17/6/2011

Dear Barney, Shane, Danny and Mitch,

I've been following the talk on your Facebook page regarding your show in Israel and I see the Campaign to Boycott Israel have had a fair go at you. In doing so, they have used slanderous terms and presented simplistic a picture which is different than the complex reality of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. So I want to briefly set the record straight here.

Israeli author Amos Oz has said that there are two wars here: One is the Palestinian peoples war for its right to free itself from occupation and to establish an independent state. Every decent person should support that cause. The other war is the war of fanatical Islam, from Iran to Gaza and from Lebanon to Kalkilya, to annihilate Israel and to uproot the Jewish people from its homeland. That is a criminal war that every decent person should despise.

I'm afraid the anti-Israel campaigners targeting you have been campaigning you have not made that distinction. I have heard many calls for Israel's disappearance off the map but no call for a solution. According toAmos Oz the Israeli-Palestinian conflict primarily a national-political conflict, not a religious one, and therefore it can be solved by having two nations existing peacefully side by side. I have heard no mention of this from the campaigners.

The campaign has on many occasions used the slanderous term Apartheid on many occasions. However, the legal record is clear that the crime of apartheid only has only one definition: an official policy of strict racial segregation and political and economic discrimination. 1To apply this to Israel is absurd. Israel is a state with one law, and it applies equally to 5.6 Million Jewish-Israelis, 1.5 M Arab1 http://www.thefreedictionary.com/apartheid

Israelis, and 302,000 other peoples and religions. In Israel, Jews and Arabs go to the beach together, do their shopping together, play football together, and go to university together. Arab-Israelis are proudly represented at all levels of Israeli society including the countries courts and Parliament, and many of them are quite happy to be Israeli, such as Dr. Mohammad Wattad, an Arab-Israeli legal expert and a lecturer in Law at Israel's Zefat Law School in Israel : Is there discrimination in Israel? Yes, there is discrimination against women, the elderly, Arabs, various minority groups and echelons of society. Is it good? No. But the same goes for Canada. It means we need to deal with the problem from within.... The existence of discrimination in a state does not make it an apartheid state...There is a big difference between apartheid and discrimination. In an apartheid regime, there is no possibility of judicial review, because the judges are appointed by the regime and all serve one ideology. This is not the case in Israel ... There is a very strong, independent Supreme Court in Israel..2

The difference between Palestinians and Israelis is political, not racial. There is no one dominant race. Israeli Jews are far more multiracial than any other group in Middle East. They come from Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United States, West and East Europe and over 50 other countries. The stereotype of the Jew as exclusively white and European does not exist in Israel. It exists only in the minds of those who are trying to label Jews as perpetrators of apartheid. Even those who have spoken out loudly against Israel's policies toward the Palestinians acknowledge that Israel is nothing like apartheid South Africa. This includes former US President Jimmy Carter: "It's not Israel. The book has nothing to do with what's going on inside Israel, which is a wonderful democracy, you know, where everyone has guaranteed equal rights and where, under law, Israeli Arabs and Jews have the same privileges."3

2 http://www.spme.net/cgi-bin/articles.cgi?ID=6929 3 http://legacy.kcet.org/lifeandtimes/archives/200612/20061214.php

What is happening in parts of the West Bank is a military occupation, an undoubtedly terrible experience that should be ended as soon as possible. But it is not and cannot be apartheid. Is Britain's occupation of Afghanistan apartheid? Is the United States' occupation of Iraq apartheid? No. All these examples refer to tragic realities, but they are not apartheid and to refer to them as such is misleading and dangerous. It steers the debate away from a two state solution an Israeli state and a Palestinian state living peacefully side by side and focuses on replacing Israel with Palestine. The most clearest example of such a lie is the experience of Gaza. What the Campaign to Boycott Israel conveniently left out of their story was that before 2005 Gaza was occupied by Israel, just like the West Bank. But in 2005 Israel withdrew all civilian and military personnel from Gaza leaving it 'Jew Free'. Sick of the political corruption of the PLO political party, Gaza responded by electing Hamas, a radical Islamist organization openly dedicated to Israel's annihilation. Hamas does not support the Palestinian national agenda, but rather promotes a global Jihad, calling for the destruction of Israel, the U.S., Britain and all other 'infidel' countries. Their agenda is bought and paid for by Iran, which provides weapons and funding for this struggle. Once assuming control over the Gaza strip, Hamas increased its terror campaign of rocket attacks against Israel, launching more than 12,000 rockets and mortars onto defenseless Israeli civilian population centers, slaughtering any PLO resistance it could find until there was no political opposition left in Gaza.

After six years of rocket attacks from Gaza, Israel and Egypt imposed sanctions as directed by the Quartet of Powers (The UN, the USA, the European Union, and Russia). Despite continuing daily bombardments of its people, Israel continued to allow aid into Gaza to feed people there, only to see it stolen by Hamas warlords and sold back to the Gazans at exorbitant prices.4 There is no starvation in Gaza. No one has died of hunger," Khalil Hamada, a senior official at Gaza's Ministry of Justice, told London's Daily Telegraph. Many live in luxury in such places as the former Crazy Water Park and the
4 http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel-bows-to-u-s-pressure-lifts-food-restrictions-on-gaza-1.272715

Al Deira Hotel. The situation in Gaza is difficult, but the cause is clear: Gaza is ruled by a violent, Islamist mob dedicated to never-ending war against Israel and the West.

Hamas continued to fire rockets into Israel for years on end, and this finally culminated in Operation Cast Lead. By this point hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians had been maimed by Hamas' rockets and mortars, about fifty had been killed, hundreds of homes had been destroyed, and PTSD was rampant.5 During this war Israel went to unprecedented efforts to protect Gaza's civilian population in Gaza, by dropping pamphlets informing civilians of 'safe zones', providing food, medical aid and even fuel. It is important to note that these aid actions are unprecedented. "I don't think there has ever been a time in the history of warfare when any army has made more efforts to reduce civilian casualties and deaths of innocent people than the IDF is doing in Gaza"6, said Col. Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, during a BBC interview. Despite the claims of Israel's enemies, the Red Cross found no evidence that the IDF used white phosphorus unlawfully.7 Hamas themselves have admitted that 50% of the Palestinians killed in Cast Lead were Hamas fighters. Every death of a Palestinian is a tragedy, but there was no massacre. Israel's goal has always been to defend itself against Hamas.

This is a highly complex issue, with many sides and points of view all clamoring for recognition. But as a band, Napalm Death must be aware that the Campaign to Boycott Israel has its own agenda. They have payrolls to pay and political agendas to promote, and peace in the
5 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/945489.html 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WssrKJ3Iqcw 7 http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2009/Jan/13/icrc-israels-use-white-phosphorus-not-illegal/

Middle East is not one of them. Their leaders state their views quite clearly: they will actively support Palestinian violence against Israel until Israel is destroyed and the rights of the Jewish people in Israel are revoked.8 The reckless actions of this movement stand in opposition to any true effort to reach a solution. A slander campaign should not be mistaken for dialogue. I look forward to seeing you play Tel Aviv tonight. A Napalm Death fan

8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifZLk6Ei9-U