{"id":76433,"date":"2020-02-28T17:05:58","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T15:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=76433"},"modified":"2020-02-23T14:32:10","modified_gmt":"2020-02-23T12:32:10","slug":"28-05-49","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=76433","title":{"rendered":"Tel Aviv\u2019s Mayor Vs. the Middle East Forum"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Tel Aviv\u2019s Mayor Vs. the Middle East Forum<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Daniel Pipes \/ JNS.org<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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A view of the Yehudit Bridge and the Ayalon highway in Tel Aviv, Feb. 17, 2019. Photo: Adam Shuldman \/ Flash90.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

For three years, the Middle East Forum has been engaged in a campaign to wean Americans and Israelis off the deceptive charms of the \u201cpeace process\u201d which has, in fact, produced overwhelmingly malign results. Instead, we argue for an Israeli victory and a commensurate Palestinian defeat.<\/span><\/p>\n

We constantly seek out new ways to bring this argument to the public\u2019s notice, especially in Israel. Although the topic is deadly serious, we\u2019ve had some fun in the process. Israel Victory Project attention-getting tactics have included posters of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in a swimsuit thanking Israel for all the money it sends his organization; a 10-meter tall rubber chicken posed in front of the Israeli parliament and the Defense Ministry; and switching street signs in Tel Aviv (e.g., from Ben-Gurion Street to Yasser Arafat Boulevard).<\/span><\/p>\n

In this spirit, as the election season heats up ahead of the national vote on March 2, we again sought a creative way to stimulate interest in Israel Victory. We came up with a provocative graphic showing blindfolded Palestinian Authority and Hamas leaders Mahmoud Abbas and Haniyeh photo-shopped against a battlefield scene. Abbas\u2019s hands are raised high while Haniyeh\u2019s hold a white flag. The graphic carries a pungent slogan in Hebrew: \u201cPeace can ONLY be made with defeated enemies.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

To stimulate curiosity, we did not put our name on the posters. The goal, as explained by Nave Dromi, head of the Middle East Forum-Israel office, was to \u201cto spark public discussion about the crying need to change the thinking that characterizes the \u2018peace camp.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This graphic went up on billboards at five prominent spots in Tel Aviv on Feb. 13.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Feb. 14, the mayor of Tel Aviv, Ron Huldai, responded by denouncing the signs as Nazi-like incitements to murder. A municipality flack, Eytan Schwartz, actually compared the two depicted monsters to Jewish children in the Holocaust. Well no, the billboards were incitements to victory, not to murder; surrendering prisoners being blindfolded is common the world around. Both Israelis (in Syria) and Americans (in Iran) have experienced this sort of treatment.<\/span><\/p>\n

The good mayor, who proclaims Tel Aviv to be a city that \u201ccelebrates pluralism and tolerance,\u201d is also known for his increasingly autocratic tendencies since coming to office in 1998. In this instance, he peremptorily ordered municipal employees to take down the ads, which they promptly did \u2014 freedom of speech and the sanctity of private property be damned.<\/span><\/p>\n

In other words, without the nicety of first obtaining a court order, Huldai blithely took an illegal step. MEF responded in two ways: we went to court to assert our rights and we released a new version of the poster; this one covers the faces of Abbas and Haniyeh with a \u201cCensored\u201d (in Hebrew) stamp and a list of some of the 30 violent Palestinian attacks in Tel Aviv on Huldai\u2019s watch that left 93 dead.<\/span><\/p>\n

I draw two conclusions from this incident. First, the concept of Israel Victory, a simple idea with immense implications, gets hugely under some people\u2019s skins. The positive response to it \u2014 among Israelis, some Palestinians, and caucuses in the US House of Representatives and the Knesset \u2014 enrages those who remain wedded to their \u201cpeace process\u201d delusions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Israel Victory dispenses with the nutty idea of giving an enemy hope, replacing it with the sensible goal of forcing him to give up his war goal. Out goes the saccharine path of appeasement in favor of the bitter doctrine of deterrence. Out goes the illusion of luring Palestinians to give up their foul goal through promises of benefits. When they finally do give up on eliminating the Jewish state, Palestinians can begin to build their polity, economy, society, and culture. It\u2019s admittedly a long and tough path, but it will ultimately bring real rewards.<\/span><\/p>\n

Second, as Israel\u2019s die-hard left continues to decline, it increasingly relies on police methods to discredit its opponents. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has experienced a barrage of legal cases which (per Alan Dershowitz) in the aggregate \u201cendangers democracy.\u201d Recently, Israel\u2019s police arrested Akiva Smotrich for unauthorized travel to the West Bank and Yehudah Glick \u2014 rabbi, former Likud member of parliament, and victim of a jihadi assassination attempt \u2014 for \u201cwalking too slowly\u201d on the Temple Mount, then ransacked his house. And Huldai destroyed our billboards.<\/span><\/p>\n

Where will it end?<\/span><\/p>\n

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Daniel Pipes<\/strong> (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the Middle East Forum.\u200eThis article first appeared in Israel Hayom.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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Tel Aviv\u2019s Mayor Vs. the Middle East Forum Daniel Pipes \/ JNS.org A view of the Yehudit Bridge and the Ayalon highway in Tel Aviv, Feb. 17, 2019. Photo: Adam Shuldman \/ Flash90. For three years, the Middle East Forum has been engaged in a campaign to wean Americans and Israelis off the deceptive charms […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76433"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76443,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76433\/revisions\/76443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}