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Israeli intelligence arm Mossad has worked with the BDS-fighting Strategic Affairs Ministry to counter the international Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement, government diaries reveal.
The Strategic Affairs Ministry has been referred to as Israel's 'anti-BDS start up,' and was behind the blacklist of 20 international BDS groups. It also set up the secretive
Kella Shlomo [Solomon's Sling]
corporation -now called Concert- with $36 million in government funding
to carry out covert "mass awareness activities" and online engagement efforts to counter boycotts supporting Palestinians and the "delegitimization" of Israel.
The 2018 diaries of
Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan reveal he met with
Yossi Cohen, the head of Israel's foreign intelligence agency Mossad, to discuss "the struggle against the boycott."
The diaries were obtained as part of a Freedom of Information Act request by the Hatzlaha movement which requested the same information from all ministers. Erdan's office told
Haaretz the meeting was just a "review," but its
sources confirmed the ministry works with the Mossad.
Further to the Mossad revelation,
Erdan held meetings with the head of Israel's National Security Council and its intelligence branch. The diaries show that the minister also met with a number of US Jewish organizations, including the
American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress and the US Reform Movement.His chief of staff, meanwhile, met and had phone calls with a number of foreign leaders and diplomats, as well as with leaders of Israeli settlements.
Many of Erdan's meetings were reportedly about Concert, which is exempt from Israel's freedom of information law.
Comment: Zinc, 6/12/2019: Datebooks reveal Mossad involved in anti-boycott activity
Officials in the Strategic Affairs Ministry are proud of their work with the state's security agencies, but hide the content and full scope of these activities on grounds that if these would be revealed, it would undermine the covert efforts being made against BDS and its leaders.
"Concert-Together for Israel" Its aim was to covertly advance "mass awareness activities" as part of "the struggle against the campaign to delegitimize" Israel globally. This corporation...was to also collect 128 million shekels in private contributions. A steering committee was to be appointed for the initiative to comprise representatives of the government and the other funding partners.
According to a ministry document revealed by The Seventh Eye website, the organization was expected to carry out mass awareness activities and work to exploit the wisdom of crowds, "making new ideas accessible to decision-makers and donors in the Jewish world, and developing new tools to combat the delegitimization of Israel."
Elad Mann, Hatzlaha's legal adviser, said
"Revealing the date books of senior and elected officials is crucial to understanding how the government system works and it has great value taken together with other details of information. This is how to monitor the government and its priorities or the actions it takes with more efficiency and transparency."
Erdan's office said that he "met during this past term with heads of the security echelons to give them a survey of the ministry's activities in the struggle against the delegitimization and boycott of Israel."
The Times of Israel, 5/12/2018 The relegitimizer: A terror victim's son partners with government to combat BDS
Micah Lakin Avni [founded the] multi-million dollar organization designed to oversee the strategic defense of Israel against its boycotters and delegitimizers - doing so in a direct partnership with the Israeli government.
"Concert funds Keshet David [AKA: Innovative Collaboration Strategies - a subsidiary headed by Yossi Kuperwasser - a former head of research in the IDF Military Intelligence divisions, ex-director of Ministry of Strategic Affairs] and we get all the information. That's one leg of what we're doing."
Shareholders include Amos Yadlin (INSS think tank head and ex-head of IDF Military Intelligence), Dore Gold (JCPA think tank head and former Foreign Ministry director-general) and Yaakov Amidror (former national security adviser).
"The core to delegitimization is not external, it's internal. It's getting the country to be partisan, and getting people to argue about things, and getting people to disagree. And then creating chaos. And then stepping in and taking over."
"So Concert does not differentiate between diplomatic, economic and other attacks specifically focused on settlements, and diplomatic, economic and other attacks aimed generally at Israel. Both serve the same goal, and we need to stand firm and united against them."
"We need to change the trajectory. Changing it means engaging those who have no opinion. And as for those who are trying to influence the ones who have no opinion against us, finding tactics and strategies to stop them."
BDS and boycott efforts are "just one piece of it. Campuses is just one piece of it, but we're seeing it in labor unions, we're seeing it in municipal governments, we're seeing it in the UN. You see a growing number of artists having issues. That's not even necessarily about boycotting. It's about expressing opinions. You may have somebody in the States putting out a tweet to 50 million people: I don't like Israel, or, Israel doesn't need to be here. Even if they're not canceling a concert, it's the thinking that way."
"We're putting a big focus in terms of our understanding and planning now on Western Europe. There are a lot more resources in the US. Things are getting more and more challenging in Europe, and there's less being done there."
Violence is the last resort of the complete incompetent. Isaac Asimov..