Rights and Accountability
4 August 2017
The European Union embassy in Tel Aviv has removed from its Facebook page an official EU promotional video featuring Avishai Ivri, an Israeli “comedian” who incites genocidal levels of violence against Palestinians.
This came a day after The Electronic Intifada published an exposé of Ivri’s long record of extreme anti-Palestinian racism.
In posts on Twitter, Ivri has called on Israel to kill “1,000 Arabs” for every Israeli who dies in conflict-related violence and has urged that Israel “wipe out Gaza.”
He denies the existence of Palestinians as a people and has urged Israel to expel them so it can become the “sovereign” in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
“We decided to stop promoting a video on EU-Israel cooperation,” the EU embassy stated on Twitter on Friday. “We want no doubts that anything we do promotes the values the EU stands for.”
The video “was meant to showcase cooperation between EU and Israel, we do not want anything to distract from this important message,” the embassy added.
An email to The Electronic Intifada from a spokesperson at the EU embassy in Tel Aviv contained a similar message. The spokesperson added: “The personal and political views held by Mr. Ivri, some of which [are] clearly at odds with the positions and the values of the European Union, are of course his own and do not engage the EU in any way.”
Despite removing the video, the EU has failed to condemn Ivri’s genocidal incitement against Palestinians and has remained silent about how and why it hired him in the first place.
It has offered no apology and accepted no responsibility for partnering with him.
The EU’s gentle distancing of itself from Ivri stands in marked contrast to its high-profile cooperation with Israel that is supposedly aimed at cracking down on “online incitement” and criticism of Israel, which it conflates with anti-Semitism.
Since The Electronic Intifada published the exposé of Ivri, many social media users in Europe have expressed outrage that the EU hired a genocidal racist to star in an official video.
The removal of the video is a clear sign EU bureaucrats can hear their indignation. Here are some of them:
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Source Article from https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/eu-removes-video-featuring-israeli-genocide-advocate
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Comments
Congratulations
Permalink Patrick Barbieri replied on Fri, 08/04/2017 – 19:12
Another victory. I hope the European Union demands a refund from Ivry, because he must have collected a fee to produce the video.
What will it take?
Permalink Kay Osatenko replied on Fri, 08/04/2017 – 19:35
All over the world people are outraged by the support for Israel of their governments. Independent media runs story after story about the outrages of Israeli government policy. The opposition within and without Israel is battered with ‘anti-BDS’ legislation and condemnation passed. ‘Palestine’ has been wiped off the map, the Israeli mass hysteria rallying cry. Turn this incident around and consider what would happen if a Palestinian uploaded a video onto the EU FaceBook page advocating the annihilation of Israel. Here there has been no recognition of the evil inherent in what this Israeli advocates, just a lukewarm withdrawal and wishy-washy statement about ‘EU values’. I recall the storm when “The Lobby” hit the UK. This story should be on the front pages/news desks of the MSM.
Nail on the head
Permalink Paranam Kid replied on Sat, 08/05/2017 – 09:52
You hit the nail on the head. The UK “storm” over “The Lobby” report: don’t know if you are being sarcastic, but in any case that event ended like a damp squib, with the extremely pro-Israel government in the UK accepting the hasbara BS that it was a low level official who was acting at his own behest. The buffoon par excéllence, B. Johnson, then shook hands with the nazi-onist par excéllence, “ambassador” M. Regev, and the affair was closed & forgotten about. meanwhile continuing to support the nazi-onist “country” in its crimes against humanity & war crimes.
In the current case, the video has been removed & the EU will leave it at that, meanwhile continuing to support the nazi-onist “country” in its crimes against humanity & war crimes.
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