Chances are, you have strong feelings about the Palestinian-Israeli issue. But if you’re not Israeli, Jewish or Palestinian...
Why?
Perhaps you don't know or care much about what's going on in Darfur, Sri Lanka, Congo, or Zimbabwe where people are being slaughtered by the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS as you read this. You've never participated in demonstrations nor have you supported boycotts or divestment campaigns against the Sudanese or the Iranian governments, have you?
Do you care about what goes on Arab countries, all of which lack the most basic democratic freedoms, and whose corrupt regimes perpetuate themselves over decades. Should I mention the treatment of women and religious minorities there? Gay rights?
The only exception to all the above in the whole Middle East is Israel.
And yet, full of righteousness, you feel obligated to denounce the "despicable Israeli actions in Gaza" and to argue passionately on the issue.
Exposing UN's hypocrisy
"Bloggers cheer. . . a stunning rebuke of the U.N. Human Rights Council"
— Slate.com
Most people expect major media outlets such as the New York Times, the BBC and CNN to be "balanced" and sometimes even accuse them to lean towards Israel. In reality, quite the opposite is true.
Not shaken? Fine, let's have a good time
Perhaps you'd like a little taste of Israeli music: Idan Raichel, Kabra Kasai, Oren Lavie, Evyatar Banai, Sagiv Cohen and many others.
When the topic is Palestine, the wildest assumptions are made, while the numbers keep getting blown up.
Let's put a few things in perspective.
The "other" Arab women
The quintessential Arab woman clad in black, crying over yet another “senseless act of Israeli aggression” is shown everywhere.
But these other ladies have a different story to tell.
The perpetrators of the Buenos Aires bombing, which took place 17 years ago today, need to be brought to justice.
Many claim that there is a complete distinction between anti- Jewish sentiment and anti- Israel sentiment. Others believe that the two are inextricably intertwined. As a Jewish community, and as members of the larger community, we have to ask ourselves where the truth lies.
Fact: In 1992, the Israeli Embassy in Argentina was bombed. The Islamic Jihad Organization, linked to Iran and Hezbollah, took credit.
Twenty-nine were murdered; 242 were wounded. One might say that bombing an Israeli embassy is tantamount to bombing Israel, and that therefore this particular act was anti-Israel in nature. In fact, some have argued that it had nothing to do with anti- Semitism.
Fact: On July 18, 1994, the AMIA Jewish Community Center of Buenos Aires was bombed. Eighty-five were murdered. More than 300 were wounded. The building, which had been a center for Jewish cultural life, was destroyed. There can be no doubt that this was an act against the Jewish people (even though some non-Jewish workers and passers-by were among the victims). No one has been brought to justice.
However, it is widely known that this was a terrorist attack organized and carried out by Hezbollah.
Hezbollah targeted Jews in a Jewish institution. And why attack Jews? Because the State of Israel is Jewish? Throughout the history of anti-Semitism, there has been a deep-seated hatred of Jews.
When the first charges of deicide were leveled, Jews were depicted as evil because they had ‘killed God.’ This characterization of the Jew saw various manifestations: the Jew as satanic, participating in demonic rituals such as blood libels; the Jew as poisoner of wells, desecrator of the host (thus once again killing Christ); the Jew as moneygrubber.
As Europe modernized, the anti-Jewish slanders, which had been religious in nature became more sophisticated: Jews were evil because they were genetically defective, racially inferior, the “Untermenschen” – subhumans who needed to be removed from society; later, they were eradicated as vermin in extermination camps.
Once Israel was created, the transference of the calumny from individuals to a people to a state was effectuated: The state is inherently evil because it is peopled by evil.
One need only look at the anti-Semitism prevalent in the Middle East to see that it is at times impossible to separate anti-Jewish from anti-Israel rhetoric. Conventional wisdom incorrectly has it that anti-Semitism developed with the advent of Zionism. In fact, it is an interesting admixture of the two, combining elements of medieval and modern anti-Semitism with anti- Israel fervor.
NO MATTER what the reasoning, the Jews, and now Israel, have been and still are scapegoats.
By focusing on Jews and the Jewish nation-state, nefarious regimes whip up “the longest hatred” and can thus divert attention from themselves.
