La délégitimisation d'Israël passe par Londres, Bruxelles et Madrid

Londres, Bruxelles et Madrid seraient devenus des "pôles de délégitimisation d'Israël", selon le rapport de l'Institut Reut de Tel Aviv qui sera présenté la semaine prochaine à Ashley Perry, conseiller du Vice Ministre des affaires étrangères Danny Ayalon. Toronto et Berkeley sont également pointés dans le rapport.

"Le rapport indique que les ennemis traditionnels d'Israël sont de plus en plus souvent rejoints dans leur bataille par des groupes anti-sionistes dotés de vastes réseaux, des associations de droits de l'homme hostiles et des islamistes radicaux locaux qui utilisent des armes dans les domaines culturel, académique, juridique et financier contre ce qu'ils considèrent comme un Etat paria illégitime qui a sa capitale dans Jérusalem occupée. Ils oeuvrent à la diabolisation d'Israël et veulent faire passer Israël pour une Afrique du Sud d'apartheid du 21ème siècle. Ces groupes sont concentrés dans plusieurs grandes villes, que Reut appelle "les pôles de délégitimisation".

Cette campagne est ancienne et bien connue. L'intellectuel américain Paul Berman, auteur de Les Habits neufs de la terreur a déclaré : "Les comparaisons d'Israël à l'apartheid - ou les comparaisons plus radicales et de nos jours plus fréquentes aux nazis - ont fait irruption en Europe de l'Ouest et dans le monde arabe dans les années 1970, et maintenant on les trouve partout."
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Israel’s new battlefields: Hubs of delegitimization, par Amir Mizroch, The Jerusalem Post (extraits)

A new report by the Reut Institute, a Tel Aviv-based national security and socioeconomic policy think tank, maps out the "new battlefield" in which Israel finds the legitimacy of its very existence attacked by a wide array of organizations and individuals in global centers like London, Toronto, Brussels, Madrid and Berkeley.

The report, which also makes recommendations for possible remedies, is to be presented next week to Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon's adviser Ashley Perry, and will also be presented at the Herzliya Conference in January. The report's authors spent two weeks in London interviewing some 45 people, including members of Muslim groups and anti-Zionist Jewish organizations, and academics, journalists, pollsters, jurists, activists and politicians.

Beginning with Israel's traditional strategic concept, conceived by David Ben-Gurion, which posits that to win its wars, the IDF would have to take the fight to its enemies, the Reut report posits that increasingly, Israel cannot "win" its wars in the traditional sense as it is not up against conventional Arab armies, and there is no decisive victory over an enemy army to be had.[...]

The report states that Israel's traditional enemies have increasingly been joined in battle by widespread networks of anti-Zionist groups, hostile human rights organizations and homegrown radical Islamists that use cultural, academic, legal and financial weapons against what they see as an illegitimate pariah state with its capital in occupied Jerusalem. They are trying to demonize Israel, to turn Israel into the Apartheid South Africa of the 21st century. These groups are concentrated in several large cities, what Reut calls "Hubs of Delegitimization."[...]

Reut's report distinguishes between "soft critics" of Israel and "hard-core delegitimizers," and posits that the hard-core group, made up of anti-Zionists, anti-Semites and radical Islamists, is always trying to coopt the "soft critic" group into a more radical position. Their goal is to blur the difference between legitimate criticism of Israeli policy and Israel's basic legitimacy. Reut's team suggests an effort should be made by Israel's defenders to drive a wedge between the soft and hard core critics of Israel in London. The soft critics are human rights groups like Oxfam that are critics of Israeli policy but not necessarily of its legitimacy.

According to Calev Ben-Dor, a member of the Reut mission to London, the perceived lack of options for those opposed to Israeli policy and wanting to "do something" to help Palestinians creates an "option vacuum" which often leads "soft critics" (those unhappy with specific Israeli policies) to adopt the positions of "hard delegitimizers" (who seek to undermine Israel's existence). A successful fight against delegitimization will have to include suggestions for how to drive a wedge between these two groups, Ben-Dor says. [...]
Photo: Bruxelles, 11 janvier 2009: nazification d'Israël et déferlement antisémite