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Israelophobia and the West: The Hijacking of Civil Discourse on Israel and How to Rescue It

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About the Authors

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Israelophobia and the West

Dan Diker is the Director of the Project on BDS and Political Warfare and a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. A former Secretary General of the World Jewish Congress, he is also a Research Fellow at the International Institute for Counter Terrorism at IDC, Herzliya.

Khaled Abu Toameh is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, a documentary filmmaker, and a reporter and commentator for the Jerusalem Post.

Ambassador Alan Baker is a jurist, former Israeli ambassador to Canada and legal adviser to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, and is the Director of the International Law Program, the Global Law Forum, and a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He participated in the negotiation and drafting of the Oslo Accords, and peace treaties with Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon.

Professor Alan Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus, Harvard University Law School, and the author of numerous books including 2019’s Defending Israel: The Story of My Relationshipwith My Most Challenging Client.

Ambassador Dr. Dore Gold is the President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and is a former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations. He also served as Director-General of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and as a senior advisor in the Israeli government.

Dr. Daniel Gordis is Senior Vice President of and Koret Distinguished Fellow at Shalem College in Jerusalem and the author of several books on Israel, including the recent We Stand Divided: The RiftBetween American Jews and Israel.

Malcolm Hoenlein is the Executive Vice Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

Professor Asa Kasher is a philosopher, linguist, Israel Prize recipient, author of the IDF Code of Conduct, and a Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs fellow.

Pinhas Inbari is a veteran journalist, author, and reporter for Israel radio. He is an expert on Arab and Islamic affairs, and a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Professor William Kolbrener is a professor of English Literature at Bar Ilan University. He is author of Milton’s Warring Angels (Cambridge 1996); Mary Astell: Reason, Genderand Faith (Ashgate 2009), and The Last Rabbi:Joseph Soloveitchik and Talmudic Tradition (Indiana 2016).

Yossi Kuperwasser, Brig.-Gen. (ret.) is the Director of the Project on Regional Middle East Developments at the Jerusalem Center. He was formerly Director General of the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs and head of the Research Division of IDF Military Intelligence and a JCPA fellow.

Luba Mayekiso, Adv. is the co-founder of the Africa for Israel Christian Coalition and an attorney. He has also participated in several round tables at the Jerusalem Center on the subject of former South African apartheid and current Israel-South African relations.

Olga Meshoe Washington, Adv. is an attorney, corporate consultant, and CEO of DEISI, Defend Embrace Invest Support Israel.

Dr. Fiamma Nirenstein is an Italian-Israeli journalist and author, a former member of the Italian parliament, where she served as Vice President of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the Chamber of Deputies, served in the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, and established and chaired the Committee for the Inquiry into Anti-Semitism. She is a Fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Natan Sharansky is a former Israeli cabinet minister and Deputy Prime Minister, and served as the Chair of the Jewish Agency for Israel. He is the recipient of the Israel Prize of 2018 and the 2020 Genesis Prize.

Professor Shmuel Trigano is professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Paris, and the founder of the Institute of Research on Anti- Semitism and Jewish Affairs. He is the author of La Fin du Juda∩sme en Terres d’Islam (The End of Judaism in Arab Lands), published in French and Hebrew in 2018.

Joshua Washington is the director of the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel (IBSI) and a composition graduate of the University of Pacific’s Conservatory of Music. He has written music independently for various projects, including for the Boston Pops, and is a musical director for other artists.

Messeret Woldemichael Kasbian is a businesswoman and Ethiopian Israeli community activist and public figure.

Professor Elhanan Yakira is a professor of Philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and author of Post-Zionism, Post-Holocaust: ThreeEssays on Denial, Forgetting, and the Delegitimationof Israel.

Contents
About the Authors
Introduction
by Dr. Dan Diker
Dueling Discourses: Diaspora Demonization Versus Palestinian Pragmatism
by Khaled Abu Toameh
The Thin Line between Legitimate Criticism of Israel and Anti-Semitism
by Amb. Alan Baker
The Case for Moral Clarity: Anti-Zionism, Anti-Semitism, and Legitimate Criticism of Israel
by Prof. Alan Dershowitz
How to Rescue Civil Discourse on Israel
by Dr. Dan Diker, Amb. Alan Baker
The Africa-Israel Renaissance as a Response to Diplomatic Deligitimization
by Amb. Dore Gold
Anti-Semitism, Anti-Zionism as Challenges to American Jewry
by Dr. Daniel Gordis
Walking a Thin Line: American Jewry’s Tightrope Act in Tough Times
by Malcolm Hoenlein
Israelophobia and the Weaponizing of the Oslo Peace Process
by Pinhas Inbari
The Spectrum of Negative Criticism: From Objective Reasoning to Anti-Semitism
by Prof. Asa Kasher
Anti-Semitism and Progressive Fundamentalism’s Challenge to Israel
by Prof. William Kolbrener
The New Anti-Semitism and the Threat to Israel’s National Security
by Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser
Israelophobia and the Apartheid Criminalization of the Jewish State
by Luba Mayekiso
The Israel-Apartheid Lie and the Appropriation of South Africa’s History
by Olga Meshoe Washington
A Never-ending Struggle: Challenging Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism
by Dr. Fiamma Nirenstein
Fighting Anti-Semitism, Both Left and Right
by Natan Sharansky
Anti-Semitism as a Postmodern Ideology
by Prof. Shmuel Trigano
Reaffirming Dr. Martin Luther King‘s Zionist Legacy
by Joshua Washington
Constructive Criticism in Israel’s Democratic Discourse
by Messeret Woldemichael Kasbian
From Judeophobia to Anti-Israelism
by Elhanan Yakira
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