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The deal may not be big for the reasons @btselem thinks.
B'Tselem was founded in 1989, in the wake of the First Intifada, by then MK Dedi Zucker, and gained broad support across the Israeli left. Its mission was to check human rights abuses in the West Bank. https://twitter.com/Ha_Matar/status/1348934199579914241
B'Tselem was founded in 1989, in the wake of the First Intifada, by then MK Dedi Zucker, and gained broad support across the Israeli left. Its mission was to check human rights abuses in the West Bank. https://twitter.com/Ha_Matar/status/1348934199579914241
The org was committed to a sovereign *Jewish* state that upheld moral standards for non-Jews that had fallen under its control. It was an avowedly Zionist organization, which (as it wrote) saw no contradiction between "if I am not for myself" and "love your neighbor as yourself"
It drew its ranks from prominent Zionist Israelis and its financial support from Jewish organizations.
Over time, this has changed dramatically.
It is now overwhelmingly supported by the EU, Scandinavian and Christian left-wing organizations.
Over time, this has changed dramatically.
It is now overwhelmingly supported by the EU, Scandinavian and Christian left-wing organizations.
It was only a matter of time until the organization stepped far beyond even the leftmost extreme of Zionist thought.
The report it issued today goes out of its way to explain that B'tselem has revised its original mandate to focus on abuses in the West Bank.
The report it issued today goes out of its way to explain that B'tselem has revised its original mandate to focus on abuses in the West Bank.
It is no longer the occupation regime that it abhors, but the idea of the Jewish state itself. It applies the "apartheid" label to all of Israel, which it now calls "a regime of Jewish supremacy." This is a brief, in other words, in behalf of the dissolution of Israel itself.
To me, this marks the end of even a pretense that Btselem is a human rights organization. It is now simply one more voice in a rejectionist choir.
I may be late coming to this conclusion. But to me, this is a tragedy.
I may be late coming to this conclusion. But to me, this is a tragedy.
As an Israeli, I still need a fair, independent, trustworthy observer to monitor and document the abuses of the occupation. I read B’tselem’s early reports and wish that organization still existed. What a shame.
