I met someone I should not, to talk about something I should, Jewish Agency communications director Yigal Palmor says
February 12, 2019 11:57
When that mail landed in my inbox, it looked pretty innocent: a documentary was in the making, and the broad subject was aliyah.
Would I be willing to be interviewed about it on behalf of the Jewish Agency? That seemed obvious enough, what could possibly go wrong?
Yet, someone had sent me a mild warning: she was controversial, my correspondent said.
“She” was Katie Hopkins. But please bear with me before you jump out of your chair: the truth of the matter is she is a complete unknown to Israelis.
Yes, I know, we should be more aware of those people in Europe who slander minorities and immigrants in the name of some fantasised “white nationhood”.
We at the Jewish Agency unreservedly condemn this type of discourse and do not believe it should be treated with leniency, as our chairman Isaac Herzog has made clear in various instances.
But not everyone reaches the crossborder notoriety of Marine Le Pen. So I researched her quickly and found she was “controversial”. I failed to see beyond that.
The sheer fact of being controversial did not deter me, nor should it have.
In my days as the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I’ve done more than my fair share of interviews with “controversial” TV channels, such as Al Jazeera, TRT (Turkish state TV) or Russia Today.
So I thought I could handle another controversial interviewer, and make sure they get the facts right, from an authoritative source. Better that than letting them get some potentially damaging fake news from who-knows-which irresponsible source.
And if they tried to play with the facts with me, I could get the record straight, right?
I’m sorry to have caused such an outrage by simply wanting to take controversy head on and give it a fair fight. Talk about a bad call: those earlier statements of hers — no need to reprint them here — clearly should have made her unwelcome in our offices.
That said, what does the Jewish Agency do, aliyah and otherwise? We are the central platform for interaction and connection between the Jewish people worldwide and Israel. We send emissaries to Jewish summer camps from the prairies of the US to the plains of Ukraine; to university campuses from Paris to Princeton; and to communities from Melbourne to Manchester to Montevideo.
We welcome thousands of young people to experience Israel, ranging from a month to a year, to enhance a sense of common identity and destiny for the Jewish people. And we combine this by manifesting a solidarity between the diaspora and Israel through involvement in a myriad of social programmes.
As for aliyah: we facilitate immigration to Israel of 30,000 people from over 100 countries every year. We help them make a new life for themselves and their families and become part and parcel of Israeli society.
We don’t promise a rose garden. But making aliyah is, at the end of the day, a profound personal choice, and we help each individual, each family, to make it happen in the promised land.
Let no one weaponise this personal choice for a political argument.
Yigal Palmor is the Director of Communications and Public Affairs at the Jewish Agency, and the former Spokesperson for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