It has therefore become more important than ever to remember. We must remember the 85 victims of the AMIA bombing. We must remember their families and friends who have suffered. We must remember the more than 300 wounded. And we must say it as it is: All these innocent people were intentionally harmed by terrorists who ignore the simple, basic laws of humanity.
The bombing of the AMIA center was an evil act of anti- Semitic terrorism. It was undoubtedly perpetrated by Hezbollah – the proxy for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Let us not forget that Iran refers to Israel as “the Zionist regime,” the “enemy of Islam,” the “little Satan” and “the cancerous tumor that should be removed from the region.” We must remember that no one has yet been brought to justice, and unleash all the power we can muster as individuals, as a people and as a nation to bring justice into play on the world stage. Let no one forget what happened on July 18, 1994; for if we do, we play into the hands of evil.
The writer is community relations director of the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg, Canada.
For the past several decades all the Arab world – and I mean ALL OF IT – has been governed by despots. Human rights are abused, women are routinelly abused, religious and ethnic minorities oppressed and in many occasions slaughtered. No freedom of the press, rampant corruption. That includes the areas administered by the Palestinians BTW (either in Gaza or in the West Bank).
During all this time there have been no calls for boycotts. No divestment, no protests. No labour organization in the West that I'm aware of has ever called for a boycott of products from Syria, Lybia, Saudi Arabia (and I'm leaving Iran out of this, as my point here is the Arab world).
Students did not cause their universities to "un-invite" guests speakers sympathetic to the Arab world, under the threat of violence, as they routine and increasingly do with anyone who dares to speak in favour of Israel. Neither have these same students conducted protests, "Apartheid weeks" or the like to show their indignation with ANY Arab government.
That includes the Assad dynasty in Syria or the Gadaffi mob in Lybia. In fact, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, many people and organizations aligned with the Left – and not necessarily extremist but even Social Democrats – were openly friendly (funded?) by those same regimes, which were routinely qualified as "socialist" and "progressive".
What miasma spawned a terrorist capable of crouching over the sleeping Fogels and methodically knifing them to death?
Our minds beg to avoid contemplating the Fogel family massacre. Every bit of human fiber in our being rebels against the cold-blooded viciousness. What miasma spawned a terrorist capable of crouching over the sleeping Fogels – mother Ruth, father Udi, and their three young children, including three-month-old baby Hadas – and methodically knifing them to death?
Offering up the “occupation” as an excuse is a vacuous insult to common sense. The restrictions on Palestinians’ freedoms and their political limbo – resulting in large part from their own unwillingness to agree on realistic compromises – cannot “explain” or “legitimize” this horror.
Nor can the mere existence of Jewish families on land of biblical resonance that was previously controlled by Jordan and is now widely deemed to belong to Palestinians.
But Palestinian leaders would have you believe otherwise, and the Palestinian Authority’s reactions to the atrocity resonate hollow and false.
“We reject this violence and condemn it as we have repeatedly rejected it against our people,” the PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told reporters just hours after the Fogels were slaughtered.
The implication was clear: The Itamar atrocity could and should be compared to attempts by the IDF to defend citizens from Kassam and Grad missiles launched by Hamas from Gaza – a territory made completely Judenrein by Israel in the summer of 2005 – or to IDF attempts to protect Israelis from suicide bombings or drive-by shootings emanating from Nablus, Jenin and Hebron.
PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s reaction was not much different, provoking Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to criticize the PA’s “weak and mumbling” statements.
To restate the obvious, which was conveniently and not so innocently left unsaid by Fayyad and Abbas: The IDF never intentionally targets innocent civilians, not to mention infants. When non-combatants, including women and children, are inadvertently killed in IDF operations, this is widely perceived by the vast majority of Israelis as a tragic but unavoidable outcome of warfare that can often be explained by Palestinians’ purposeful and cynical use of civilians as human shields.
FAYYAD’S AND Abbas’s unsavory attempt to equate the unspeakable crime committed in Itamar to the IDF’s military actions is a mild symptom of a much more profound ailment afflicting the Palestinian people.
One of the most wretchedly disappointing spectacles of the past two decades has been the inability of popular Palestinian nationalisms of all kinds to rise above what journalist Christopher Hitchens has called “a thanatocratic hell.”
