I first met Emanuel Shahaf in a Facebook Group I helped create called Israel unlimited, a group for pro-Israel advocates to argue and discuss current events and articles in order to educate and formulate better responses to those in the opposite camp. As with any group filled with intelligent and opinionated people, the group often has some really great debate threads as well as some not so great debate threads. I immediately noticed Emanuel because of his tendency to lay all the blame for everything at the feet of the Israeli nation.

At first I thought, perhaps, he was just suffering from moral superiority syndrome, but the more I read, the more I realised he genuinely has antipathy towards his own country and people and simply hides it in a faux “pro-Israel” stance that doesn’t hold up to examination.

Now first about our group. There is a huge diversity of opinion in the group. We have people from all over the spectrum, from the hard left all the way over to the hard right, with most of our members somewhere in between. We often have to make decisions as to what is valid criticism of Israel and what is over the line.

In my humble opinion, Israel is not perfect, but for some reason seems to be the only nation state that is expected to be so. Israel’s enemies never compare her to her immediate neighbours, as if that would somehow be unfair. Instead, Israel is often compared to western countries in regards to human rights and freedoms, even though in this respect, Israel is not found wanting, as her record on human rights will stand up to the harshest scrutiny.

I finally had enough of Emanuel’s duplicity and constant bashing of Israel in a group dedicated to pro-Israel advocacy and banned him from the group. At the time, several members thought I was being too harsh and excessive. I believe the phrase “constructive criticism” was used. My response was simple, I said that Emanuel was not a Zionist, was not pro-Israel and didn’t even know his own history; that we do not have to accept invalid criticism.

If anything, reading Emanuel’s most recent blog on the Times of Israel has born out my contentions.

Let’s start with a quick examination of the facts behind the contentions put forth in this blog piece, which is both poorly sourced and researched.

The very first statement in Emanuel’s piece is the closest he comes to being correct when he talks about “a return” as in Diaspora Jews “returning” to their ancestral lands.

When Jews returned to Palestine/Eretz Israel in the 19th century they created the infrastructure for a new beginning.

This concept of return is integral to understanding the entire conflict and serves to explain the reason the rest of Emanuel’s article is so ridiculous. Indeed he also fails to note there were Jews already in Israel at the time of this migration and that their brothers that returned, simply rejoined their families on their ancestral lands.

Next we have what may be one of the most stunningly ignorant statements by a Jew talking about Jewish history that I have ever seen. Let’s start from here:

They started to develop agriculture, not exactly a traditional Jewish undertaking.

This is an incredibly ignorant statement unless, of course, by “traditional” you mean “recent,” because in point of fact, the Jews are an agricultural people right down to their most basic religious laws which clearly relate to a people devoted to agriculture.

More here.