Ali Abunimah responds to the Israeli thinktank‘s program of responding to the growing delegitimization of Israel:
[U]nderlying the Reut Institute’s analysis is a complete inability to disentangle cause and effect. It seems to assume that the dramatic erosion in Israel’s international standing since its wars on Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2009 is a result of the prowess of the "delegitimization network" to which it imputes wholly nefarious, devious and unwholesome goals — effectively the "destruction of Israel."
It blames "delegitimizers" and "resisters" for frustrating the two-state solution but ignores Israel’s relentless and ongoing settlement-building drive — supported by virtually every state organ — calculated and intended to make Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank impossible.
It never considers for a moment that the mounting criticism of Israel’s actions might be justified, or that the growing ranks of people ready to commit their time and efforts to opposing Israel’s actions are motivated by genuine outrage and a desire to see justice, equality and an end to bloodshed. In other words, Israel is delegitimizing itself.
Reut does not recommend to the Israeli cabinet — which recently held a special session to hear a presentation of the think tank’s findings — that Israel should actually change its behavior toward Palestinians and Lebanese. It misses the point that apartheid South Africa also once faced a global "delegitimization network" but that this has now completely disappeared. South Africa, however, still exists. Once the cause motivating the movement disappeared — the rank injustice of formal apartheid — people packed up their signs and their BDS campaigns and went home.
