I'm sad to see Lincolnites continuing to promote hatred and bigotry against minorities in our town. These movies do nothing to promote mutual understanding of the conflict in the Middle East. Unfortunately, they deliberately obscure it.
Israelism
The movie's claims of apartheid against Arabs are factually inaccurate: Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs possess equal rights, which are specifically enshrined in the Israeli Declaration of Independence: "We appeal... to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions."
Israeli Arabs have always been, and continue to be, an important part of Israel: Masad Bahoum manages the largest hospital in North Israel. Dr. Samer Haj-Yehia was the chairman of Israel's second-largest bank. Lucy Aharish is the anchor for the largest TV station in Israel. Mansour Abbas leads the United Arab List party in Israel, and his party was part of the governing coalition of Israel in 2021. Salim Joubran served on the Supreme Court of Israel until his death in March, and most notably was part of the panel that sent Moshe Katsav, a former Israeli president, to jail.
Also, this movie claims that Judaism is separable from Israel, which is factually inaccurate. A common misconception is that Judaism is only a set of religious practices. In fact, Judaism predates the concept of a religion. It is the cultural practices, history, and, yes, religion, of the people of ancient Judea. The words "Jew" and "Judaism" come straight from the name for the land, because Jewish cultural and religious practices were developed there thousands of years ago, and have referenced the land ever since. The movie's idea that the Jewish people "colonized" a place to which they are indigenous is inaccurate and harmful, as it serves to delegitimize the existence of Israel.
The Lobby
The Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs leads efforts to combat hatred of the Jewish people and of the Jewish homeland. It is not covert. It is not a secret. It is not "black ops." Its aim is to work with people around the world to promote understanding of Israel and of the Jewish people. If you want to call it a government media relations office, sure. It's no different from what every other country does to promote its image and interests internationally. The USA has the Global Engagement Center, Canada has Global Affairs Canada, the UK has the Public Diplomacy department, and so on.
Israel has the right to teach people who they are, and to promote their interests abroad, like every other nation. Denigrating Jews alone for a practice employed by virtually all nations shows prejudice against the Jewish people, and promotes an ugly conspiracy theory that Jews "run the media" or "run other governments."
Furthermore, the choice to screen a film on the topic of propaganda from the nation of Qatar is especially ironic. Qatar itself is an autocracy that has engaged in significant propaganda and public diplomacy efforts to promote its image internationally and advance its geopolitical interests. Qatar has supported various Islamist movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, as part of its foreign policy strategy and through its news network, Al Jazeera.
Finally, the film uses the word "Zionist" as a slur. Zionism has always had exactly one meaning: the belief in the right of the Jewish people to self-determine in their ancestral homeland. Those who believe that the Jewish people do not deserve this right are accurately termed "anti-Zionists." The word "Zionist" is no more a slur than "feminist."
Tantura
The provided definition of the Nakba is factually inaccurate. The term Nakba was coined in 1948 by Constantin al-Zureiq in his book Ma'na an-Nakba ("The Meaning of the Nakba"). The Nakba has nothing to do with Arabs who left the British Mandate of Palestine, and in fact, he barely references them in his book at all. The Nakba ("catastrophe") refers to the outcome of the Arab invasion of Israel in 1948.
In his book, Al-Zureiq specifically defines the Nakba as the Arabs' failure to win the war in 1948 and destroy the Jews. He goes on to address the need for Arabs to accept responsibility for their defeat, learn from their mistakes, and adopt a rational and pragmatic approach going forward. This movie, on the other hand, alters the definition of the Nakba in order to demonize Jews and place all blame for the conflict with Jews alone.
The War Around Us
This movie implies that Israel attacked Gaza unprovoked in 2008. This is also factually inaccurate. In 2008, Hamas was firing hundreds of rockets into Israel, as it has been off and on since Israel withdrew its presence from Gaza in 2005. In June 2008, Hamas and Israel agreed to a six-month ceasefire: Hamas stopped firing rockets into Israel, and Israel eased the naval blockade designed to intercept the importation of weapons into Gaza.
In November 2008, the Israeli military discovered that Hamas had built a tunnel near Dayr al-Balah, about 250 meters from the border, in order to kidnap Israelis [a finding that turned out to be rather prescient given the kidnapping of over 200 Israelis on October 7th 2023]. Israel subsequently conducted an operation to destroy that tunnel, and only that tunnel. That operation led to rocketfire by Hamas against Israeli civilians, and from there to a resumption of the conflict.
In conclusion:
The conflict in the Middle East is extraordinarily complicated. We could spend days discussing the mistakes made by Israelis, Arabs, Egyptians, Syrians, Iranians, Saudis, Lebanese, Jordanians, Americans, Europeans, the United Nations, and so on, each of whom have furthered this conflict in many ways. However, these movies and speakers promote simplistic narratives that blame Jews, and Jews alone, for all problems in the region, and then use those narratives to delegitimize equal rights for the Jewish people. These movies do not promote mutual understanding. They do not promote peace. They promote hatred and bigotry.
I hope that, as with the October 7th apologist who spoke a few weeks ago, Lincolnites will stand together against hatred and skip these movies.
Thank you,
Jonathan
