Anti-Israel Bigotry Week
This afternoon, I attended a reception at the House of Commons given by the All-Party Parliamentary Committee against Antisemitism. As its splendid and doughty chairman the Labour MP John Mann observed, it is heartening to find MPs from all political parties taking a lead in fighting the re-emergence of this disgusting prejudice. This week provides evidence of why such a defence is tragically so necessary with Anti-Israel Bigotry Week (aka Israel Apartheid Week), a global campus hate-fest whose message, that Israel is fundamentally illegitimate, is in effect a call for Israel’s destruction and is therefore an incitement to genocide.
In Canada, the fact that the University of Toronto is hosting this odious travesty has caused one of its alumni, Howard Rotberg, to return the degrees he obtained there. He wrote to the President of his old university thus:
We have now reached a stage where Jewish students and others identifiably Jewish fear for their safety at various universities in North America and Europe, and where various Jewish speakers are denied permission to speak because of Islamist intimidation. We have now reached a situation where various student groups, such as the Muslim Students Association are being funded by radical Islamist groups, and where various University departments across the ‘free world’ are becoming beholden to radical Islam due to financial funding from Saudi Arabia and the Emirates.
I am sure you have read how young Muslim students are being ‘radicalized’ at universities in England, and such was the case with the attempted terror attacker on the Delta airlines jet on Christmas Day.
The situation at English universities and even at York University has gotten out of hand. To the extent that your views are infused with cultural and moral relativism, I suggest that the University of Toronto is poised to eventually join those institutions where Jewish students will be viewed as ‘offensive’ per se to Muslim students and other illiberal antagonists who apply double standards and factually incorrect legal and historical judgments against the Jewish State, and interpret Islam as holding Jews and Christians to be second class citizens, which is the real apartheid that your University will not allow to be discussed. Moral equivalency is not appropriate between liberal democrats and terror supporting illiberals.
I feel such shame to have been associated with a University that feels that its facilities must be given to those who would destroy our freedoms, and one which fails to understand that tolerance is a two-way concept. Your moral equivalency is misplaced. Israel is the first front in a war that has already come to our shores. That war has nothing to do with ‘sharing’ land, but is about an attempt to enforce Western submission to Islamic values, including Sharia Law.
Nevertheless, there are signs in Canada at least of the beginning of a fight-back for decency, justice and truth. Canada’s National Post has run a strong editorial condemning this ‘odious and bigoted annual ritual’:
While organizers bill it as an exercise in ‘Palestine solidarity,’ it typically features rabid expressions of hatred against Israel and its Jewish inhabitants. As a general principle, it goes without saying that criticism of Israel is not automatically tantamount to anti-Semitism. But the atmosphere at some IAW events blurs the line -- with extremist speakers whipping crowds into the sort of frenzy one more usually sees in newsreel footage from the streets of Cairo or Gaza City. As a result, many Jewish students often report feeling intimidated on their own campuses.
In its very conception, IAW is offensive for two related reasons. First, it directs participants to vilify a single country, an inherently bigoted exercise. Unlike, say, ‘anti-racism week’ or ‘diversity awareness week,’ IAW does not champion a concept -- rather, it targets a particular group of people defined by religion and citizenship. Second, it does so with a false and poisonous analogy between Israel and apartheid-era South Africa. Taken together, the combined message is more or less the same one communicated by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hamas -- that Israel is a uniquely evil and fundamentally illegitimate nation. While IAW speakers generally are careful not to call for Israel’s destruction explicitly, they don't need to: That message follows naturally from the claim that the nation is fundamentally illegitimate.
