is a refugee state, reestablished after the British left, to save themselves
• Israel gave up the entire oil rich Sinai Peninsula in exchange for peace with Egypt
• Gaza was handed to the Palestinians only for Israel to watch as Hamas brutally took over