Legitimate criticism of Israel

Sar Shalom

Invariably, the BDS-holes, and less fanatical anti-Zionist anti-Semites, deflect accusations of Jew-baiting by complaining that defenders of Israel label any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic. Israel-supporters retort that criticism of Israel is legitimate, but what these self-proclaimed critics engage in crosses the line into anti-Semitism. However, other than to say that Israelis criticize their country every day, no examples of legitimate criticism are provided. Without such examples, our enemies could ask if it would be legitimate to point out that Israel is indiscriminately killing Palestinians if Israel was in fact doing so? Would it be legitimate to point out that Israel is arbitrarily restricting Palestinian movement if Israel was in fact doing so? This should be subject to the shoe on the other foot test, is it legitimate or Islamophobic to point out that Muslims do those things when Muslims actually do them?

While I don't have recent examples of Israel-criticism that qualify as legitimate, it would be helpful to look at the work of Bassem Eid who worked for B'Tselem before they ceased to care about the bona fides of the abuses they reported.

In one incident that Eid covered, a group of soldiers punished a group of Arabs for throwing stones by burying them up to their chests. However, Eid did not simply report that this had happened. He asked the alleged victims if they could corroborate. One of the Arabs added that he had lost a shoe in the sand as he was being pulled out. An excavation of where the incident supposedly happened revealed the lost shoe, supporting the allegation.

In another incident, Eid advocated on behalf of an Arab whose donkey was confiscated by the IDF. When he went public about that case, he did so by releasing the exchange of communications between himself and the IDF's legal adviser, including the humorless bureaucratese.

The common element in these criticisms that legitimizes them is a commitment to truth and accuracy. As Eid was described,

Although he was a thorn in its side, the army came grudgingly to respect Eid. It recognized that his reports were free from the fancy and exaggeration that is all too common in Palestinian discourse. “Why exaggerate?” asks Eid. “For example, if 2,000 houses have been demolished, why make it 10,000? If the Israelis killed four, why say it was 40?” He did not take complaints from fellow Palestinians at face value. On the contrary, he made it a practice to probe the accuracy of the testimony he received before telling his colleagues in the B’Tselem headquarters to send a formal letter to the army asking for its version of the events described to him. It was not uncommon for him to discover distortion.

Needless to say, most of the western media considers fact-checking to be optional when it comes to reporting on Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians. Pointing out facts that are omitted from such reports that contradict the narrative of wanton Israeli commission of atrocities would expose how such reporting is not good faith criticism.

This is not to suggest that this is the only test that criticism of Israel must pass in order to be legitimate. In particular, the three D test (demonization, delegitimization, double-standards) provides further grounds on which to assess that criticism is due to bigotry. However, I have examples demonstrating accuracy of criticism in those specific cases.