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The Winning Issues

(Jerusalem Post) David M. Weinberg - The week I just spent with Norwegian friends of Israel taught me how the justice of Israel's cause can be most effectively presented. Israel wins when you speak about justice for Israel; not when you merely proclaim Israel's desire for peace, talk-up its willingness to compromise, and declare its right to defend itself. Norway is one of the top funders of the Palestinian Authority. Yet Israel has broad grassroots support in Norway, where friends of Israel have organized an effective and increasingly respected lobby, Med Israel for Fred (www.miff.no), or "With Israel for Peace." MIFF boasts almost 7,000 paid members, and it engages more people on Facebook than some of the major Norwegian political parties. The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem also has thousands of members in Norway. Norwegian MIFF activists have learned that it is simply not enough to explain Israel's security dilemmas or to revisit Israel's diplomatic generosity toward the Palestinians. What's needed is a much more basic restatement of Israel's cause and purpose: Israel as a grand historic reunion of people and land, as a shelter for the Jewish People, and as a just and moral actor in the medieval and violent Arab Middle East. Nobody knows about the hundreds of thousands of Jews who were expelled from Arab lands and absorbed by Israel, and when they learn of this it dramatically changes the discourse. As opposed to a conversation about Palestinian rights vs. Israeli security, the conversation becomes a debate about a balance of rights: about Israeli/Jewish rights and Palestinian/Arab rights. George Deek, the impressive young Israeli diplomat who serves as deputy chief of mission in Oslo, who is a Christian Arab, adds that one must point out the internal conflicts and ethnic wars within the Arab world. "Norwegians and other Westerners need to understand the warlike patterns of behavior that characterize the region Israel resides in."
2013-06-07 00:00:00
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