As attacks on the growing Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement become more frenzied – with Israel’s hawks denouncing it as “evil,” fuelled by Jew-hatred and an existential threat – Israel is simultaneously creating a ‘dirty tricks’ unit to smear BDS groups, and turning to liberal Zionist groups to give its campaign a progressive gloss.
Haaretz reports today that Israel’s minister for strategic affairs, Gilad Erdan, has begun talks with the liberal, pro-Israel advocacy group J Street over the possibility of joining forces to counter BDS. An equivalent liberal Zionist group in the UK is Yachad.
‘Erdan, who is in charge of fighting the BDS movement for the Israeli government, revealed that he met with J Street’s top representative in Israel, Yael Patir, last week to examine the possibility of working together against the movement on U.S. campuses.
‘[…] In recent years, the Israeli government has avoided any direct official contact with J Street. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has never met with any representative of the group, nor has Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer. Israel’s previous U.S. ambassador, Michael Oren, even boycotted the group during the beginning of his term, but later opened a dialog with its leaders.
‘As of late, the Jewish community in America has increasingly come to understand that J Street is strategically positioned in the struggle against the BDS movement, due to its ability to communicate with progressives and liberals – the target audience of the boycott movement.
‘J Street’s student branches are active on many U.S. campuses and its membership numbers are constantly on the rise. On some campuses, the group’s members have even succeeded in thwarting boycott efforts.’
Writing in Haartez former official at the European Commission, Mose Apelblat concludes that the Israeli government’s response to BDS – well funded though it is – has been “shoddy, uncoordinated and incoherent.”
‘Besides the Foreign Ministry, the lead ministry responsible for the coordination of the state’s efforts in this area, two other ministries – the Strategy Affairs Ministry and the Ministry for the Diaspora and Public Diplomacy – have been charged since 2009 to join Israel’s communication effort. The Foreign Ministry alone has 68 permanent officials, 10 interns, eight external advisers and 30 people at 15 representations abroad all busy dealing with Israel’s image. But all their efforts have failed. Millions of shekels in budgets have either been wasted or left unused. The audit report lists shortcomings in the planning, management and implementation of information activities.’
As Apelblat explains, the Israeli government either ignores public opinion abroad or overreacts,
‘just as it did when the European Union published guidelines on funding projects in the occupied territories (2013) or on labeling of products from the settlements there (2015). Israel’s government often tends to dismiss legitimate criticism abroad as bottom-line fueled by anti-Semitism.
‘Anti-Semitism is hardly a charge which can be raised against Israeli patriots such as the deputy commander in chief and the former minister of defense when they criticized the erosion of the military code of ethics in Israel’s army. Would the same criticism have been aired by non-Jews abroad, they would have been accused of anti-Semitism. Jews abroad would have been accused of “self-hate”. Thus European criticism of Israel can be conveniently categorized as illegitimate, interfering and motivated by hatred.
‘Instead of taking criticism from its friends abroad seriously and reconsidering the actions that might have given rise to the criticism, Israel’s automatic reaction is to act according to the doctrine of “attack as the best defense”, and to initiate new measures whose effect can only make an already bad situation worse. Attributing reservations about Israel’s policy by other countries entirely to anti-Semitism is too easy and absolves Israel from responsibility for its own actions.
‘[…] With a poor international image Israel will suffer greatly, not least from the resulting international isolation, the alienation of Jews in the diaspora and the emigration of Israeli Jews to other countries which can offer them security and a decent living. The BDS threat, contrary to what Pfeffer claims, is real and is already affecting investment decisions, sales abroad and academic cooperation.’
Also in Haaretz this week, Amir Oren reveals that “in the absence of persuasive arguments to counter boycott calls, much less any plan to change its policies,” Israel has issued a tender for a counterdelegitimizer-in-chief. The official tender calls for someone to be the “head of a tarnishing unit, with a 41-43 rank in the social sciences ranking.” This rank is equivalent to a colonel in the army or a department head at the Shin Bet:
‘The demon confronted by the Netanyahu government is the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. While the Israel Air Force has precision-guided munitions, the war against BDS calls for new tools. Not, heaven forbid, for changing the policies which so upset many people across the world, who make a distinction between Israel proper and the settlements.
