Long ago, just after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the Muslims finally realized that they couldn’t defeat Israel with their armies, despite amassing on their borders on multiple fronts. They decided to resort to lies and propaganda. They worked tirelessly, with the help of human rights organizations such as Peace Now, B’Tselem, Palestine Solidarity campaign and of course, the infamous BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions). All had one goal in mind, the demonization and delegitimization of the Jewish state. One success after the other, the wheels were rolling, and there was no stopping them, the end game was within touching distance, or so it seemed.
In 2001 Roz Rothstein, along with her husband Jeremy, decided to set up a non-profit pro Israel organization, StandWithUs. Like most grassroots organizations, it seemed hopeless at first, as Roz Rothstein described: ‘I watched the news with growing frustration’. It’s mission statement was to educate people with facts and to organize counter demonstrations, it seemed to be a terrible mountain to climb for Roz Rothstein. But in 2003, Toronto, Canada, Honestreporting.com was born. Inspired by the early work of Standwithus, Honestreporting was set up to ensure accurate reporting , while monitoring bias reporting from mainstream media and exposing cases of bias while promoting balanced reporting.By 2012, It was four years since the birth of social media, courtesy of Facebook and Twitter. Case after case, propaganda was smashed and the runaway train of anti Israel propaganda was in for a torrid time. During the height of the second Intifada, everybody was conned into thinking that Israel had shot dead Muhammed Dura, after he came after crossfire. But footage revealed that he was playing dead. A few years later, after the death of Rachel Corrie, it was reported that she was purposely mowed down by a bulldozer while protecting a home waiting to be demolished. That picture turned out to be photoshopped. While the bulldozer was a D-9 Caterpillar, a gigantic vehicle which would make it impossible for the driver to see her, she was of course standing in a trench that led to terror tunnels. More disturbing reports later revealed in Front Page magazine that she was openly supportive of terrorist activities by Hamas and had burned the American flag in response to the 9/11 atrocities. Then came the Flotilla, which was supposed to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. After the IDF had killed nine “innocent people” on board, there was immediate international condemnation. A few days later, it became known that those same nine people were terrorists, members of the IHH, which had ties to both Hamas and Al Qaeda. There were, and still are, plenty of other instances, till this very day.
So what now for anti-Israel propagandists? They failed to persuade UEFA that Israel wasn’t fit to host the 2013 U21 UEFA European soccer championships. Matisyahu’s scheduled appearance was cancelled by the Rottom Sunspalsh festival, due to his refusal to sign a letter supporting a Palestinian state, only to be reinvited by the festival, followed by an official apology. The authorities in the Netherlands did a U-turn after cancelling payments of pensions to Dutch Jews living in Judea and Samaria, after admitting a mistake about the legality of the Jewish presence beyond the Green Line. Australia and Canada recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, for the first time ever. The nightmare of social media in the eyes of anti-Israel propagandists has just started, with no end in sight, and all that hard work at spreading propaganda for decades may turn out to be in vain. This seems to suggest that they will end up with only two choices, to either stay on the train and endure painful consecutive setbacks or to jump off and watch the wrecked train from afar.