In
the aftermath of World War II, with the hideous revelation that
two-thirds of European Jews had been systematically exterminated by the
Nazis, anti-Semitism became unfashionable. But that is no longer the
case. As the memory of the Holocaust fades into history, as we continue
to transfer petro-wealth to our enemies; as Europe morphs into Eurabia;
as Islamists take control over the UN and an increasing number of Middle
East and North African countries, and as our universities become
hotbeds for virulent anti-Israel teachings and rhetoric - logic fades,
facts become confused with fictions, distinctions between democracies
and tyrannies become irrelevant, history becomes unimportant, and
anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism become indistinguishable.
Natan
Sharansky uses what he terms "the 3D test" to distinguish legitimate
criticism of Israel from anti-Semitism, and he identifies the three
categories as de-legitimization, demonization and the double standard.
Taking these three factors into account, one can discern that the new
anti-Semitism manifests itself in many different forms and in many
different forums - through divestment campaigns, international boycotts
of Israeli products and entertainers (as Norway has done recently),
boycotts of Israeli academics by European universities, holding Israel
to standards no other nations in the world are required to meet - not
nearly, and through "Israel Apartheid Week" on Canadian and American
college campuses where Israel is assigned the role of "Jew" among the
nations of the world to be singled-out, cursed, harassed and defamed.
As Richard Cohen wrote in the Washington Post:
"Google ‘Israel and Apartheid', you will see that the two are linked in
cyberspace despite the fact that Israeli Arabs, about one-fifth of
Israel's population, have the same civil and political rights as do
Israeli Jews, and even sit in the Knesset." Israel's Ambassador to
Greece is an Israeli Arab. In May 2004, Salim Jubran, an Israeli Arab
was appointed to the Supreme Court of Israel. Arabic is an official
language in Israel and is posted on all road signs. In 1948, there was
only one Arab high school in Israel. Today there are hundreds. The fact
that these anti-Israeli boycott campaigners on our campuses attack
Israel as an apartheid state not only demonstrates their ignorance of
what apartheid was in South Africa*, but raises the issue of why they do
not propose boycotts of states that truly merit international disgust
and censure.
These protests aren't just against Israel. They are also against the Jewish People. Israel's Operation Cast Lead at
the close of 2008 - a legitimate act of self-defense by any and all
international standards - evoked universal resentment and hatred. Around
the world, synagogues and Jewish graves were desecrated and
anti-Semitic chants were shouted at protests. In April 2009, a swastika
was found painted on a Jewish fraternity house at the University of
Florida and on American campuses, and comparisons continue to be made
between Israelis and Nazis, and between Palestinian refugee camps and
Auschwitz.
In
all this, it is quite clear that distinctions between anti-Zionism and
anti-Semitism are increasingly blurred. Taken in its totality, Israel
not only has no right to defend itself in response to terrorist attacks,
but it has no right to exist - which suggests that missile attacks on
Israel's civilian population are not only justified, but desirable.
The
lies perpetrated by otherwise respectable international religious,
educational and political bodies against the only democracy in the
Middle East are most notable in the double standards that are applied to
Israel as opposed to states that have slaughtered their own peoples for
decades with absolute immunity from international censure.
It
is true, of course, that criticizing Israel does not make one an
anti-Semite any more than criticizing the government of France makes one
anti-French. But it's one thing to criticize France, and something else
to declare the French nation illegitimate and to advocate its
destruction. Martin Luther King, Jr. once referred to Israel as "one of
great outposts of democracy in the world," with an "incontestable right
to exist," but that is no longer the case.
Funny how these campus activists never seem to mention the Syrian de jure occupation of Lebanon, or Saudi funding of global jihad,
or the treatment of Saudi women, or the crushing of all democratic
dissent in Egypt and Iran. They have no difficulty bemoaning capital
punishment in the United States, but say nothing when the Palestinians
routinely execute suspected Israeli collaborators including the mothers
of young children, or when Hamas throws Fatah supporters to their deaths
off 15-story buildings.