‘Nor does the state comptroller delve into the distinctions among Israel, its government and its policies. He was oblivious to the underlying roots of the world’s reservations regarding the latter, which do not imply a disqualification of the former. The comptroller’s approach is to keep his head down, asking only how much and not why, as if there were a direct causal relationship between action and result, and standards for success. This spring the comptroller published a rather negative report on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s performance since returning to office seven years ago, with regard to the “diplomatic and media campaign against boycott movements and the expressions of anti-Semitism overseas.”
‘The comptroller described a pendulum movement between three ministries. The first is inherently weak but is in charge of relations with the world, while the other two are devoid of substance but are run by ambitious politicians who yearn to bask in the glow of “security matters.” We speak, respectively, of the foreign, strategic affairs and diaspora affairs ministries. The words are all meaningless natterings: “to focus,” “to guide,” “to coordinate,” “to integrate.”
‘To prevent crises within or between political parties, there is a search for something to occupy superfluous organizations that compete for control over other superfluous organizations. Ultimately, the comptroller recommended strengthening the tools available to the Foreign Ministry, which has missions distributed throughout the world and which collects their reports.
‘Netanyahu ignored the criticism in favor of giving Gilad Erdan a toy in the form of the strategic affairs portfolio, a counterweight to the toy the prime minister gave Yisrael Katz in the form of the intelligence and atomic energy portfolio.
‘In his main job, as public security minister, Erdan did not stop at importing Roni Alsheich from the Shin Bet security service and appointing him — in a move that proved disastrous — as national police commissioner. (The Shin Bet’s greatest achievement in recent years, according to agency veterans, was preventing Alsheich from becoming head of the organization, so far.)
‘Early last decade, while engaging in counterterrorism in the Shin Bet’s Arab division, Alsheich formulated undercover activities aimed at shaping public awareness, including among Israeli Arabs. The Shin Bet’s legal counsel, alarmed by the infringement of democracy, blocked this initiative. As police commissioner, Alsheich has established a new public liaison unit. Yuval Gat, who as an army officer also dealt with affecting the consciousness of opponents and their associates, was hired to head. Alsheich and Gat are attempting to survey public attitudes toward the police in order to better shape the force’s public image. Their success so far has been less than zero, with regard to the force as well as its commander. However, they have found their soulmate in Erdan. He has set out to infuse a combative spirit into the anti-BDS forces, intending to dispatch them against those who call for sanctions and for withdrawing investments from Israel.
‘Fortunately for Erdan, the designated coordinator of these efforts was the former ambassador to Britain, Daniel Taub. Israel has no convincing arguments with which to combat the arguments made against it, so it relies on skilled debaters and on personal attacks against those making these arguments, hoping to silence them — shaming and countershaming in the struggle against anti-Semitism. The problem is that Taub, with some earlier embarrassing conduct, provided the kingdom’s police force and spy agencies with ammunition which could well be used against him. His appointment was therefore shelved, along with his wish to become the foreign ministry’s legal counsel.
‘Taub was slated to have a post equivalent in rank to a ministry director general. His replacement, not yet found, will be less senior. There may not be too many contenders for this new post of a head of a tarnishing unit in a ministry for strategic affairs and information, for which Erdan is inviting applicants. The mission is “counterdelegitimization,” in an effort to oppose groups seeking to delegitimize us, beating them at their own game.
‘It’s hard to believe that these brilliant minds who will spar with those malicious opponents overseas will explicitly call themselves “tarnishers,” but it’s true. If so far we’ve had an agency dealing with (money) laundering we’ll now have one for tarnishing.’
‘[…] The lucky winner of this tender, the creatively thinking candidate, will be charged with responsibility for “leading a campaign against groups seeking to delegitimize Israel, with regard to all media and consciousness aspects, in order to create a counterdelegitimization.” In addition, this person will be “responsible for analysis of these groups and for studying their characteristics and their modes of activity, as well as defining a strategy for combating them. In addition this person will need to define important items that need to be brought to the attention of Military Intelligence.”
‘In order to achieve this, the chief tarnisher in the ministry of propaganda and disinformation will “develop and implement new tools and media channels, including indirect ones, through extra-government agencies.” In other words he will establish, hire or tempt nonprofit organizations or groups not associated with Israel, in order to disseminate the sullying material. This activity is defined in the tender as “recruitment and promoting coordination between different groups in Israel and abroad.”’
