Kermit the Frog once said “it’s not easy being green.”

Borrowing Kermit’s sentiments, it’s not easy being a supporter of Israel and a reader of The Register-Guard, when the latter publishes propaganda by Israel-haters that unfairly promotes the demonization and delegitimization of the nation-state of the Jewish people.

The last guest to climb aboard The Register-Guard’s anti-Israel platform is the spokesperson for the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (Feb. 24) who relies on distortions of history, hypocrisy and lies to discredit Zionism — the national movement of the Jewish people that created a nation-state in their ancestral homeland.

Among the many inflammatory falsehoods:
1. Israel is an “apartheid” state that has engaged in the “ethnic cleansing” of the Palestinians.

Why, then, is 20 percent of Israel’s population Palestinian Arabs who participate in the political process by voting and serving in the Israeli government?

2. The Islamist organizations Hezbollah and Hamas are not “terrorist groups” and pose “no threat to the United States.”

Why, then, have both been designated terrorist organizations by the United States and Canada? Why does the European Union designate Hamas as such?

Hezbollah attacked the U.S. embassy in Beirut with a car bomb in 1983 killing 63 people, including 17 Americans. They attacked the U.S. Marine barracks with a truck bomb in the same year, killing 241 Americans who were stationed in Lebanon as peacekeepers. Hezbollah has engaged in other bombings and terrorist acts that have killed Americans and other innocents. Hamas has admitted responsibility for suicide bombings that have killed Americans visiting Israel.

3. “Israel and its U.S. lobby pushed us toward the Iraq war.”

Last we looked, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell, the so-called “deciders,” were not regularly attending synagogue. A 2005 poll by the American Jewish Committee revealed that 70 percent of American Jews opposed the Iraq war. Considering that the war weakened Iran’s mortal enemy and set the stage for holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and a nuclear Iran to threaten Israel, Jewish opposition was prescient.

4. “Jews need to oppose Zionism.”

History teaches that Jews have not fared well in either European or Arab countries due to rampant anti-Semitism. Between 1948, when Israel declared independence, and 1967, Arab countries expelled more than 800,000 Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews. The survival of the Jewish people depends on the existence of Israel.

What is missing from the IJAN essay? Israel has been offering peace to the Arab and Muslim world since 1948. Egypt said yes in 1979. Jordan said yes in 1994. The Palestinians most recently rejected peace in 2000-01 when Yasser Arafat said no at Camp David and Taba. Good people among the Israelis and Palestinians continue to work for peace — but it remains elusive because of, among other reasons, the call for the death of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people.

Israel has been attacked by Arab armies four times in the past 62 years. Now Hezbollah and Hamas, proxies for Iran, engage in asymmetrical warfare with Israel on its northern and southern borders.

Israel’s humanitarian, scientific and cultural contributions to the community of nations are second to none.

Israel was among the first to provide humanitarian assistance to earthquake victims in Haiti, Peru and Pakistan, to the victims of the tsunami in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, to the residents of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and to the victims of the al-Qaeda bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Israeli doctors provide urgent pediatric cardiac surgery to children in developing countries through a program called Save a Child’s Heart. Many of the children who receive life-saving surgery come from countries that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel. About half of the children treated are from Iraq, Gaza and the West Bank.

Israel is on the cutting edge of environmental research and innovation. It is poised to become one of the first countries in the world to establish an electric car network on its streets and highways.

Israel is the Silicon Valley of the Mediterranean. Israelis have invented much of the technology used in cell phones, miniature video camera capsules that examine internal organs, and Intel wireless computer chips. Israel is third, behind on the United States and Canada, in the number of companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Israel has produced nine Nobel laureates in economics, chemistry and peace.

Israel deserves to be criticized when it does not measure up to its humanitarian and democratic principles. However, the frequency with which The Register-Guard gives voice to those who call for the destruction of Israel, a member state of the community of nations, is tiresome, unhelpful and does not foster meaningful public debate.

This essay was prepared by Margot Helphand and Craig Weinerman on behalf of the Jewish Community Relations Council and the Jewish Federation of Lane County. It appeared in print in the Eugene Register Guard: Thursday, Mar 4, 2010