It
is shameful that pro-Palestinian professors and students on American
and European campuses pretend that the only reason for the problems in
the Middle East is because of Israeli obstinacy as if it is the fault of
the Israelis and not the rejectionist Arab world. Not only has every
Israeli concession and every act of goodwill and compassion not changed
the way Israel is portrayed - but each concession, each accommodation,
each withdrawal first from Lebanon, then from Gaza has only fed the
furious hatred that Islam and the international community feels for it.
Borders
have nothing to do with peace in the Middle East. It is the existence
of Israel as a Jewish state that offends the Arabs and their supporters.
It is the history of Jews in that land stretching back over 4,000 years
that offends them which accounts for their threats against Israel when
it declares its intention to make the Cave of the Patriarchs and
Rachel's Tomb national historic sites with the aim of restoring them and
opening them to the world. The fact that all religions will have
freedom of access to such sites is irrelevant to the Palestinians who
have spent millions of U.S. and European dollars teaching their children
that Jews came to the Land as usurpers less than a century ago, and
that Abraham was a Muslim albeit the fact that he lived almost three
thousand years before Islam was born!
Israel
could grant its enemies ever possible concession (and has), but that
would not bring peace. Nothing short of Israel's destruction will
suffice.
Truth
is - anti-Zionism becomes anti-Semitism when it reaches a certain
pitch, and singling out Israel for condemnation and international
sanction - out of all proportion to any other parties in the Middle East
- is anti-Semitic, and not saying so is intellectually dishonest.
In
May 2010, a Turkish Islamist charity with close ties to Turkey's ruling
party sponsored a flotilla which it claimed was designed to "relieve
suffering" in Gaza, but whose real intention was to support and supply
Hamas and demonize Israel. Yet, these same "human rights" organizations
are silent in the face of atrocities being committed in Syria today, and
have offered nothing to alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people.
So,
why is all this passion, all this anger and rage, directed at this one
country? Why not at Hezbollah which orchestrated the coup in Lebanon? Or
at Saddam Hussein when he ruled as the "butcher of Baghdad"? Or at
those who continue to persecute Christians in Egypt and Iran?
Let's
call it what it is for those who arrogantly hold Israel to a standard
of conduct to which no other nation in this world is held. Half a
million men, women and children are slaughtered in Rwanda, and there is
silence. The Chinese annihilate Tibetan culture, and there is silence.
Tens of thousands of civilians are slaughtered in Chechnya, and there is
silence. Egypt imprisons the leading democracy advocate in the Arab
world after a phony trial, and imprisons U.S.-funded pro-democracy
American workers in Egypt and not one single student group in America
calls for divestiture from Egypt or rallies for the release of the
imprisoned workers. Even Congress is incensed. But where are the student
rallies?
Syria
occupies Lebanon for a quarter century, chokes the life out of its
democracy, assassinates its political leaders, effects a coup d'etat through
its Hezbollah proxy, sends Islamic terrorists over its borders to kill
Americans and Iraqis, and crushes whatever hope that country may have
for a secure future, and not one single student organization on our
campuses calls for divestiture from Syria.
Iran uses its paramilitary Basij thugs
to beat up student demonstrators in the streets of Tehran and squeezes
the life out of that county's embryonic democratic movement, and there
is silence.
Saudi
Arabia denies its women the most basic human rights, and bans any other
religion from being practiced publicly on its soil, yet no student
group in America calls for divestiture from Saudi Arabia.
These
human rights violations and tragedies dwarf anything done by the
Israelis, yet they fail to elicit the same degree of moral outrage that
Israel evokes among its campus critics.
Two
years ago, Israel's Ambassador to the UN Michael Oren was shouted down
by Hamas supporters and radical Leftists, and forced to leave the podium
at the University of California Irvine, but when the university pressed
charges against the students, they argued that their right to free
speech was being infringed. Apparently, Ambassador Oren is not entitled
to that right as well.
In
Jenin, in April 2002, Israel was painted as the world's pariah:
"Nazis," "butchers," "conducting war crimes," "surrounding the infant
Jesus with Israeli tanks," claims of 3,000 Palestinians being massacred,
claims that Israelis poisoned the Palestinian water supply, and claims
that Israel dumped Palestinian corpses into secret mass graves.
