The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement has failed; no one believes the slander that Israel is an apartheid state; the Abraham Accords have made the Palestinian veto obsolete; Israel is no longer an isolated state in the region; and there’s no longer an Arab-Israeli conflict.
These are the five facts that Israel’s opponents must learn, according to Avi Benlolo, founding chairman and CEO of the Abraham Global Peace Initiative.
“We must make it clear in the West that the old and demeaning arguments against Israel are irrelevant,” he told The Jerusalem Post Annual Conference in New York.
“Here’s the truth: Since the Abraham Accords have come to be, the reality of the Jewish state is at odds with the narrative of its detractors.”
He explained that many Arabs and Jews who he met in Israel while filming the initiative’s new documentary said there has been a seismic shift in which coexistence is becoming more acceptable.
This is not an easy path abroad, however. Benlolo said that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are still rampant.
The Abraham Global Peace Initiative is an organization focusing on promoting the Abraham Accords while combating antisemitism. The initiative promotes Holocaust education and focuses its work particularly in Israel and Canada.
“Just in the last two weeks, Canada’s Jewish community was shocked to find that a government consultant... was actually an antisemite,” he explained. “Heritage Canada hired him despite vile language that he tweeted. This antisemitism is bad, but it gets worse, unfortunately.
“Canada’s third-largest party, the NDP, said it’s resetting its Israel policy,” Benlolo continued. “Its leader reportedly wrote in a letter, ‘The liberal government’s policy... is more than disappointing.’”
According to Benlolo, this is a particularly dangerous behavior. The New Democratic Party, unlike many other voices expressing opposition toward Israel, has influence in the Canadian government.
“We need to start making it clear that those who oppose Israel, who slander and defame her, are working from an old playbook,” he concluded. “Change is said to be slow in the Middle East, but it’s even slower here in America and in Canada.”