Effectively countering the “Palestinian” narrative that still continues to gain adherents - by Ardie Geldman

...Long ago the Arabs were taught that winning people’s support depends on capturing their hearts; their minds then readily follow. This is how they continue to successfully enlist and strengthen supporters who visit Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Ardie Geldman..
MiDA..
29 June '18..

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian activist groups arrive at Ben-Gurion Airport or cross into the country from Jordan over the Allenby Bridge each year. Understanding who they are and how they are indoctrinated is an important step in getting them to question the misinformation they are fed and challenge their misunderstandings of the issues here.

Israel issued a ban in October 2017 on the entrance of some 20 foreign NGOs whose activities are considered harmful to the country’s security. Despite this, hundreds of others who come to the region to demonstrate solidarity with the Arabs and who even openly declare hostility to Israel, are nevertheless allowed freedom of movement and expression by the authorities of what they claim to be a fascist state.

As founder of “iTalkIsrael,” an Israel advocacy and think tank initiative, I speak annually with some 500 foreign visitors to Israel and the Palestinian Authority. This is only the tip of the iceberg. These encounters, on the average of two to three each week, take place in my town of Efrat, a town the majority of these visitors see as situated in “occupied Palestine.”

These delegations come mostly from the United States and are usually of some Christian affiliation, though they are decidedly not Christian-Zionists. The smaller number of European groups with whom I meet are self-defined social justice or human rights organizations and tend to eschew any religious affiliation.

They come to Efrat because they are curious to visit an “illegal settlement” and to have the opportunity to meet with an “illegal settler.” Some come to gather first-hand information about settlements to assist them in their pro-Palestinian activism upon their return home. Some come to confront the settler with whom they meet, elevating this hapless individual into an unwilling spokesman for the nearly half-a-million Jews living over the 1949 Green Line. They solicit his or her response to the suffering inflicted upon the Arabs by the “Occupation.”

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