From the Jerusalem Post:
The Public Diplomacy Ministry plans to send 100 Israelis from different sectors in society abroad to represent and defend the state during Israel Apartheid Week.
The “Faces of Israel” mission, which leaves next weekend, includes settlers, Arabs, artists, experts in national security, gay people, and immigrants from Ethiopia. Actor Aki Avni will also join the group.
The participants in the project have undergone several weeks of training in the Public Diplomacy Ministry, and will visit dozens of college campuses to battle the “apartheid” label in New York, Boston, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Toronto, Montreal, Dublin, London, Madrid, Johannesburg and Cape Town.
The mission will be split into 20 groups that will participate in conferences and panels, as well as speak directly to college students.
“Most of those who hate Israel have the same disease: ignorance,” Public Diplomacy Minister Yuli Edelstein said. “We are sure that the answer to the attempts to de-legitimize Israel is not just to give facts and data, but to bring Israel to them.”
Good.
Does somebody have a problem with this??
Free speech is a wonderful thing.
The Zionists will have carte blanche on the campuses. This is not due to any particular love for Israel on campuses. The campuses sincerely don’t care who dies in the Middle East.
The so-called BDS “movement” will play dead. They will have some cute movies and speakers which no one will attend or even know about. Most importantly, they will never ever demand any resolution for boycott or divestment against Israel. They are fully aware that Israel plans to Auschwitzize Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.
Israel will simply turn the Arab world plus Iran into cinders — and the BDS movement will still be unable to demand B, D, or S. Even after the Penn BDS conference, not one BDS resolution is visible on any campus in the United States.
How do BDS-ers look at themselves in the mirror without spitting?
“The [hasbara] mission,… includes settlers, Arabs, artists, experts in national security, gay people, and immigrants from Ethiopia…. The [hasbarists] will visit dozens of college campuses to battle the ‘apartheid’ label.”
Notably missing from this living Potemkin-village are representative Palestinians from the West Bank who are affected daily by the apartheid policies.
Boycot Israel on Campus surely has a defeatist outlook on the BDS movement. I believe all who want Israel to change its behavior must continue to offer dissent to counteract the hasbara spewing from Israel. The status quo is unacceptable.
This is very good sign.
If the efforts to label Israel an apartheid state were completely ineffectual, then the Israeli government wouldn’t bother doing this.
Somewhere deep in the hidden places of the Israeli government, analysts are whispering that once upon a time white South Africa appeared strong and determined, it’s critics dismissed as cranks and idealists. Yet within a couple of decades of the campaign gaining traction, apartheid came to an ignominious end…