Ayalon visits 5 Towns, urges support for Israel…

Former Israel Ambassador Danny Ayalon told Five Towners over the weekend that they must step up their defense of Israel. “The challenges are political warfare,” he said. “We won the military and economic wars.”

During a whirlwind visit to the Five Towns, he spoke on Friday at Rambam Mesivta, HAFTR, DRS and SKA, and on Shabbat was scholar in residence at the Young Israel of Woodmere. Ayalon also promoted Yeshiva University, where he was a visiting professor, as exemplifying what Israel represents, the fusion of Torah, Jewish identity and a love of Israel, with a world view that includes science and secular studies.

Ayalon spoke with the The Jewish Star on Thursday, bemoaning widening efforts to delegitimize Israel.

“We have to be on message: the land belongs to us and we belong to the land,” he said. “We have to be proactive and not let them (the Palestinian Authority) frame the debate. We lost Europe in the PR war, where Israel is now less popular than Iran.”

He said that Israel failed to realize the strength of negative propaganda, something he said the Palestinian Liberation Organization learned from Hitler propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

He said that the demonization of Israel began 20 years ago in Europe and is now mainstream there. “If we do not nip it in the bud, it may become mainstream in five years because of social media, here in the U.S.,” he said.

At the same time, worried about assimilation of American Jews, he stressed the need for continuity, Jewish identity and education, and lauded YU as the “most important Jewish institution outside of Eretz Yisrael” fostering Jewish pride and Jewish history.

He emphasized the need to “be able to defend ourselves by ourselves, that “Eretz Yisrael rayshit Tzmichat geulataynu” (the Land of Israel is the first blossoming of our redemption), and that Israel has the capability and will but that Israelis “have to know their history and have pride.”

“Every generation is responsible, not just to continue our ancestors’ voyage of 4,000 years, but we are responsible for the next 4,000 years,” he told The Star.

He pointed out the need to revamp education in Israel — to pay teachers more, make classes smaller, return serious Jewish education to the secular public schools there, and add science, math and English to the charedi schools.

“Set up requirements on both sides,” he said. Ayalon went to a secular school in Tel Aviv and learned five hours of Tanach and five hours of Talmud every week, he said.

Ayalon covered a wide range of issues during his talk with The Star.

Iran

Ayalon emphasized the need to increase sanctions to force Iran to dismantle its nuclear apparatus.

“The Iranians see that the West blinked first” and are “emboldened because of a lack of coherent policy,” he said.

He warned that if Iran gets the bomb, along with North Korea, the entire world would be threatened by the end of nonproliferation, and Venezuela and Cuba might be next. “We have the power to stop them,” he said. “Iran is vulnerable.”

Prisoner releases

Ayalon said that he’s always been against the release of terrorist prisoners, calling it “morally wrong and endangering the security of Israel. It sends the wrong message and gives grief to all the families of the victims.”

Judea and Samaria

He stressed that the communities in Judea and Samaria are not obstacles to peace. “They weren’t there in ’49 to ’67 and still there was war, and in Gaza 8,500 people were uprooted and there was no peace,” he said.

He pointed out that North Cyprus is occupied by Turkey and the Russians are in areas of Georgia and “nobody says anything. Hypocrisy. The world only looks at us,” he said. “We are building on Jewish land, our land.”

He stressed that Judea and Samaria are the heartland and Israel has legal claim to that land. “The gushim [groupings of Jewish towns] will always be in Israel,” he predicted.

Refugees

There have been many wars and many displaced persons and refugees who never went back to where they were born and were absorbed into whatever county they went to, he said, and only the original people displaced are considered refugees. Only with the Arabs, the Palestinians, does UNRA recognize “refugee status till eternity,” he said.

Flight 370

Ayalon discussed his concerns about the missing Malaysian jetliner. Focusing on the two Iranian passengers with stolen passports, he pointed out that Iran is the biggest exporter of terrorism worldwide, with attacks in Buenos Aires, Bulgaria and elsewhere, and feared that there may have been sensitive cargo on the plane. “I wouldn’t put it past them,” he said. “It’s very disconcerting.”

Missionaries in Israel

Of former Jerusalem councilmember Mina Fenton’s concern regarding Christian missionaries, Ayalon said that there is a law against proselytizing and that “those [Christians] I know don’t [proselytize] and if they are doing it they can be sued or expelled.”

“They truly support the State of Israel, they believe literally in the Bible and that Western civilization is under attack by extremist Muslims,” he said. “We need all the support we can get and do not discuss theology. We have a narrow deep alliance and they care about the safety and prosperity of the State of Israel.”

Politics

As for his not being on the most recent list of Yisrael Beiteinu, Avigdor Liberman’s political party that Ayalon had joined to run for the Knesset, he said that it is up to the public to decide if he returns to politics. Israel is pluralistic, but Israelis share more in common than what divides them. He questioned why the charedim should be drafted all at once after 65 years, rather than gradually with a consensus. The draft was done because of “short term political interest,” he said.

He would run on a platform of “unity but not uniformity, to agree to disagree without affronting the other side, he said, referring to himself as an ideal candidate to bring the Sephardim and Ashkenazim together since his dad is Sephardic and mother Ashkenazi.

Israeli Arabs

He pointed out the importance of reaching out to the Arab Israelis who pray that they remain citizens of Israel and have them do national service, not military service. They can be a bridge between Israel and the Arabs, he said.

YouTube campaign

He spoke of one of his current projects, a series of short YouTube videos explaining the facts about contentious issues relating to Israel. The “Truth about Israel” shorts [http://bit.ly/1l3tuH2] bring into sharp relief the facts about Judea and Samaria, the UN’s relationship with Israel, refugees, and the peace process.

What’s next

Ayalon will be returning to Israel after serving as Rennert Visiting Professor of Foreign Policy Studies at Yeshiva University for the spring semester, teaching at both Yeshiva College and Stern College.

He is chairman of the advisory board of Gisa Singer Even, a leading Israeli investment banking firm, and founded The Truth About Israel, a nonprofit organization to combat attempts to delegitimize Israel and strengthen its political status and image.

He is President of Hod Ayalon, is on the board of governors of Tel Aviv University, his Alma Matar, and the Tom Lantos foundation.

“I’m also honorary president of Aish HaTorah Western Wall Experience,” he said, “And I do not rule out a return to public office.”

He was an adviser to prime ministers Ehud Barak, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon and was in Israel’s Foreign Service for more than 20 years. He was Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. in 2002, joined Nefesh B’Nefesh in 2006, and was an MK with Yisrael Beiteinu in 2009.

He lives in Hod Hasharon with his wife Anne and two daughters Zohar and Avigail. Zohar just finished her two-year military service as a sharpshooter in the Gaza sector. Avigail is in high school.