A
bishop in Copenhagen compared former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon to King Herod. Newspapers across Europe, especially the BBC, "substantiated"
these lies with reports of grisly deeds by Israeli soldiers.
Palestinians went on international media networks with the active
complicity of those networks in accusing Israel of murdering
Palestinians for their body parts - lies later reinforced by respectable
European newspapers, and even by a member of the British House of Lords
in February 2010.
The problem with all this is that no massacre occurred in Jenin! Less than a hundred armed terrorists were killed in Operation Defensive Shield,
and almost as many Israeli soldiers were killed because they were
ordered to go from house-to-house to avoid civilian casualties wherever
possible. But that was of little consequence to those in the media and
on our college campuses who condemned Israel for "unspeakable war
crimes."
In
Lebanon in 2006, Israel was condemned for violating Lebanese
sovereignty with scant mention made of the hundreds of Hezbollah
missiles falling onto Israel's civilian population centers, and its use
of Lebanese civilians as human shields.
The same hypocrisy held true in the conclusions reached by the Goldstone Report on Operation Cast Lead which
accepted the lies of Hamas as fact, disregarded Israeli commission
findings, denied Israel's right to defend itself, and condemned Israel
for having conducted war crimes in Gaza. The Report made little mention
of the 8,000 missiles fired at southern Israel, and minimized reports
that Hamas had used civilians as human shields, and mosques, schools and
houses in residential areas to conceal its weapons - not to mention the
millions of leaflets dropped and cell phone calls made in Arabic by the
Israeli military to provide warnings to Palestinians in targeted areas.
When the UN hosted the Third World Conference Against Racism in
Durban, the nations of the world had an opportunity to address the
hatred that afflicts hundreds of millions of people, but they only found
time to dwell on Israel accusing it of genocide, ethnic cleansing,
racism, and apartheid while the genocides in Bosnia and the Sudan were
barely mentioned. In the name of "human rights" and "justice," these
advocates and self-proclaimed "protectors of the Free World" decry any
and every Israeli action and seek to punish it by conducting academic
and cultural boycotts of Israel while Palestinian clerics call for the
murder of Jews without eliciting any protest whatsoever.
The Saudi and Egyptian media report on Jewish conspiracies causing 9/11, and run TV programs on Ramadan alleging blood libels, but there is no outcry against them for an international boycott.
The
bitter reality is that for Israel, international legal frameworks
provide no protection and no hope for justice. Instead, these frameworks
are used to exploit the rhetoric of human rights and morality to attack
Israel.
Today,
even as Israel absorbs missiles fired indiscriminately at its civilian
population by terrorists, one continues to hear the howls and hatred
voiced about "The Wall" particularly those "innocent" suicide bombers
who are being kept from their religious duty of self-detonating amid
crowds of Jews.
In
that regard, I was asked in a lecture to explain why Israel was
"ghettoizing" the Palestinians by constructing a security fence in areas
that served as transit points for terrorists entering the country. The
questioner noted that, as a Jew, I should be more sensitive to the
concept of a ghetto, and its dehumanizing effects on human beings. I
responded that the security fence was neither built for reasons of
discrimination nor motivated by racism, but as a deterrent to protect
the lives of Israelis from Palestinian suicide bombers and, in fact, it
continues to accomplish its purpose.
But
the suggestion that Israel may have had racist motivations in
constructing the fence disturbed me because it is a recurring theme
among major international bodies and on college campuses, so I asked the
questioner why she had decided to sort Israel out for "special
treatment?" After all, the security fence that Israel has constructed to
keep Palestinian suicide bombers out of its country is not unlike the
security fence constructed by the Saudis to keep the Yemeni jihadists out
of their country; or the one that India has constructed along its
borders with Pakistan, Kashmir and Bangladesh for the same reason; or
the one that the Thais have constructed to keep the Malaysian jihadists
out of their country, or the one that the U.S. is constructing to keep
Mexican illegals out of our country, although I couldn't recall the last
time a Mexican self-detonated in Albuquerque, or fired missiles into
Dallas or Houston.
