Thread by @BtSIsrael

In the week since fmr PM Netanyahu released this video, he's been endlessly lambasted because he & his party have previously condemned us & other anti-occupation orgs' public criticism of the Israeli govt in English. Now he's doing the same: "Netanyahu's joining BtS!", they say.

https://twitter.com/netanyahu/status/1471396451695710208

For many Israelis, the idea of us "hanging out the dirty laundry for everyone to see"—criticizing our govt on the intl stage—is unacceptable. We'll get to that in a minute.
But first: let's talk about the absurdity of Netanyahu's video, and why he's nothing like us.

Netanyahu was ousted from office in June, and to say he's still bitter about it would be an understatement. But there's something particularly ironic about this video: warning us that the current govt will "pass a law that allows a policeman to enter your house w/o a warrant!"

We may have taken this warning a little more seriously if this wasn't *exactly* what Netanyahu's govt, and previous govts, sent thousands of soldiers incl. us to do in Palestinian homes, night after night. Last year we released an extensive report about it:life-exposed.com/eng/

"When you conduct a search in a Palestinian's home—it's not that you need a court order… In Hebron, if you're a Palestinian, I'll enter your house whenever I feel like it… I'll turn your house upside down if I want to."—Ltn, 932nd Battalion, Hebron, 2014 breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/da…

"There’s also this thing where you can in any situation – in the middle of an arrest, in the middle of a call-up, in the middle of a patrol – go into any house & tell him (the resident), I have to climb on your roof."—1st Sgt, 50th Battalion, Hebron, 2020 breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/da…

Netanyahu goes crying to the world about how this represents the "burial" of democracy, while being himself, for 15 of the past 54 years, the man who presided over a military dictatorship that governs the lives (& at times, the deaths) of millions of Palestinians. Utter hypocrisy

When Netanyahu talks about democracy, he's talking about democracy for Israelis. Like almost every mainstream politician here for decades now, he completely ignores the fact that we're the ones denying the Palestinians the same democratic freedoms we ourselves take for granted.

And back to the question of speaking abroad: yes, we speak abroad. We'll speak in Hebrew, in English, and in any other language we want, about the occupation. Because the occupation is not only the subject of an internal Israeli debate.

The right don't really have a problem speaking abroad. Just losing an election is apparently enough for them to go complaining about it to the world. Not to mention the consistent lobbying efforts abroad by the pro-occupation camp for years now.

For the Israeli right, the real question is *who* gets to speak abroad. If you're there to push for further occupation and annexation—no problem at all. But if you dare criticize the occupation—how dare you?! theintercept.com/2019/03/03/bre…

And Palestinians don't even get to make their voice heard in Israel, let alone abroad.
If there's something Netanyahu doesn't like in Israel, he can vote against it, he can protest against it, he can run for election to change it. Palestinians have none of those rights.

We'll continue talking about the occupation and what our government sent us to do, on every platform and in whichever language is necessary, until everyone on this planet who is either active or complicit in perpetuating the occupation—whether in Israel or abroad—knows the truth.