Myth & Facts

Myths

Facts

In efforts of withdrawing “land for peace,” Israel left Gaza in 2005. Since then, instead of utilizing the opportunity to build economic growth in the area, Palestinian leaders spent their resources producing thousands of continuous rockets to be fired from Gaza into Israel and several tunnels built to try to infiltrate Israel.
If Israel withdrew from Judea & Samaria, the land would be controlled by terrorists. The current Palestinian Authority leadership in the West Bank provides ongoing funding to President Mahmoud Abbas, who admittedly pays salaries to terrorists, while knowing the extent of the corruption of his regime and its lack of democracy.
Until Palestinian leaderships agrees to a solution that provides Israel the security it requires, Israel’s shared presence in Judea & Samaria is just.

Arabs continuously refuse accepting any form of peace plan offered.
In 1937, the Peel Commission proposed the partition of Palestine and the creation of an Arab state. In 1939, the British White Paper proposed the creation of a unitary Arab state. In 1947, the UN would have created an even larger Arab state as part of its partition plan. The 1979 Camp David Accords offered the Palestinians autonomy, which would almost certainly have led to full independence. The Oslo agreements of the 1990s laid out a path for Palestinian independence, but the process was derailed by terrorism. In 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to create a Palestinian state in all of Gaza and 97 percent of the West Bank. In 2008, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered to withdraw from almost the entire West Bank and partition Jerusalem on a demographic basis. In 2014, President Barak Obama presents a framework to Abbas, who refuses to respond. In 2020 President Donald Trump offered a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians called “Peace to Prosperity,” REJECTED by Palestinian leadership.
From 1948 to 1967, Israel did not control the West Bank. The Palestinians could have demanded an independent state from the Jordanians.

All ethnicities, including Arabs, are treated equally in Israel.
Freedom of religion is also guaranteed and strictly enforced, and so is protection of holy sites of all religions.
Israel also guarantees freedom of assembly, movement, and voting to all citizens, including Arabs.
There are a dozen Arabs in the Knesset (Parliament) and an Arab judge of the Supreme Court.
Arabs are very well represented in Israeli universities, both among students and staff.
The dispossession and ethnic cleansing of nearly one million Jewish refugees was done under the color of law and today there are very few Jews remaining in most Arab countries.

The United States recognizes the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank to be consistent with international law.
Since there has never been a sovereign state of “Palestine” prior to 1948 or 1967, there cannot legally be an “occupation of Palestinian lands” by Israel according to the Hague Convention of 1907.
Israel already has legal claim to Judea, Samaria, and Eastern Jerusalem, Israel has the right to build Jewish communities in disputed territory in Area C until a final peace agreement is signed with the Palestinian Authority.

The narrative Israel commits “genocide against the Palestinians,” “Israel exterminates the Palestinians,” “Israel commits mass murder of the Palestinians,” Israel “ethnically cleanses the Palestinians,” and “Israel is a Nazi state,” (implying Israeli extermination of Palestinians), Israel supporters/Zionists are “genocide-sympathetic," are all false and malicious blood libels, and anti-Semitic statements.
“From the regional demographic standpoint, since Israel’s entry into the West Bank areas of Judea and Samaria and into Gaza in 1967, the Palestinian Arab population has increased from 954,898 to 4,654,421. This indicates an increase of 387% of the Palestinian-Arab population since 1967.
Ma’an News Agency, a Palestinian news agency, reported in 2011 that since Israel’s independence in 1948, the Palestinian population had grown at an average of 3.4% yearly growth rate, - higher than the average world population growth, which varied between 0.8% and 2.1% during the same period.

There are hundreds of groups worldwide that are actively seeking independence and usually under far worse conditions, with far fewer options than the Palestinians. If any of these groups were offered a state, as Palestinians were offered several times already (see Fact #2), it is highly unlikely that they would have turned it down.
Compared to practically any other group that seeks statehood, Palestinians have far less reason to feel desperate, yet they are extensively involved in terrorism. Hamas even admits to targeting civilians while predictably claiming to have excuses to do it. Examples include the killing of American student in Israel, Taylor Force, leading to the Taylor Force Act being enacted in the US in 2018. “Desperation” is not an excuse for MURDER.
Palestinian terrorism continues because Palestinian leadership can afford to put at risk international aid by accepting any solution until they can get what their terrorist organizations have always openly demanded – the destruction of the Jewish state.

There is no evidence to support the expulsion or ethnic cleansing of Arabs.
By spreading anti-Semitic rumors of Jewish blood libels, killings of women and children etc., Palestinian leaders instilled fear and terror in the hearts of the Palestinian-Arabs, until they fled leaving their homes and properties.
"The Arab state which had encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help these refugees." - The Jordanian daily newspaper Falastin, Feb. 19, 1949.
According to the 1948 acting chairman of the Palestine Arab Higher Committee (AHC), the Arabs living in Palestine willingly chose to leave rather than to submit to a truce.

