JERUSALEM POST: Israeli Gov. dispatches PR envoy to “fight” IAW

20 February 2012 — BDS SOUTH AFRICA

Yesterday it was announced that the Israeli Ministry of Public Diplomacy would dispatch “envoys” around the world in an attempt to undermine the upcoming plans for Israeli Apartheid Week (starting  today, 20 February, in some places).

According to the Jerusalem Post, the participants of the Israeli “mission” have all “undergone several weeks of training in the Public Diplomacy Ministry” and will include settlers and “experts in national security”. (See below for the original Jerusalem Post article.)

The Israeli Minister of Public Diplomacy, Yuli Edelstein, said that “the answer” to initiatives such as Israeli Apartheid Week and delegitimization is “not just to give facts and data, but to bring Israel to them.” Edelstein further accused those organizing Israeli Apartheid Week of hatred and having the “disease” of ignorance.

Israel’s dispatch of propaganda is not new (the Israeli Public Diplomacy Ministry is often compared to Apartheid South Africa’s notorious Department of Information). However, the open aggression and arrogance of an official Israeli Minister, in his position as a Minister, is astonishing. 

The last time that Israel sent a delegation to “educate” South Africans it backfired, with SA’s largest, oldest and most representative student groups slamming the Israeli delegation and actively undertaking programs of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.
(See http://www.bdssouthafrica.com/2011/08/blog-post.html and www.bdssouthafrica.com/2011/08/update-pr-mission-to-sa-failure-recent.html)
 
Find out more about the upcoming plans for Israeli Apartheid Week here: http://www.apartheidweek.org or 
http://www.bdssouthafrica.com/2012/02/8th-international-israeli-apartheid.html

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