MK Ariel Kallner of the Likud launched a new Knesset lobby tasked with fighting antisemitism and delegitimization of Israel, and discussed its importance with Arutz-7Israel National News.
Kallner notes that the group is being established, "with an emphasis on the issue of political subversion and the intervention of foreign countries and their assistance for organizations that delegitimize Israel."
The new lobby is expected to focus on extreme left groups which he says: "received almost NIS 900 million over the last decade." "This is a crazy number," points out Kallner. "Countries can act against each other through pressure, persuasion, international committees, and international organizations, but how do you explain financing civil organizations that promote their interests from within?"
Kallner states that a significant number of left-wing organizations promoted by foreign states are clearly "delegitimizing" Israel. The MK places: Breaking the Silence, B'Tselem, and similar NGOs "that impose double standards on Israel, and place demands that they don't have for anyone else - certainly not from our enemies - on us" into a group of "clear-cut antisemites."
"An organization whose purpose is to discredit IDF soldiers and present them as 'Nazis,' promote despicable blood libels, and double standards...these things meet the international definition of antisemitism. The whole vicious comparison of Israel to apartheid [South Africa] is antisemitism in its own right," points out Kallner.
Referring to soldiers' testimonies against the "Occupation" as part of the Breaking the Silence campaign, Kallner says that slandering Israel and calling it our regular policy to commit "war crimes" and maim innocent civilians, is "antisemitism for antisemitism's sake."
Regarding what the newly-founded lobby's activities will entail, he says that he does not accept the subversive activities of foreign countries within Israel, and therefore the focus should be on them. "We must not be complacent in the face of their provocation. We need to maintain our sovereignty," he says and promises action in the diplomatic arena and elsewhere with the goal of curbing these phenomena.
"Our focus is not on specific organizations, but on the interference of foreign states in the internal discourse of the State of Israel, which has arisen from suffering and persecution," concludes the MK.