Anti-Semitism
has evolved from an irrational hatred or jealousy of Jews to an
irrational hatred or jealousy of the Jewish State - Israel.
Why is it that we don't see demonstrations against Islamic dictatorships in London, Paris or Madrid?
Why aren't there demonstrations against the enslavement of millions of women who live without any legal protection?
Why aren't there demonstrations against the use of children as human bombs by jihadists?
Why has there been no leadership in support of the victims of the Islamic dictatorship in Sudan?
Why is there never any outrage against the acts of terrorism committed against Israel?
Why is there no outcry by the Europeans against jihadism?
Why don't they defend Israel's right to exist?
Where
are the flotillas heading to Syrian shores? Perhaps it's safer to be
confronted by Western TV cameras in Gaza than AK47s in Syria.
And
finally, why are the Europeans so obsessed with the two most stable
democracies on earth (the United States and Israel), rather than with
the world's worst dictatorships
So
many stupid and irresponsible comments have been written about Israel,
that there aren't any accusations left to level against her.
At
the same time, the press never discusses Syrian and Iranian
interference in propagating violence against Israel; the indoctrination
of children or the corruption of the Palestinian leadership, and the
millions of dollars in international foreign aid that have been
transferred into their private bank accounts, as was exposed by a former
Palestinian leader in February 2010. And when reporting about victims,
why is every Palestinian casualty reported as a tragedy while every
Israeli victim is reported with disdain, if at all?
This
obsession with Israel represents a callous disregard for fundamental
justice, and anti-Semitism cloaked as righteous indignation. For
example, with the start of Ramadan (the Islamic month of
fasting) in early September, Israeli forces manning West Bank
check-points were instructed to avoid eating or smoking in front of
Palestinians as a sign of respect, even as the Palestinians continue to
use the Tomb of Joseph as a garbage dump and have urinated next to the
Torah scrolls in the Cave of the Patriarchs.
Further,
on any given day, Israeli prisons are hosting Red Cross
representatives, journalists, lawyers, prisoners' advocates, as well as
family members of convicted Palestinian prisoners, while Gilad Shalit,
an Israeli soldier kidnapped by Hamas on Israeli soil, was held in
isolation for years until his release and denied any and all visitation
rights from lawyers, family and even the International Red Cross in
violation of his human rights and international law. So, where was the
international outcry for Shalit?
And
there's more. Israel is constantly confronted with the demand that it
must return Gaza and the West Bank to the Palestinians and the Golan
Heights to Syria - areas seized during the 1967 Six-Day War waged
against it by the Arab world. Why then do we never hear that same
argument being raised against other nations?
After
World War II, Poland annexed 10% of historic Germany (East Prussia);
Morocco controls the Western Sahara; Armenia has controlled 15% of
neighboring Azerbaijan since 1994; Turkey has controlled half of Cyprus
since its 1974 invasion; Russia has controlled the Kurile Islands off
northern Japan since the end of World War II, and China has occupied
Tibet since 1950. So, where is the international outcry demanding that
these countries return lands they seized in war? Why is it that only
Israel's control over the West Bank merits international censure? One
can only imagine the outrage in Britain were Israeli politicians and
civilians to start routinely telling the British "what you need to do"
about the Falkland Islands.
And
what of the demand that the Palestinians be allowed a "right of return"
to Israel proper or at least fair compensation for having been
displaced as a result of Israel's War of Independence in 1948? Some
850,000 Jews left behind $300 billion in assets when they were forced to
flee for their lives from Arab and Persian countries after the birth of
the state of Israel. So why are similar demands not being made of the
Syrians, the Iranians, the Libyans, the Iraqis, the Yemenis, and the
Egyptians who displaced (or more specifically expelled) their Jews? I
don't recall any demands being made of any nation for compensation or
allowing a right of return to any refugees displaced after any wars in
modern times - except of course for those being made of Israel.
