Israeli Think Tank Drops “Sabotage” Language, But It Still Doesn’t Smell Like a Rose

Reut Institute Logo

 “What’s in a name?”  Shakespeare’s Juliet famously asks.  “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet …” 

A related observation can be made about the word-changing antics of Israel’s leading think tank, the Reut Institute, in their policy report, “The Deligitimization Challenge:  Creating a Political Firewall”.   “Sabotage” (of global human rights groups) by any other name still smells bad.  

Recently, Ali Abunimah spotted the covert revision on the Reut website: 

Israel’s leading think tank the Reut Institute recently recommended that Israel’s government and intelligence agencies “sabotage” and “attack” peace and justice groups around the world that have been critical of Israel, as EI [Electronic Intifada] reported in February

Reut was obviously embarassed by the wide exposure its underhand, and possibly illegal recommendations generated, so it has cleaned up its website. The Reut Institute document EI linked to no longer  contains any references to “sabotage” and “attack” and now speaks ‘only’ of “undermining.”  While the language may have been sanitized a bit, the same belligerent intention is there.

Accompanying Abunimah’s comments is a copy of the original Reut report, which is no longer available on the Reut webite .

Our article on the release of the original  report, with a link to Abunimah’s analysis in the Electronic Intifada, is found on the related post below.