Learning opportunity: debunking ‘Insight: Today’s Middle East’ video by Vision.org

On October 31/17 an organization called Vision.org published a YouTube video entitled: ‘Insight: Today’s Middle East — Zionists & Evangelicals’ (I’ll link to it a little later). Their November tweet announcing it remains as a ‘pinned’ tweet at the top of its Twitter feed. It seems they are particularly proud of this video:

Vision.org’s Twitter profile (@VisionOrg) claims to provide ‘in-depth coverage of current social issues’ and ‘insights into the philosophical, moral and ethical values in society today.”

PERPETUATING A LIE

Unfortunately, Vision.org’s coverage of the Arab-Jew conflict is not very in-depth, at least when it comes to the Jewish side of the story. I certainly won’t accuse them of deliberately omitting critical facts because I just don’t know.

But, it doesn’t really matter much because even if it was done in pure, blissful ignorance the video achieves the same result: perpetuating the propaganda that Jews and their state are solely responsible for the conflict because they — supposedly — have wrongfully taken land belonging to ‘Palestinians.’

LEARNING OPPORTUNITY!

The Vision.org video is a learning opportunity, a textbook example we can use to illustrate 1) how selective use of facts are being used, seemingly in a reasonable, considered fashion to perpetuate anti-Israel/anti-Jew propaganda, and 2) how just a little training about Israel’s modern land title deed from the world, the Mandate For Palestine, can be highly useful in formulating responses to propaganda such as this.

WHAT I WOULD LIKE YOU TO DO…

(If you’re in a hurry, just skip down below to read a copy of the comment I posted in response to Vision.org’s video.)

A. Watch the Israel Truth Week training video of author/land rights expert Salomon Benzimra (The Jewish Peoples’ Rights To The Land Of Israel) in which he explains the remarkable history of the Jewish land deed, the Mandate For Palestine:

B. Download and read the 11 pages of Israel’s modern deed from the world, the Mandate For Palestine, and the accompanying Note re Trans-Jordan on pages 13–23 in my training manual (if link does not work, download here):

https://uploads.strikinglycdn.com/files/d311fdca-3531-4f80-a62f-d84e72e56cfe/ITW-Mandate-trg-booklet-170705-2.pdf

C. Now, watch the Vision.org video to see what most people will not: the critical facts that have been egregiously omitted in order to — accidentally or purposefully — mislead viewers:

Shocking, isn’t it, how easy it is, with a calm, reasonable-sounding narrator and selective facts, to unjustly portray Jews and their state as the cause of the Middle East conflict? Again, I don’t know whether it was done out of ignorance or malice, but it doesn’t matter; it’s a perfect example of how truth can be twisted through omission.

MY COMMENT TO THE VISION.ORG VIDEO

After watching the Vision.org video I posted the comment below underneath:

With respect, I don’t know if the producers are deliberately ignoring a key instrument of international law re Israel’s land rights in order to not so subtly portray Jews as the villains, or have simply been tragically misinformed. The history of Zionism presented here jumps from Hertzl to Balfour to the 1947 UN Partition Plan without mentioning the modern Jewish land deed from the world: the 1922 League of Nations Mandate For Palestine which, when combined with the attached Note re Trans-Jordan, makes it crystal clear that Jews were not ‘given’ a homeland in Palestine; their ancient ‘national home’ there was recognized and restored to them.

The documents also make clear that the Jewish homeland included everything west of the Jordan River, which includes Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. You can read the Mandate for Palestine and the Note re Trans-Jordan here: http://www.israeltruthweek.org/#deed, as well as watch a training video by the late author Salomon Benzimra about the history of the Mandate.

In 1922, the world restored Jews to their homeland and has been trying to take it away ever since. Countless Jews died during the Holocaust because the Mandatory Power, Great Britain, failed to honour its obligations under Article 6.

Unlike the Mandate for Palestine, neither Balfour nor the Partition Plan represent international law and, in any event, the Arabs made war on the Jews instead of accepting the Partition Plan which the Jews had done.

One can also argue that schemes like the Partition Plan were actually illegal under Article 5 which prohibited transfer of land to any foreign power. ‘Palestine’ was always Jewish, its previous name being Judea before Roman Emperor Hadrian tried to erase Jewish history by renaming it Palestine in AD135.

Furthermore, Jews were promised land east of the Jordan River which the Mandatory Power took from them under Article 25 and gave to Arabs to form part of what is now Jordan — the ORIGINAL 2 state solution.

Omitting these critical facts does a terrible disservice to viewers, Jewish people and their state, and I can only hope it was inadvertent. As an ‘ethics’ organization, I think you might consider asking a fundamental question: should the Jewish people not be able to trust the world’s promises? If not, why not? If Jews can’t trust the world’s promises, why should Arabs? You can read those promises here: http://www.israeltruthweek.org.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

If you have watched Salomon Benzimra’s presentation, read the international law contained in the Mandate For Palestine and Note re TransJordan, and watched the Vision.org video here are some questions for you. Answer one, some or all:

1. Do you think the Vision.org video meets a reasonable ethical standard in portraying the relevant history of the Arab-Jew conflict?
2. Do you think the Vision.org video meets a reasonable ethical standard in portraying Zionists and the Jewish state as being responsible for the conflict?
3. Do you think Jews should be able to trust the world’s promises and rely on it to fulfill its obligations vis a vis the original two-state solution?
4. If not, why not?
5. If not, do you think Arab Muslims should be able to trust the world’s promises in a new two-state solution, and why?

About the author

Mark Vandermaas currently trains Zionists to destroy the false ‘occupation’ narrative via his Israel Truth Week project. He has been called a ‘Damn Zionist’ by his enemies and an ‘Honorary Jew’ by his allies. He has organized pro-Israel conferences, and personally trained nearly 500 Zionists to make a moral argument against the ‘occupation’ myth. His rule-of-law activism during the Caledonia (Canada) crisis has been cited in two books: the bestselling Helpless, by Christie Blatchford, and in Gary McHale’s Victory In The No-Go Zone.

Copyright 2018: Mark Vandermaas

CONTACT: mark@israeltruthweek.org

Medium: medium.com/@MarkVandermaas

Times Of Israel: blogs.timesofisrael.com/author/mark-vandermaas/

Twitter: twitter.com/Israeltruthweek

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/markvandermaas1/

IMAGES: screen captures by author. Image of Mark Vandermaas conducting training by Robert Walker, used with permission.