Czechoslovakia
expelled its Sudetenland Germans from their homes after World War II;
the Poles expelled millions of Germans from East Prussia and absorbed
that territory into Poland in 1945; thousands of Turkish Cypriots were
displaced by Greek military forces in the 1960s and early 70s while
Turkish forces displaced thousands of Greek Cypriots from Northern
Cyprus after their 1974-1976 war; 450,000 ethnic Chinese were expelled
from Vietnam between 1978-1979; the Bangladeshis expelled over three
million Hindus in 1974; 250,000 Georgians were displaced from Abkhazia
between 1993 and 1998, not to mention more than 500,000 ethnic Russians
in Chechnya who were displaced during the First Chechen War in
1994-1996, and more than 800,000 Kosovar Albanians were expelled from
Kosovo during the Kosovo War in 1998-1999. Somehow, I must have missed
offers of a right of return or any compensation package being offered to
these millions upon millions of persons displaced by wars - except in
the case of Israel.
Then
there's the issue relating to Israel's treatment of the Palestinians in
Gaza. Lauren Booth, sister-in-law of former British premier Tony Blair,
entered Gaza aboard a protest boat and told Ynet News in
Israel that Gaza was "the largest concentration camp in the world today"
and a "humanitarian crisis on the scale of Darfur." She was later
photographed at a seemingly well-stocked grocery store in the so-called
"concentration camp."
So,
let's consider how these Israeli "monsters" have behaved. Hamas has
declared its intention to destroy Israel and murder every Jew residing
there, and has fired over 8,000 missiles at southern Israel. In return,
Israel is providing 70% of Gaza's electrical power and, each week sends
tons of food, fuel and humanitarian aid to an enemy whose entire
rationale for existence is the extermination or subjugation of every Jew
in Israel.
During
World War II, the Allies firebombed Dresden, obliterated German cities,
and dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Talk about "proportional response!" Israel feeds its enemies!
And
finally, Israel has been condemned for retaliating against Hamas and
Hezbollah for their missile attacks on Israel's southern and northern
civilian populations because, it is said, Israel is (and this is a
direct quote from Human Rights Watch) "endangering non-combatants, using
disproportionate force, and committing crimes against humanity." If
Israel fired missiles into Gaza City, Sidon or Tyre, the world would be
enraged, the UN Security Council would be called into Special Session,
The U.S. and EU would be threatening Jerusalem, and the media would be
having a field-day.
So
why is it that when the Palestinians and the Lebanese fire missiles at
Israeli civilians as their primary target, it is barely mentioned in the
media, but when Israel retaliates against those missile sites in
targeted bombings, it's considered "disproportionate force" - all which
leads to the real issue lurking behind the scenes here - our enemies'
tactical use of human shields. Why is criticism never leveled at Hamas
or Hezbollah who regularly use children as human shields to protect
their leaders, and schools, private homes and mosques to protect their
weapons?
In
all the condemnation being heaped on Israel by the media and the
Goldstone Report for Israel's retaliatory strikes in Gaza, and before
that in Lebanon during the Second Lebanon War (and indeed any future
conflict should a regional war erupt over Iran's pursuit of nuclear
weapons), no one ever asks how any democracy can expect to win a war
without "endangering civilians" especially when the enemy uses human
shields as a tactical weapon to insulate itself from military strikes?
Are we not handing our enemies an enormous tactical advantage? How can
any free nation ever hope to win a future war against enemies who use
human shields if it is condemned for "endangering civilians"?
It is this absence of balance, this flagrant unforgivable deceit, not the criticisms of Israel that are most troubling.
For
those who argue that their right to "fair criticism" is being
infringed, let them understand what "fair criticism" is not. It is not
"fair criticism" to portray Israel's presence on the West Bank as an
illegal occupation (which it is not, according to UN Security Council
Resolutions 242 and 338), yet never utter a word of objection about
Chinese, Serbian, Syrian, Turkish or Russian ethnic cleansing.
It
is not "fair criticism" to place the blame for Middle East violence at
Israel's doorstep while ignoring 14 centuries of Sunni-Shiite hatred,
the damage done to Arab society through decades of misrule by dictators
and despots, the Koranic-inspired hatred of a Jewish state existing in
the midst of the Islamic umma, and the immense risks that Israel took in
withdrawing from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005 not to mention the
sacrifices that it continues to make in its quest for peace with the
Palestinians.