Zionism, by definition, is the right to self-determination of the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland.
To be opposed to ANY race's (including Jewish), right to self-determine is RACIST.
According to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis is anti-Semitic.

The vast majority of Jews believe that the State of Israel should continue to exist. But many Jews, both living in Israel and elsewhere, are in favor of a Palestinian state alongside Israel as a possible solution to the conflict.
According to the Encyclopedia of Judaism, as of 1999, the vast minority of Jewish extremists of anti-Zionism ideology is estimated to be 20,000 in Israel (0.004%) and tens of thousands in the United States and in Europe (0.0025%). With the annual growth rate of 2% in Israel, current statistics would conclude 0.0016% anti-Zionist Jews in Israel, and 0.001% in the United States and Europe.
Arabs and Palestinian-Arabs living in and around Israel typically oppose Zionism.
While the Zionist movement continues to face criticism and challenges, there’s no denying that Zionism has successfully bolstered the Jewish population in Israel.

The IDF “Code of Ethics” reads as follows: IDF servicemen will use force of arms only for the purpose of subduing the enemy to the necessary extent and will limit his use of force so as to prevent unnecessary harm to human life and limb, dignity and property.
The IDF servicemen's “Purity of Arms” is their self-control in the use of armed force. They will use their arms only for the purpose of achieving their mission, without inflicting unnecessary injury to human life or limb; dignity or property, of both soldiers and civilians, with special consideration for the defenseless, whether in wartime, or during routine security operations, or in the absence of combat, or times of peace.
A 2010 interview of Hamas leader, Fathi Hamad, confirms that Israel DID kill approximately 700 terrorist combatants, rather than “civilians” - of which the Hamas leader claims Hamas members to be included as.
Hamas fires deadly rockets from schools, hospitals, and densely populated areas knowing that Israel, like any democracy, would have to take whatever military action was necessary to stop the rockets. Hamas also knew the media would broadcast the dead Palestinian children, which Hamas uses as human shields, around the world to cause outrage directed at Israel for the cause of their deaths.
The International Crisis Group interviewed three Hamas fighters in January who said they “often fired [rockets] in close proximity to homes and from alleys, hoping that nearby civilians would deter Israel from responding”

The chronological proximity of the Holocaust and Israel’s establishment has led many people to assume that the two events are connected and that Israel was created because of the Holocaust. Contrary to this popular belief, however, a Jewish state would probably have emerged in the land of “Palestine,” sooner or later, with or without the Holocaust.
The First Zionist Congress took place in 1897, 36 years before the Nazi party came to power in Germany.
The Jewish peoples’ hopes and aspirations to return to Zion are thousands of years old, but the modern day return of the Jewish people to Israel started nearly 40 years before WWII as Jews from across the Middle East, Europe and North America started moving to Israel.
The rise of Zionism is responsible for massive Jewish immigration into Israel. About 35,000 Jews relocated to the area between 1882 and 1903. Another 40,000 made their way to the homeland between 1904 and 1914.
In the years before and during World War II, thousands of European Jews fled to “Palestine,” or to other regions to escape hostility. After the Holocaust ended, Zionist leaders actively promoted the idea of an independent Jewish nation.

Jews, not Arabs, are Israel’s indigenous people. Jews are from Judea (Israel). Arabs are from Arabia.
Jews are Israel's indigenous people building the First Temple in Jerusalem, the capital of their country Judea (Israel), in the 10th century BC. Arabs, arriving from Arabia, and did not appear in Israel/Judea until the 7th century BC. All other early groups in the land a la Jebusites, Phoenicians and Philistines, etc., have long since vanished.
Islam did not exist when the Jewish people made Israel their state and Jerusalem their capital. Palestinian Arabs are descended from Islamic Arabia, not from any long vanished group a la Jebusites. Jews are from Judea (Israel). Arabs are from Arabia. There has never been an established Arab, Islamic, or Palestinian-Arab state in Israel.

Since 1997, Hamas is recognized as designated terrorist organization according to the U.S. Department of state
The Hamas Charter reads the following:
The time(16) will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad(17), which is a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim)(18)
Hamas was NOT established in order to defend Palestinian-Arabs. Hamas was established in order to murder Jews and destroy Israel.

The conflict has never been about land but about Arabs rejecting Jewish self-determination in their ancestral homeland.
Beginning in 1919, Grand Mufti and ally to Adolf Hitler, Haj Amin al Husseini, organized, “fedayeen,” (“one who sacrifices himself”), small groups of terrorists who were willing to die while killing Jews.
“The conflict” is often alleged to have begun with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 or as a result of Israel’s capture in 1967 of territories occupied by Jordan. But systematic violence began in early 1920 with murderous assaults by groups of local Arabs and by Muslim nomads against Jews.
In 1921, Arab rioters attacked Jews in Jaffa and its environs. The leader behind these attacks was Haj Amin al Husseini, who assembled the violent riots over Jewish immigration.
Between 1918 and 1928, the Jewish population in “Palestine” doubled, to about 150,000. Palestinian-Arabs concern for this were initiated by Haj Amin al Husseini who in 1929 orchestrated violence and murderous acts using the Western Wall as the focal point.
The Six-Day War of 1967, in which Israel, attacked by 13 combatants, took a significant amount of land. Israel offered to return land for peace, but the Arab world’s response were the “3 No’s”: NO peace, NO negotiations, and NO recognition of Israel.

