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Eurovision Boycott Activists Oppose Israel's Right to Self-Determination
(The Journal-Ireland) Ophir Kariv - In 1948 when the modern Israeli state was born, Israel was a very small, poor country largely consisting of desert. Its tiny population, many of them Holocaust survivors, had to build a new life and a new country in the ancient land of their forefathers. They had to do this against repeated aggression from their Arab neighbors who tried to wipe Israel off the map. Regrettably, there is a small group of extremist activists who have tried very hard over the past year to prevent the Eurovision happening this year in Israel or at least to stop Ireland's state broadcaster RTE from airing the event. These people like to call themselves "pro-Palestinian." Actually, they are not. Their hatred, their calls for boycotts, and their aggressive intimidation of people who support Israel do not do anything to improve the life of a single Palestinian but show that their only agenda is an anti-Israel one. They pretend that the Jewish people have no right to live in the places where they were born and where their history, religion and culture are deeply rooted since ancient times. They ignore the continuous attempts to reach a peace agreement that have been rebuffed and have been met with more and more Palestinian terrorism. The writer is the Ambassador of Israel in Ireland.