Why did I appear abroad? Why wash the dirty laundry there?
First of all, because there is a lot more interest and desire to listen abroad than here. The public debate in which I participated last week in Toronto with Mehdi Hasan, Douglas Murray and Natasha Hausdorf dealt with the question of whether anti-Zionism is antisemitism. All 3,000 tickets (which weren't cheap) were sold well in advance, and the city's concert hall was completely full – and stormy. I doubt that 30 tickets to a similar debate in the Bronfman Auditorium in Tel Aviv could have been sold.
But the interest in debating questions of principle, which exists abroad and is nonexistent in Israel, is not the only reason to appear there.
Abroad there is the arena that to a considerable extent will determine Israel's future. We must not abandon it to the right. No one complains when the right's propagandists mess with things in the world by means of the Zionist establishment, the machers, the Jewish organizations and the Israeli embassies – a large lobby with lots of money. They sow alarm with false claims to the effect that any criticism of Israel, the occupation or Israeli apartheid is antisemitism, and thus they silence half the world with the fear of being suspected of antisemitism.
This manipulative practice yields short-term results. In the long term, it will turn around and bite Israel and the Jews, on account of whom freedom of speech has been suppressed. An investigative report by The Guardian once again revealed the methods used by the Diaspora Ministry and promoted by the Strategic Affairs Ministry to deal with what is happening in the United States and on the campuses there. Methods like those suffice to make Israel smell bad. Everything is permissible to the settler right and the Zionist and Jewish establishment; making a different voice from Israel heard is treason.
The most fateful damage to Israel's standing is caused by its policies. The interview or speech by a hater of Israel that will cause as much damage to Israel as the pictures of the horrors in Gaza has yet to be given. One child convulsing and dying on the bloodstained floor of Rantisi Hospital is more destructive than a thousand op-eds. No campaign by the government propaganda efforts – reported by The Guardian to be known as "Concert" or "Kela Shlomo" – can eradicate the (justified) loathing that Israel is provoking by its behavior in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
No article has caused as much damage as the picture of the wounded Palestinian tied to the roof of the burning-hot hood of an Israeli army Jeep in Jenin. And even those who are only concerned about Israel's image abroad, and not even about its moral essence and incarnation, must want a change in the policy.
The explanation to the effect that there is no longer any distinction between what is said here and what is said there, because technology transmits everything, is piffling. The important thing is the anti-democratic sentiment of those who are trying to silence an opinion, articulated in one place or another, and the obligation to muster support "for the good" of the state.
Regardless of the utility or damage caused for Israel, all individuals have the right to express their opinions everywhere and at all times. Enough with the anarchist, primitive and anti-democratic "don't tell the gentiles" crap. And who indeed will determine what is good for Israel? The right? The government? The settlers? And which Israel should be served? When Israeli public figures published a call in The New York Times on Wednesday not to invite Netanyahu to Congress, that is not only their right, it is their duty. Anyone who, like them, believes that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is irreversibly damaging the state must say so, everywhere.
Haaretz, which is read abroad in its English Edition no less than in Israel, is not only a source of information but also a source of hope that not all of Israel is the settlers, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Netanyahu. This is the best public advocacy Israel can hope for right now.