Israel does not use the fact of any positive element to excuse so-called crimes.
The Sentencing Policies of Criminal Courts in Israel are taken seriously, and apply to all citizens.
Israel is justified in pride towards their progressive LGBT rights, comparable to other liberal democracies, while in Iran and Arab countries, gay sex is punishable by prison or death in most nations, and none of these countries protect LGBT people against discrimination...except for Israel.
The reality of Israel’s support for the LGBTQ+ minority does not “pinkwash” the large-scale “conflict” amongst Israelis and Palestinian-Arabs.
The term, “pinkwashing,” is used as a weapon of anti-Israel activists to further their agendas, and ultimately utilizing the LGBT community as a prop against Israel.
Surrounding nations, such as Syria and Iran regularly commit human rights travesties and crimes, however, Arab regimes lack the adoption of the supposed, “pinkwashing” strategy Israel is accused of using, to compensate for their own crimes.

The point of a peaceful boycott movement is to harm the entity being boycotted more than harming the ones doing the boycotting. However, the BDS movement achieves the opposite outcome. BDS severely weakens the Palestinian economy and barely puts a dent in the Israeli economy.
Israel, which has a population of 9 million people, has a current GDP of about $307 billion, whereas Palestine (West Bank and Gaza), which has a total population of 4.2 million, has a current GDP of about $12 billion.
In a 2016 article, Bassam Eid, human rights activist and commentator on Palestinian domestic affairs, explained that the objectives of BDS activists abroad would actually increase economic hardships for the Palestinians in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
The BDS movement leaders and activists justify imposing hardships on the Palestinian people by claiming that freedom is somehow worth sufferage.
BDS leader Omar Barghouti, has expressed support for terrorism, promoted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and regularly demonizes Israel. He opposes the Jewish right to self-determination and Israel’s existence, openly calling for its destruction as a Jewish state.

Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism because it singles out the only Jewish state for denunciation.
Some see anti-Zionism as a way to hide anti-Semitism.
It is possible to be a staunch critic of Zionism and not to be anti-Semitic, however the two usually go together. People who don’t like the Netanyahu government, are not anti-Zionist. That is part of the normal democratic debate. It is taken a step further to anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism when it isn’t simply Israeli policy that has to change, but it is Israel, the only Jewish state in the world, that has to go.
Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. Many of us are critics of China’s occupation of Tibet, or Turkey’s occupation in northern Cyprus in violation of international law and putting down settlements. But none of those critiques call for the states themselves to be eliminated, but rather to change their policies. The double-standard of self-determination of one country over the Jewish state, falls under the United States State Department definition of anti-Semitism.

Since the Second World War the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has been responsible for the welfare of all refugees in the world and has assisted in their resettlement and relocation – so that nearly all of them are no longer refugees – with one exception: the Arabs from Palestine.
The Palestinian refugee crisis was created by an attack of seven Arab countries against the re-established state of Israel - a defensive war that was won by Israel. During the war, the high Arab committee encouraged Arabs in mandatory Palestine to leave their homes to which they could return following the victory over the Jewish state - a victory that never happened.
One of the greatest obstacles to peace today, and certainly the least acknowledged, is the perpetuation of the Palestinian refugee problem and the inflation of its scale by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). If the descendants of the Arab refugees from the Arab-Israeli war were treated like all other refugees, including the Jewish ones, they would not quality for refugee status because almost all of them (upward of 80%) are either citizens of a third country, such as Jordan, or they live in the places where they were born and expect to have a future such as Gaza and the West Bank.

Debunking the Biggest Lies of Israel on Campus

For more detailed information on how to navigate through a debate on Israel, feel free to download and use these files to help. The five files attached are what students feel are the "the most common lies" told on campus about Israel, and how to respond to each claim.

debunking_the_indigenous_people_claim.doc
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debunking_the_indigenous_people_claim_page_2.doc
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debunking_the_ethnic_cleansing_claim.doc
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debunking_the_ethnic_cleansing_claim_page_2.doc
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debunking_the_genocide_claim.doc
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debunking_the_genocide_claim_page_2.doc
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debunking_the_illegal_occupation_claim.doc
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debunking_the_illegal_occupation_claim_page_2.doc
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debunking_the_apartheid_claim.doc
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debunking_the_apartheid_claim_page_2.doc
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