7 News Belize

Israel Defends Its Position
posted (June 28, 2018)
The dramatic news this week came from Belmopan, where the "Artists for Peace and Common Sense" gathered an eclectic group to protest against Israeli training for the Belize police department.

They say that the Israeli's are exporters of brutality and oppression - while the Minister of State for National Security Elodio Aragon said the training has nothing to do with that.

But, what do the Israeli's themselves say? Today we tracked down the Deputy Chief of Mission from Mexico - Alon Lavi - who came to open the two week training on Community and the Police. He said it's all a big misunderstanding:

Alon Lavi, Israeli Deputy Chief of Mission - Mexico
"It's a shame that such a course, that is not a tactical course, there's no Israeli policemen here. There's no Israeli force, one of the security forces here. There are two academics retired people that came to teach how police works with communities."

"I think, ah, there's a saying to cut off your nose to spite your face. I've been hearing a lot about violence in this levels or others in Belize. I've been hearing about different challenges. Then, when there's a potential way to assist to improve the reality, to say no just because we have differences in our political view, I think it's a shame."

Reporter
"NEAB, the National Evangelical Association of Belize, I'm sure you saw their statement, I did."

"Very much in support of Israel and its effort here. It says that "this is why Belize police have been trained by the Israeli's for years.""

"Has there been training for years?"

Alon Lavi, Israeli Deputy Chief of Mission - Mexico
"Nope. Actually this, this course is, ah, we haven't done courses like that for many years. I don't want to talk about ancient history because I am not familiar enough. But, in the last few years we didn't have any trainings."

Reporter
"It smacks of hypocrisy because Israel, your critics say, is a repressive state. Israel is an exporter of violence."

Alon Lavi, Israeli Deputy Chief of Mission - Mexico
"The conflict that we have with the Palestinians is un-comparable. It's incomparable to the reality of Belize. Because we're not taking about crimes; we're talking about terror."

Reporter
"In 1975 when the US stopped selling arms to Guatemala, because it was a repressive, genocidal, dictatorial regime, the Israeli's continued to do so, they continued to sell them arms, munitions, build a munition factory, and train them in intelligence, which was used to spy on Belize - and undermine our internal security. Old wounds are very hard to heal. And that is in fact what fueled their unjust and unfounded claim against Belize, and the effects of that persist to this day."

Alon Lavi, Israeli Deputy Chief of Mission - Mexico
"First of all, I'm not familiar with the facts, and I'm not going to say this is right or wrong, this has happened or not."

"I cannot talk about '75, I can talk about today, and, yes, we have great political relations with your neighbors. However we have great political relations with you and this is why we're here. And we keep hearing about the past, whether it was or not, whether it was accurate or not, how you describe it, but we would like to move forward."

Lavi made it clear that he would only speak for a few minutes - because he had to get back to Mexico City - and because he felt that when Jules Vasquez interviewed his boss, Ambassador Johnathan Peled last year - he distorted the interview and quote "had an agenda." Baseless and manifestly untrue, and you can see that interview for yourself at 7newsbelize.com.

We'll have a little more from today's interview in our next newscast.

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