This is how to do Hasbara

This is how to do Hasbara

by anneinpt

Naftali Bennett shows how it’s done on BBC’s Hard Talk program. The interviewer, Stephen Sackur, is quite hard-hitting, and is fairly irritating in places when he keeps harping on the purported instability of Netanyahu’s government and on the dangers of Israel’s isolation. But Naftali Bennett gives as good as he takes, and does himself and the country proud.

Some select quotes, via the Algemeiner:

Sackur insisted, asking Bennett why he was against offering “sovereignty.” Bennett responded that “every time” Israel withdraws from land, “they kill us.”“Would you hand over half of Britain to someone who keeps on killing you?” Bennett asked the host.

“For 20 years we tried this direction, in [the international peace agreements of] 1993, in ’95, 2000… and you know what they did? They killed 1,000 Israelis,”  Bennett said. “It’s not working. It’s time to try a different approach.”

“That something else is peace between the people. Businesses in Judea and Samaria of Israelis and Palestinians together. That’s the real bridge to peace, build it bottom-up, because clearly the diplomats are failing.”

…

“Here’s what Erekat is essentially saying: divide the land, give us half of it, first of all. Now we have our Palestinian state, and now let’s start debating your half, and let’s turn it into a bi-national state.”

“No,” Bennett said. “It’s got to be the homeland of the Jews. We only have one homeland, the Arabs have 22 — 300 times the size of our tiny state. I don’t know how many of your viewers realize that from the ocean to the Green Line it’s a 10 minute ride. That’s how narrow our state is, but he wants a piece of that.”

…

“We’ve got apartheid going on in Lebanon; we’ve got apartheid going on in Syria. In Syria, they butchered 100,000 people,” Bennett said, asking why “sanctions” haven’t been threatened on those states. He later added, “We’re not blowing up mosques like others are blowing up churches.”

…

He told Sackur, “The only problem with your approach is that it has nothing to do with reality, beyond that it’s perfect.”

Ouch!

Watch Naftali Bennett in action. It’s 25 minutes long and worth every second.

http://anneinpt.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/this-is-how-to-do-hasbara/