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Some posts to the Jerusalem Post Gay Israeli
lawmakers speak out against LGBT laws in North Carolina
4-14-2016 Lee Mortimer Whether the Knesset members feel sympathy for gay and transgender people is hardly the real issue of their appearance in Chapel Hill. The real issue is the contempt the MKs showed local citizens who asked them to ease the suffering of Palestinians who have lived under a half century of military occupation. Their response was to insult and belittle the local citizens, some of whom were Jewish. When one local Palestinian-American relayed how the theft of his family’s West Bank farm by the Israeli government had so constricted their lives they "cannot breathe," MK Ohana jumped up and shouted, “You can’t breathe, but you can stab.” The remark so offended one Town Council member that she abruptly left the meeting, saying "That, I thought, was such a horrible thing to say." Sending such disreputable representatives to harangue American audiences will surely backfire on Israel. 4-14-2016 Sam Bryan The protesters that were at the Town Council meeting the Knesset delegates attended were polite and thoughtful. An Episcopal minister greeted the delegates as “brothers and sisters.” When he posed an obvious question about the settlements being an impediment to peace, he was met by long, intemperate harangues that never answered the question, but ranged over the now threadbare propaganda tropes about no partners for peace, deals that had been offered in the past, but rejected, complexity, etc. The delegates summarily dismissed a fact sheet that was handed out by the protesters as false without rebutting any of the points made. The tone of the delegates was patronizing, demeaning and vituperative. There was never an attempt to acknowledge the protesters’ concerns nor any attempt to find common ground. If their mission in coming to Chapel Hill was to spread their propaganda in a town that is known for addressing the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians, then, as said above, it backfired. |