Strong reactions to Shaul Mofaz

Anna Wester, of the Palestine Solidarity Association of Sweden, and Dror Feiler, of the organization Jews for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, have reacted strongly to the news that Israeli MK and former IDF Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz was invited to make an appearance at the non-governmental Swedish Institute for International Affairs (Utrikesdepartementet, UD) as the main speaker for a seminar on the subject “Possible roads to peace”. 

In a joint statement Ms. Wester and Mr. Feiler condemn the UD's decision to invite Mr. Mofaz, demanding that he be “sent to the Hague instead”. The reason? Mofaz' conduct during the Second Intifada, during which his harsh tactics were credited with freezing the Intifada, thus saving hundreds, if not thousands of lives – both Israeli and Palestinian. Ms. Wester and Mr. Feiler also claim that the IDF, under the command of Mr. Mofaz, were guilty of war crimes, as proved by the NGOs Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. They do not, however, mention that the UN did not find anything to substantiate those allegations, despite Amnesty and the HRW claiming to have “proof” that such  “crimes” did take place. They also claim that Israeli forces, on Mr. Mofaz' orders, attacked, besieged and later demolished the headquarters of then-PA leader Yasser Arafat. That much, at least, is true, though once more they fail to mention one important detail; President Arafat was sheltering terrorists within his headquarters. (It may also be worth mentioning that Ms. Wester, after going to the lecture, wrote about it on her blog. Among other things, she is incensed that Mr. Mozaf calls the West Bank “Judea and Samaria”.)

The statement by Anna Wester and Dror Feiler is typical of both of their organizations, as well as a large number of other NGOs that claim to support peace between Israel and the Palestinians; rather than working towards achieving a sustainable peace, they instead devote all of their energy to spewing hatred of Israel, distorting the truth and omitting facts as they see fit in order to do so. There are only two possible explanations for this: either they are too blinded by their hatred of Israel to see that, in so doing, they are actually doing more harm than good to the peace process, as radical elements within Palestinian society feel encouraged, while moderates are undermined – or they do not really care about peace at all.

The post was written by: Adam Eberhag