Celebrities In The US Rush To Support The Israeli Army At A Fundraiser
A celebrity-packed fundraiser in Americahas generated $38 millionfor Friends of the Israeli Defence Forces (FIDF), a non-profit whose mission statement, according toits website, is “to offer educational, cultural, recreational, and social services programs and facilities that provide hope, purpose, and life-changing support for the soldiers who protect Israel and Jews worldwide.”
The annual fundraising dinner was organized in aid of the New York-based charity by billionaire Haim Saban, a donor to Hillary Clinton. The gala took place on Friday in Beverley Hills, and was attended by a number of famous individuals, including Gerard Butler, Julie Bowen, Larry King and Joanna Krupa. Robert de Niro and Arnold Schwarzenegger were also present at the event, where they clashed over Donald Trump, with de Niro repeatedly questioning his fellow actor as to if he would be voting for the Republican candidate.
While the organization these celebrities were raising money for might claim to be about “providing [Israeli] soldiers with love, support, and care,” there is little love and care to be found in the IDF’s treatment of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza. During the2014 campaign against Gaza, 1,462 Palestinian civilians were killed by the Israeli army, including 551 children, according to the UN. In September this year it wasreportedthat 103 Palestinians had been killed by the IDF in the West Bank since the start of 2016, including minors. Many of these constitutedextrajudicial executions.
Aside from the unlawful killing of civilians, a report byAmnesty Internationalhas suggested that the IDF engages in the arbitrary arrest and detention of Palestinians in the West Bank, uses excessive force against civilians in the West Bank and Gaza, and carries out forced evictions and demolitions of homes. Meanwhile, the soldiers this well-supported charity suggests are “protect[ing] Israel” do little to protect Palestinians from the actions of extremist Israeli settlers who attack them and their property.
It seems shocking, then, that so many famous faces would turn out to support a charity directly providing assistance to the unlawfulactions of a foreign military. It is not so surprising, however, in the context of the $38 billion to be provided by the US government in military aid to Israel over a ten-year period, which was announced in September.
The provision of this huge figure stands in stark contrast to the fact that in 2015 Obama’s administration cut funding to the West Bank and Gaza from $370 million to $290 million, in what wasapparently a form of collective punishmentfor the killing of at least 10 Israelis in stabbing attacks in September that year.
The response on Twitter to the fundraising event for FIDF was mixed, as is to be expected, with some Israel supporters overjoyed:
Meanwhile, others criticized the celebrities for their involvement:
This Twitter user included #BDS which stands for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. It will certainly seem for some that in this context of such an unequal power balance, between the heavily funded and apparently immune IDF and the Palestinian people who have been effectively abandoned by the international community, that there can be few other options for resistance than to campaign for boycotts of Israeli goods, and divestment from companies complicit with their crimes.
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