On Sunday, literally at the same time as thousands gathered in Jerusalem’s Givat Shaul Cemetery to peacefully and tearfully accompany the Fogels to their final rest, Fatah’s youth movement, in a sick fest of death, celebrated the naming of a square in Al-Bireh, a town adjacent to Ramallah, after the “martyred” female terrorist Dalal Mughrabi.
On March 11, 1978, Mughrabi, along with eight or nine Fatah terrorists armed with Kalashnikovs and grenades, led the Coastal Road massacre, an indiscriminate killing spree that left 38 innocent Israelis, including 13 children, dead. Mughrabi, a hero of thousands of Palestinians, had hoped to derail Israel’s peace talks with Egypt.
As Yossi Kuperwasser, director-general of the Strategic Affairs Ministry, told the cabinet Sunday, the Mughrabi death cult is just one of many examples of Palestinian incitement against Israel. The Fogel massacre, said Kuperwasser, is “in a way, an expression of the way the PA presents an attitude of hatred and demonization towards Israelis in general and especially towards settlers.”
Der Sturmer-like caricatures of Jews feature in PA media; in December, Abbas awarded $2,000 to the family of a Palestinian would-be terrorist who was killed by soldiers when he ran toward them holding two pipe bombs screaming “Allahu Akbar;” an Egyptian singer calling for jihad against Israel has been aired repeatedly in recent months on official PA radio and TV; and just hours after the Itamar massacre, Abbas met with a young Palestinians taking part in a song competition that glorifies suicide bombers.
This incomplete list, which can be substantially supplemented by Palestinian Media Watch’s regular reports, brings us closer to understanding how Palestinian terrorists could bring themselves to perpetrate such a despicable act against the Fogel family.
Reflecting, as it does, the Palestinians’ insistent refusal to internalize the Jews’ fundamental right to sovereignty anywhere in this disputed land, it also represents the single biggest obstacle to a peaceful resolution of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.
Despite the regrettable loss of life, Israeli soldiers acted professionally, with restraint and only in self-defense against the violent resistance they encountered when they boarded the Turkish Mavis Marmora on May 31, 2010 to intercept the flotilla on its way to break Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. This was a key findings of a commission of inquiry appointed by the Israeli government after the deaths of eight Turkish activists and a Turkish American aboard the Turkish vessel.
The commission was headed by retired judge Yaacov Turkel and included Northern Irish Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lord David Trimble and Canadian former judge advocate general Kenneth W. Watkin. The final report handed Sunday, Jan. 23 to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was approved unanimously.
The panel also ruled the Israeli naval blockade on the Gaza Strip is legal and fully meets the obligations of international law citing the 1994 San Remo guidelines in view of the thousands of attacks Hamas has launched since it seized the Gaza Strip in 2007. Israeli is fully entitled to maintain a naval blockade on this territory in the interests of its security to prevent deliveries of military hardware by sea. There is no suggestion of "collective punishment," said the panel. Israel abided by all its commitments under international law to keep the Gaza population supplied with its basic needs in cooperation wit the Palestinian Authority.
In contrast, the Marmora carried no humanitarian aid for the Gaza population, only a large group of members of the IHH which supports Hamas.
They waited on the deck and greeted the Israeli soldiers landing there with knives, chains, glass shards, slings and other weapons. Some had left word they intended to die as "martyrs." The Turkish activists launched the violence. The Israeli soldiers were ordered not to use force except in self-defense.
At the same time, the commission criticized the government for failing to adequately prepare the IDF for the presence of the IHH group.
Even a quick glance at the UNHRC's report on the flotilla shows extraordinary duplicity in describing international law.
We had already posted at length a number of scholarly articles about the legality of Israel's naval blockade of Gaza. The UN Human Rights Council finds that it must completely make up new laws in order to accuse Israel of breaking them.
