Israeli Ambassador Designed His Holiday Gifts To Send Message to the 'Fanatics and the Fools

Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer took the opportunity of sending holiday gift packages this week to send a message to the “fanatics and the fools” who support a boycott of Israel.

Dermer posted a photo of the gift boxes the embassy was sending out which he said would be filled with products from Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights, territories Israel captured in the 1967 war but which the U.S., European Union and others don’t recognize as Israeli.

"This holiday season, I decided to send a gift that would also help combat the latest effort by Israel’s enemies to destroy the one and only Jewish state," Dermer wrote in his holiday letter, referring to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.

"The main forces behind this movement are fanatics who actively seek to eliminate Israel. Unfortunately, they are occasionally joined by fools who naively believe that in promoting BDS, they are advancing peace between Israelis and Palestinians," he wrote.

"[T]he fanatics and the fools are simply promoting a new anti-Semitism. Once Jews were singled out and held to a different standard than other peoples. Today, the Jewish state is singled out and held to a different standard than other countries," Dermer wrote.

The latest example of this, he said, was the EU’s recent move to specially label products made by Jews in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Despite the more than 200 other international territorial disputes, the EU decided to label only Jewish-made products, the ambassador wrote.

A Huffington Post headline accused the ambassador of trying to troll the White House.

“Israeli Embassy Trolls White House, Exclusively Gifts Settlement Goods,” the liberal website wrote.

The Obama administration, like previous administrations, believes the status of the West Bank and east Jerusalem must be decided in negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

The Israeli embassy told the Huffington Post that the gift boxes would include wine, olive oil, body cream, and halva.

Dermer called the EU singling out of Israel "all the more shameful" because "Israel upholds the highest democratic values in the darkest region on earth and while facing threats faced by no other nation."

“In response to this effort to cast a beacon of freedom, tolerance and decency as a pariah state, I have decided this holiday season to send you products that were made in Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights. I hope you will enjoy them," the ambassador wrote.