Peaceful message must be clear

Channel 10, one of Israel's three TV channels, aired a report last week that surely frightened a lot of viewers.

Its title was Who Is Organising The Worldwide Hatred Of Israel Movement? Its subject was the dozens of groups in various countries which are conducting a vigorous propaganda campaign for Palestinians and against Israel.

The activists interviewed, both male and female, young and old - quite a number of them Jews - demonstrate at supermarkets against the products of the settlements or of Israel in general, organise mass meetings, make speeches, mobilise trade unions and file lawsuits against Israeli politicians and generals.

According to the programme the various groups use similar methods, but there is no central leadership.

Indeed, there is no need for a worldwide organisation, it said, because all over the place there is a spontaneous surge of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli feeling. Recently, following the Cast Lead operation and the flotilla affair, this process has gathered momentum.

In many places, the TV programme disclosed, there are now red-green coalitions - co-operation between left-wing human rights bodies and local groups of Muslim immigrants. The report concluded that this is a great danger to Israel and that the country's supporters must mobilise against it before it is too late.

The first question that arose in my mind was, what impact would such a report have on the average Israeli?

I wish I could be sure that it will cause him or her to think again about the viability of the occupation. As one of the activists interviewed said, the Israelis must understand that the occupation has a price tag.

I wish that this was the reaction of most Israelis. However I am afraid that the effect could be very different.

As the jolly song of the '70s goes:

The whole world is against us
That's not so terrible, we shall overcome.
For we, too, don't give a damn
For them.
"We have learned this song
From our forefathers
And we shall also sing it
To our sons.
And the grandchildren of our grandchildren will sing it
Here, in the Land of Israel,
And everybody who is against us
Can go to hell.

The song's writer Yoram Taharlev ("pure of heart") succeeded in expressing a basic Jewish belief, crystallised during centuries of persecution in Christian Europe which reached its climax in the Holocaust.

Every Jewish child learns in school that when six million Jews were murdered the entire world looked on and didn't lift a finger.

This is not quite true. Many tens of thousands of non-Jews risked their lives and the lives of their families in order to save Jews - in Poland, Denmark, France, Holland and other countries, even in Germany itself.

We all know about people who were saved this way, like former Israeli Supreme Court president Aharon Barak, who as a child was smuggled out of the ghetto by a Polish farmer, and government Minister Yossi Peled, who was hidden for years by a Catholic Belgian family.

But the belief that "the whole world is against us" is rooted deep in our national psyche. It enables us to ignore the world reaction to our behaviour. It is very convenient.

If the entire world hates us anyway the nature of our deeds, good or bad, doesn't really matter. They would hate Israel even if we were angels. The Goyim are just anti-semitic.

Israel's third-largest newspaper Ma'ariv published a story last week about our ambassador to the United Nations under the revealing headline "Behind enemy lines."

It reminded me of one of the clashes I had with former PM Golda Meir in the Knesset after the beginning of Israel's settlement-building and the angry reaction globally. As now, people put all the blame on our faulty "explaining."

The Knesset held a general debate. Speaker after speaker declaimed the usual cliches. The Arab propaganda is brilliant, our "explaining" is beneath contempt.

When my turn came, I said that it's not the fault of the "explaining." The best "explaining" in the world cannot "explain" the occupation and the settlements. If we want to gain the sympathy of the world, it's not our words that must change, but our actions.

Throughout the debate Meir stood at the door of the hall chain-smoking. Summing up, she answered every speaker in turn, ignoring my speech. I thought that she had decided to boycott me when, after a dramatic pause, she turned in my direction.

"Deputy Avnery thinks that they hate us because of what we do. He does not know the Goyim. The Goyim love the Jews when they are beaten and miserable. They hate the Jews when they are victorious and successful."

If clapping were allowed in the Knesset, the whole chamber would have burst into thunderous applause.

There is a danger that the current worldwide protest will meet the same reaction - that the Israeli public will unite against the evil Goyim instead of uniting against the settlers.

Some of the protest groups could not care less. Their actions are not addressed to the Israeli public, but to international opinion.

I don't mean the anti-semites who are trying to hitch a ride on this movement. They are a negligible force. Neither do I mean those who believe that the creation of the state of Israel was a historical mistake to start with and that it should be dismantled.

I mean all the idealists who wish to put an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people and the stealing of their land by the settlers, and to help them to found a free state of Palestine.

These aims can be achieved only through peace between Palestine and Israel. And such a peace can come about only if the majority of Palestinians and the majority of Israelis support it. Outside pressure will not suffice.

Anyone who understands this must be interested in a worldwide protest that does not push the Israeli population into the arms of the settlers, but, on the contrary, isolates the settlers and turns the general public against them.

How can this be achieved?

The first thing is to clearly differentiate between the boycott of the settlements and a general boycott of Israel. The TV report suggested that many of the protesters do not see the border between the two.

It showed a middle-aged British woman in a supermarket, waving some fruit over her head and shouting: "These come from a settlement!" Then it showed a demonstration against the Ahava cosmetic products that are extracted from the Palestinian part of the Dead Sea.

But immediately afterwards there came a call for a boycott of all Israeli products. Perhaps many of the protesters - or the editors of the film - are not clear about the difference.

The Israeli right also blurs this distinction. For example, a recent Bill in the Knesset wants to punish those who support a boycott on the products of Israel including, as it states explicitly, the products of the settlements.

If world protest was clearly focused on the settlements, it would indeed cause many Israelis to realise that there is a clear line between the legitimate state of Israel and the illegitimate occupation.

That is also true for other parts of the story - for example, the initiative to boycott Caterpillar, whose monstrous bulldozers are a major weapon of the occupation. When heroic peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death under one of them the company should have stopped all further supplies unless assured that they would not be used for repression.

As long as suspected war criminals are not brought to justice in Israel itself, one cannot object to the initiatives to prosecute them abroad either.

After last week's decision by the main Israeli theatres to perform in the settlements it will be logical to boycott them abroad. If they are so keen to make money in Ariel, they can't complain about losing money in Paris and London.

The second thing is the connection between these groups worldwide and the Israeli public.

Today a large majority of Israelis say that they want peace and are ready to pay the price, but that unfortunately the Arabs don't want peace.

The mainstream peace camp, which could once bring hundreds of thousands onto the streets, is in a state of depression. It feels isolated.

Among other things, its once close connection with the Palestinians, which was established at the time of Yasser Arafat after Oslo, has withered. So have relations with protest forces abroad.

If people of goodwill want to speed up the end of the occupation, they must support Israeli peace activists.

They should build close links with them, break the conspiracy of silence against them in the world media and publicise their courageous actions, and organise more and more international events at which Palestinian and Israeli peace activists are present side by side.

It would also be nice if for every 10 billionaires who finance the extreme right in Israel there was at least one millionaire supporting action in pursuit of peace.

All this becomes impossible if there is a call for a boycott on all Israelis, irrespective of their views and actions, and Israel is presented as a monolithic monster. This picture is not only false - it is extremely harmful.

Many of the activists who appear in this report arouse respect and admiration. So much goodwill, so much courage.

If they point their activities in the right direction, they can do a lot of good - good for the Palestinians and good for us Israelis too.

Uri Avnery is an Israeli journalist, peace activist and former Knesset member. He is one of the founders of Gush Shalom, a broad-based Israeli peace group.