First, it accurately quotes San Remo to define what a legal blockade is:
51. Under the laws of armed conflict, a blockade is the prohibition of all commerce with a defined enemy coastline. A belligerent who has established a lawful blockade is entitled to enforce that blockade on the high seas.41 A blockade must satisfy a number of legal requirements, including: notification, effective and impartial enforcement and proportionality.42 In particular a blockade is illegal if:
(a) it has the sole purpose of starving the civilian population or denying it other objects essential for its survival; or
(b) the damage to the civilian population is, or may be expected to be, excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated from the blockade.43
So far, so good. But look what comes next:
52. A blockade may not continue to be enforced where it inflicts disproportionate damage on the civilian population. The usual meaning of “damage to the civilian population” in LOAC refers to deaths, injuries and property damage. Here the damage may be thought of as the destruction of the civilian economy and prevention of reconstruction of past damage. One might also note, insofar as many in Gaza face a shortage of food or the means to buy it, that the ordinary meaning of “starvation” under LOAC is simply to cause hunger.44
The bolded text is simply made up by the UNHRC and has zero to do with international law. There is nothing in international law that says that "destruction of the civilian economy and prevention of reconstruction of past damage" is illegal under the laws of blockade.
Even worse, the footnote that it cites says this:
C. Pilloud and J. Pictet, Commentary on the additional protocols of 8 June 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 (International Committee of the Red Cross, 1987), p.53 para 2089. See also Oxford English Dictionary definitions: “to deprive of or keep scantily supplied with food” or to “subdue by famine or low diet”.
They quote Pilloud and Pictet as if they say that "starvation" means to "cause hunger." Yet Pilloud and Pictet actually say:
The UNHRC is deliberately misinterpreting its own footnoted material to accuse Israel of starving Gaza with the blockade.
Of course it doesn't mention the tons of food that arrive daily into Gaza via Israel itself, nor the fact that not a single Gazan has yet been documented to have starved to death in the past four years.
Since the UNHRC made up a specialized definition of the legality of a blockade, tailor made for Israel alone, it is no surprise that they conclude:
53. In evaluating the evidence submitted to the Mission, including by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory, confirming the severe humanitarian situation in Gaza, the destruction of the economy and the prevention of reconstruction (as detailed above), the Mission is satisfied that the blockade was inflicting disproportionate damage upon the civilian population in the Gaza strip and as such the interception could not be justified and therefore has to be considered illegal.
The report goes on to the usual lies - claiming Gaza is occupied, saying that the IDF fired live ammunition from the helicopters before the first soldiers descended on the ship, and so forth. But here is a specific example where international law is being deliberately misinterpreted for the singular purpose of finding Israel guilty.
You just can't contain your rage against Israel, can you?
A mere mention of Israel and you're out of the starting gate in record time with another tirade accusing it, and its defenders, of every conceivable evil in the world - from Nazism to Apartheid, from blood libel to mass murder.
The facts be damned - they only get in the way of your outrageous assertions and gross distortions. You follow the approach recommended by Lenin: "A lie told often enough becomes the truth."
Your narrative is pre-cooked, airtight and impervious to reason. It's filled with a hatred of Israel that eludes logical explanation, a blindness that shuts out any contrary evidence.
For you, Israel can do no right other than to close up shop and call it quits, while the Palestinians, your hallowed victims on a pedestal, can do no wrong.
Strikingly, all this is done in the name of such vaunted values as democracy, legitimacy and an end to occupation.
Yet you interpret and apply those values in rather strange ways.
Take democracy.
Israel is a democracy. Much as you may breathlessly try to dismiss the notion, it's a fact.
Israel has free and fair elections, smooth transfers of power and an independent judiciary. It has a wide array of political parties, a freewheeling parliament, including members who have openly cavorted with the country's enemies, and a feisty press. It has a well-developed civil society and countless human-rights and civil-rights groups. It protects freedom of worship for all. It has a vibrant gay community. It has strong labor unions. And minority communities enjoy legal protections.
No, Israel may not be perfect - and I would never suggest otherwise - but, then again, what democracy is, especially one so young and subjected to so many challenges to its very existence? But democracies, by their very nature, invite self-criticism and improvement.
Now take a look at Israel's neighborhood.
For all your purported concern about defending democracy - or freedom or human dignity - why is your voice on mute?
Could it be that your real ideal is a Hamas-run society, with its all-enveloping political and religious suffocation, relegation of women to the status of virtual male property, intimidation of the tiny Christian community, unadulterated anti-Semitism and reverence for the cult of violence?
If your world view is defined by the belief that Palestinians are mistreated, then why not a peep about their condition in, say, Lebanon?