It
is not "fair criticism" to accuse Israel of apartheid when it is the
Arab world that preaches "Death to the Jews," spreads anti-Semitic
hatred from its mosques, teaches "martyrdom" in its schools and summer
camps, demands that any Palestinian state established on the West Bank
be Judenrein (Jew-free), and dances in the streets when
jihadists succeed in murdering Israelis in their homes (as in the case
of the Fogel family), pizza parlors, marketplaces, during their Passover
Seders, and most notably in celebration of the 9/11 attacks.
Demanding
that good German Aryans boycott Jewish shops in Nazi Germany in 1935 is
no different in its essence from demanding that good Western
universities boycott the Jewish state today. Injustice in any language
is still injustice. It's all part of the same poison that feeds on the
fabric of human decency. If a 5-year-old child can understand that
slaughtering innocent people is wrong, then why can't these campus
student organizations, religious establishments like the United
Methodist Church, the UN, the international media, the Europeans, and
the academics on American and British college campuses see it and voice
their dissent?
If
we cannot tell the difference between a democratic Israel and an
apartheid South Africa, or a jihadist from a peacemaker, then we are all
parties to the greatest moral failure of our time - the inability to
distinguish between those who defend basic moral values and respect the
sanctity of a single human life, and those who are the enemies of such
values by justifying the murder of the innocent in the name of some
religious or ideological cause.
We
have every right to expect more from those who teach our children on
the campuses of America or who preach to the faithful from their pews.
Their positions of authority do not entitle them to foster anti-Semitism
in the name of "justice" and "moral decency." Until there is universal
condemnation of the discriminatory double-standards applied to Israel,
claims by self-righteous international organizations such as Human
Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the UN General Assembly, UNRWA, the
UN Human Rights Commission, the European Union and the International
Court of Justice are more than meaningless. They are offensive and
deceitful.
Israel's
willingness to make peace has made it into a target by an international
community that blames Israel for Muslim violence around the world. As
their thinking goes, if Israel would just do whatever it takes to make
peace, then Muslim violence would stop not just in Israel, but in
Burgas, Paris, London, Malmo, Brussels, Mumbai, Bangkok, Manchester,
Basra, Marseilles, Lyons and Kabul. Anyone with any understanding of
world events knows that this is pure, unadulterated garbage. All of this
can be summarized as follows - the most dangerous threat posed to the
Western world is its inability or unwillingness to stand together
against those who seek to destroy our way of life.
If
we do not, as a collective, take a firm stand against these
defamations; if we do not stand behind Israeli democracy in its just and
moral struggle against expanding jihadism; if we do not
prevent this widening witch-hunt, the international arrest warrants for
Israeli diplomats, the indictments against Israelis for war crimes in
the Hague, the erosion in the UN, and the incitement against Israel; if
we sit quietly and allow this insidious evil to flourish in our midst,
then the legitimacy of the Free World's own struggle against jihadism will most assuredly be undermined.
*Footnote:
Mitchell Bard notes that under apartheid in South Africa, whites and
nonwhites lived in separate regions of the country. Nonwhites were
prohibited from running businesses or professional practices in the
white areas without permits. Nonwhites had separate amenities (i.e.
beaches, buses, schools, benches, drinking fountains, restrooms).
Nonwhites received inferior education, medical care, and other public
services. Though they were the overwhelming majority of the population,
nonwhites could not vote or become citizens.
Mark
Silverberg is a foreign policy analyst for the Ariel Center for Policy
Research (Israel). He is a former member of the Canadian Justice
Department, a past Director of the Canadian Jewish Congress (Western
Office) based in Vancouver, a member of Hadassah's National Academic
Advisory Board and a Contributing Editor for Family Security Matters,
Intellectual Conservative and Israel National News (Arutz Sheva). He
also served as a Consultant to the Secretary General of the Jewish
Agency in Jerusalem during the first Palestinian intifada. His book "The
Quartermasters of Terror: Saudi Arabia and the Global Islamic Jihad"
and his articles have been archived under www. marksilverberg .com.
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