Social media feeds are often filled with viral posts attacking Zionists and the Jewish state. While it’s unlikely that we can change the minds of the most hardcore anti-Israel users, posting factual information about Israel can help educate some people who are exposed to these toxic threads.
Here are a few short, social media-friendly blurbs that answer some of the most common slurs about Israel. Use or adapt them next time you see an anti-Israel comment.
- Israel is an apartheid state
The International Criminal Court defines apartheid as the implementing and maintaining a system of legalised segregation in which one racial group is deprived of civil rights. That’s the very opposite of Israel, where all citizens — Jews, Arabs, and others — are equal under the law. Arab Israelis are Members of Parliament, police officers, diplomats, doctors, lawyers, and sit in Israel’s Supreme Court. Israeli beaches, restaurants, universities, and public areas are filled with a diverse mix of Arabs, Jews, and others. South African Judge Richard Goldstone has observed: “in Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute.”
South African journalist Benjamin Pogrund notes: “I know Israel today – and I knew apartheid up close. And put simply, there is no comparison between Israel and apartheid. The Arabs of Israel are full citizens. Crucially, they have the vote and Israeli Arab MPs sit in parliament. An Arab judge sits on the country’s highest court; an Arab is chief surgeon at a leading hospital; an Arab command a brigade of the Israeli army; others head university departments. Arab and Jewish babies are born in the same delivery rooms, attended by the same doctors and nurses, and mothers recover in adjoining beds. Jews and Arabs travel on the same trains, taxis and…buses. Universities, theatres, cinemas, beaches and restaurants are open to all.”
Rev. Dr. Kenneth Meshoe, a member of South Africa’s Parliament, refutes the slur that Israel – which guarantees full legal and social rights for all its citizens – is an apartheid state: “I am shocked by the claim that the free, diverse, democratic state of Israel practices apartheid. This ridiculous accusation trivializes the word apartheid, minimizing and belittling the racism and suffering endured by South Africans of color.”
- Israel is committing war crimes
British Col. Richard Kemp, who has 30 years’ experience battling insurgencies in Afghanistan and elsewhere, calls Israel “the most moral army in the world in the history of warfare” and notes that the high death toll in Gaza is due to Hamas’ practice of embedding its fighters in civilian homes, mosques, hospitals, and schools. “Hamas wants to maximise the death of its civilian population. The purpose is to get the international community, the United Nations, the United States and other governments around the world to condemn Israel, to vilify Israel, to delegitisway.”
- Hamas is a partner for peace
Hamas is not a partner for peace. Instead of building up Gaza, it’s spent decades stealing international aid money and building up its arsenal. Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya told the New York Times on Nov. 8, 2023 that “Hamas’s goal is not to run Gaza and to bring it water and electricity and such” or to improve the situation of ordinary Gazans, but to create a state of permanent war with Israel: Hamas “did not seek to improve the situation in Gaza. This battle is to completely overthrow the situation” and create a permanent state of war.
The USA and others recognise it as a terrorist organisation for good reason: Hamas’s charter calls for the death of all Jews, and urges Muslims to rise up and murder Jews. “The time will not come until Muslims with fight the Jews; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him!” Hamas is a fanatical terror group which aims to destroy Israel, embeds its fighters in civilian homes, hospitals, mosques, and schools, and doesn’t care how many innocent Gaza civilians are killed in the crossfire.
Hamas’ own charter forbids it from pursuing peace: Peace “initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement.” Hamas leader Yahyah Sinwar is said by Israeli intelligence to be hiding in Hamas’ extensive tunnel network in Gaza, surrounded by at least 20 Israeli hostages and carrying 25kg of dynamite he would detonate if Israeli troops drew near.
- Israel is a settler colonialist state
Jews have lived in Israel continually for over 3,000 years. We are the only nation on earth who speaks the same language, practices the same religion, and lives by the same holy book as we did 3,000 years ago. Jews the world over pray facing Jerusalem. At the conclusion of each Passover Seder and Yom Kippur service, Jews proclaim “Next Year in Jerusalem!” Building a thriving Israel is an inspiring example an indigenous people living in their ancestral homeland.
“Settler colonial” means a nation was settled by foreigners to extract riches for a colonial master. That doesn’t describe Israel at all: half of all Israeli Jews come from Middle Eastern countries and were expelled because they were Jews. 20% of Israeli citizens are Arab. Ashkenazi Jews (those with ancestors who lived in Europe) were targeted and killed because they weren’t “European”. Far from being settlers or colonists, the Jews and Arabs who live in Israel have deep roots there and deserve to live in safety and security in their shared land.
Calling Israel settler colonialist is a deliberate misreading of Jewish history. Jews have lived in Israel continually for over 3,000 years. When nearly a million Sephardi Jews were expelled from Arab countries they’d lived in for centuries after 1948, Israel took them in. When 6 million Jews were murdered in Europe because they weren’t considered “European,” survivors found safety in their homeland of Israel. These Jews, along with the many Arabs who are also citizens of Israel, have turned Israel into a thriving, vibrant nation. They deserve to live in peace and security in their ancestral homeland.
- Palestine existed long before Israel (often accompanied by a picture of an old travel poster, coin, map, or postcard that says “Palestine”)
You have just posted a picture of a Jewish artifact! Before Israel’s founding in 1948, it was Jews, not Arabs, who called themselves “Palestinian.” The Palestine Post was a Jewish newspaper that today is The Jerusalem Post. The Palestine Symphony Orchestra was set up by Jews and today is the Israel Philharmonic. Before 1948, Arab residents of present day Israel traditionally referred to themselves as Arabs or Ottoman Arabs.
- Israel is Committing Genocide
Since Israel gained control of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, the Palestinian Arab population there has increased from under a million in 1967 to nearly five million today. Gaza’s population leapt from 394,000 in 1967 to an estimated 2.3 million people today. Charges that Israel is committing “genocide” are nonsense, and are merely an attempt to demonize Israelis and Jews.
The UN defines genocide as having “intent to destroy…a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group” by killing or otherwise causing widespread death, inflicting serious injury, preventing childbirth, and taking away children. It means targeting a specific group because of who they are, not what they have done. That is not the case in Gaza, where Israel is battling Hamas fighters who embed themselves in civilian populations, all the while taking extraordinary measures to minimise civilian casualties.
Accusing Israel of genocide plays into Hamas’ hands. Hamas has fired thousands of rockets at civilian targets in Israel over the past year. As the AJC notes, “Those missiles don’t originate from military bases, as international law dictates. They are fired from civilian neighbourhoods in the Gaza Strip, and from inside, next to, and underneath nominally civilian areas in Gaza like residential buildings, schools, mosques, and hospitals.” Hamas is effectively using the entire population of Gaza as a human shield. If anyone is putting civilians in Gaza at risk, it is Hamas.