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have lived in Lebanon for decades, yet by law they are excluded from working in dozens of professions, have no right to own property and have limited access to healthcare. Is this acceptable to you? Have you petitioned the Lebanese government to respect their human dignity? If so, please don't keep it a secret.
In fact, why not go a step further and expose the absurdity of a flotilla heading from Lebanon to Gaza to "assist" the Palestinians? Whatever happened to the notion that "charity begins at home"?
And, dare I ask, when was the last time you spoke out in protest against the treatment of women, gays, religious minorities, labor activists and human-rights defenders in the larger Middle East?
You talk about legitimacy, accusing Israel of being an "illegitimate" state.
Israel is an entirely legitimate state.
From the Balfour Declaration to the League of Nations Mandate, from the recommendation of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine to the overwhelming vote of the UN General Assembly, Israel's foundation is rock-solid. In fact, it's far stronger than that of most other countries.
And I'm not even invoking the Jewish people's ancient history and literature, and the findings of archaeology to support it, relevant though they are.
Not only is the nation entirely legitimate, but so is its government, a product of the periodic expression of the will of its people.
But if you're truly seized by questions of legitimacy, why not examine some of Israel's neighbors?
You'll discover a few uncomfortable truths.
First, their historical legitimacy is questionable, the result either of conquest or cynical European leaders drawing borders at will. And second - as in Syria, for instance - political legitimacy derives more from the bullet than the ballot, and from the entrenched notion of filial dynasties.
Either way, it doesn't do much for the legitimacy case.
And then there is the "end to occupation."
Since the 1967 war, Israel, unlike many nations victorious in battles of self-defense, has withdrawn from lands it seized.
It gave back to Egypt the vast Sinai region, with its oil fields and strategic depth, withdrew from Gaza and yielded to Jordan on border issues. It has also pulled all its troops out of southern Lebanon and dramatically lowered its profile in much of the West Bank. And it has repeatedly declared its readiness to embrace a far-reaching two-state solution with the Palestinians that would entail further territorial sacrifices.
Israel, so small that it's barely a speck on world maps, has one overriding preoccupation - security. Until the Palestinians finally get their act together and pursue peace seriously and credibly, Israel has every right to act against groups operating in Gaza and the West Bank that stockpile weapons and plot terrorist attacks.
Any other nation defending itself would act similarly - or, perhaps, more ruthlessly and with less regard for the well-being of civilians cynically used by enemies as human shields.
But those of you in the chorus of chronic, compulsive critics of Israel blithely ignore Israel's withdrawals to date and repeated offers of peace, instead robotically hammering away at the "evils of occupation" - by which you presumably mean Israel's very existence, irrespective of its borders.
Yet again revealing your rank hypocrisy, the chorus is strangely silent when it comes to other occupations.
Take, for instance, Cyprus. The island has been divided since 1974, there are tens of thousands of Turkish troops in the northern part, and it is an open secret that the Turkish government generously encourages thousands of settlers - yes, settlers - to move there from Turkey and shift the demographic balance.
Any chance that the chorus will speak up? It hasn't since 1974, and is unlikely to start now. After all, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has positioned himself as the champion of Hamas - and, for the chorus, that must be a dream come true. Why jeopardize it?
Winston Churchill faced his own chorus of chronic, compulsive critics who willfully tuned out obvious truths when he sought to alert the world to the great dangers of the 20th century.
He famously said: "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."
Once again, Israel is first on the post-disaster scene, as its specialists in burn treatment and plastic surgery rush to the aid of the Congolese following the recent tragic fire.
"Body beside body, beside body," is how one reporter described the scene after a devastating fire engulfed a neighborhood in a Congo town two weeks ago. An oil tanker overturned, igniting a nearby cinema packed with people watching the World Cup in Sange, a town of 50,000 about 40 miles from the regional capital city Bukavu. Within 48 hours, an Israeli team was in place to provide expert care to the victims.
Following the disastrous fire, which left about 235 people dead and hundreds with severe burns, locals from Sange were so shocked that they didn't even cry, according to one account.
Iris Twito, the mother of two sons injured by Qassam rockets in the city of Sderot, decided to grant an exclusive interview with Sderot Media Center, following the Gaza aid flotilla fiasco. "The entire world hates us," says Iris, "but they don't know what we've been through."
The Twito family is a living testament for why there is a naval blockade on Gaza. "It's not just Sderot that is under threat today, but the whole country," said Iris. "It is vital that we stop these flotilla boats because we cannot allow Hamas to terrorize our Israeli children."
Sitting on her patio in Ashdod, with a cigarette in hand, Iris recalls the most horrifying experience a mother can go through. Three years ago, Iris's sons Osher and Rami, then eight and 19 respectively, were walking to an ATM machine in Sderot, when the rocket alarm went off. As the two brothers frantically attempted to locate a shelter in the middle of one of Sderot's main streets, the Qassam rocket struck meters away from the two.
The exploded shrapnel sliced through the boys' legs. Residents poured out to the street to help but another rocket alert went off, forcing everyone to flee to shelter again. Moments later, the ambulances arrived to transport the boys to the closest hospital, Ashkelon's Barzilai hospital located 20 minutes away from Sderot.
Amidst the flashing cameras at what was one of Sderot's goriest scenes resulting from a rocket attack, Iris collapsed from the shock of seeing of her two sons lying next to each other, surrounded by a pool of their own blood. The entire city of 19,000 were subsequently shocked by the developments to follow.
The rocket attack left Osher in a coma for two weeks. The young boy had to go through intensive surgeries; his left leg had to be amputated, and doctors had to operate on a hole in his chest and his injured lungs. Rami, the other brother, had his operated on as they were horribly damaged.
After a year in the hospital, Osher was released in a bright red wheelchair. His right leg was still badly damaged, but a new artifical limb was fitted on his left.
"Osher goes to intensive therapy every week to this day to help adjust to walking again," said Iris. Osher, with big brown eyes and a freckled face, walks over to sit by his mother, slowly limping and murmurs hello.
Iris and her husband decided that it would be best to move the family from the heart of Hamas's target city, Sderot to Ashdod, Israel's fifth largest city located 40 kilometers (24 miles) away from the Gaza Strip, which at the time was not under missile threat.
"But the rockets can reach Ashdod now too," Iris remarks fretfully. During Operation Cast Lead, Grad missiles, which are smuggled into Gaza from Iran, struck Ashdod playgrounds, kindergartens and homes, killing one Israeli woman at a bus stop and seriously injuring many more.
"Ashdod is not sheltered like Sderot" Rami explains. "Even our home doesn't have a bomb-shelter yet."
Rami, now 21 and married with two young daughters, a toddler and a baby, expressed how the last week and a half had been hard on the family. "When we heard that the flotilla from Turkey was heading to the Gaza port, we were very scared because we had no idea what kind of weapons could be on the ships."
As Iris's youngest son, Osher, shyly cuddles up to his mother, Iris Twito reemphasizes the need for the Gaza naval blockade in order to protect innocent Israeli civilians like her family from future missile warfare.
"The government of Israel needs to ensure security for all Israelis and make sure that other Israelis are protected from the kind of tragedy that struck our family," said Iris. "Even Barack Obama at one time agreed with us. Osher met Obama two years ago," explained Iris, as Obama following the flotilla events said the territory's situation is "unsustainable." According to Iris, the US President after hearing the young boy's harrowing story privately told him "I would do everything to defend my daughters from rocket attacks, if they were in your position."
As the Gaza flotilla was clearly only a provocation, carrying merely 10 thousand tons of aid, when Israel gave over 738,000 tons of aid in 2009 alone. This violent political stunt was only aimed at weakening Israel's security and strengthening the Hamas military to put more families like the Twitos under threat.
Three years ago, Iris's maternal instincts made her remove her kids from the daily horror of the Sderot rocket reality to what was a safer city. Today, under a larger missile threat, Iris's maternal instincts are standing up against immense international pressure to lift the Gaza naval blockade implemented to protect Israeli children from going through what her two boys were forced to endure.
Shrybman is the Assistant Director and Silverman the International Correspondent of the Sderot Media Center, www.SderotMedia.org.il. Their work has been published in The Huffington Post, The Jerusalem Post, and USA Today. They have appeared on international television and radio stations such as BBC, Al Jazeera, CBS, and more.