Moreover, Canadian MPs are also bestirring themselves to denounce this menace. In the Canadian Parliament there has been a cross party motion denouncing IAW. The National Post reports:
In May, Dalton McGuinty will take part in a trade mission to Israel -- an unprecedented move for an Ontario premier since the 2000 Intifada broke out. Last week, Conservative MP Tim Uppal announced that he would soon introduce a motion declaring ‘that this House considers itself to be a friend of the State of Israel; that this House is concerned about expressions of anti-Semitism under the guise of “Israeli Apartheid Week”; and that this House explicitly condemns any action in Canada as well as internationally that would equate the State of Israel with the rejected and racist policy of apartheid.’ On Monday, Michael Ignatieff declared that Israeli Apartheid Week ‘should be condemned unequivocally and absolutely.’ Even Jack Layton has kept a tight lid on the anti-Zionists in his party. As a result, anti-Israel activists --including not only the IAW crowd, but also those who campaigned against last year’s Israeli-themed Toronto Film Festival-- have been shunned, or even denounced, by politicians.
It is heartening to find that even in politically correct Canada, the impulse to defend decency, truth and justice is breaking through. But despite the sterling efforts of the All-Party Committee in the UK, what do you reckon is the likelihood of such a set of pro-Israel initiatives emerging from the tea-rooms of Westminster?
Exactly.
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Melanie Phillips is a Daily Mail columnist. She also writes for the Jewish Chronicle and is a panellist on BBC Radio Four's Moral Maze. Her most recent book is 'The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth and Power', published by Encounter.
For a complete set of Melanie's articles click here
Melanie Phillips blog archive
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Andy Gill
March 2nd, 2010 10:34pmAnti-semitism is endemic in the Muslim community in this country, and if it comes to a choice between defending Israel's legitimacy and the Muslim vote, NuLabour will opt for the latter.
Julie Morin
March 3rd, 2010 1:27amWhen I read this, I can't help but think the world is closing in again on the Jews in the way it did in the 20s and 30s. Jewish students feeling uncomfortable on their own campuses? It is sickening.
I remember a time back in the sixties when many Jews wore stars of David or other jewelry that indicated they were Jewish, much as Christians wear crosses. You still see the crosses, but hardly anyone wears Jewish symbols anymore. Who would feel safe doing so?
The extremists who aim to control through intimidation will not win if each one of us takes time each day to refute the bigotry. Let no defaming comment pass, whether in the universities, on NPR or the BBC. Thank you to Melanie Phillips for showing us the way.
Nachman
March 3rd, 2010 8:03amWith self-hating Theobold Jews like Gerald Kaufman still in attendance absolutely nil chance of the House of Commons ever passing a motion like that. Unfortunately he has so poisoned the air that it will be a long before any kind of honest debate in the HC about the situation in the Middle East will ever be staged in which Israel will get a fair hearing. GB has lost any chance of being an honest broker in Middle East peace negotiations - if it ever was. MPs fearing for their seats have lost all sense of proportionality and the knee jerk reaction is to condemn Israel whenever the they can.
Miranda Rose Smith
March 3rd, 2010 8:29amThree Cheers for the Ontario Legislature!!!!There are brave, decent people left in the world.
Miranda Rose Smith
March 3rd, 2010 8:45amI don't think there's anybody alive stupid enough to actually believe Israel is an apartheid country.
Israel took in boat people and Ethiopians. It takes in refugees from civil wars in Africa. The Arabs in Israel vote, sit in the Knesset, attend universities. Arabs ride the same buses as Jews-even when Arabs blowing up buses was a daily occurrence in Israel, nobody proposed banning Arabs from the buses. Arabs eat in the same restaurants as Jews. Even when Arabs blowing up restaurants was a daily occurrence in Israel, nobody proposed banning Arabs from restaurants. In Israeli hospitals and clinics, Jewish doctors treat Arab patients and Arab doctors treat Jewish patients. Jewish doctors and nurses treated Arab patients throughout both the Intefadas. Arabs went, unchallenged and unmolested, in and out of the library where I was working throughout the Second Intefada.
People call Israel an apartheid country because they know most Israelis are so decent, so horrified by the thought of racism, that some Israelis are likely to say "Oh, no. We don't want to behave like those horrible, evil South Africans. We'll just sit down and let the Arabs murder us." The other reason people call Israel an apartheid country is that they want an excuse to call for boycotts and divestiture. They want the State of Israel destroyed-they don't mind diaspora Jews who are sweetly and properly grateful for being tolerant and don't squawk too loudly if they aren't tolerated, but they can't stand the thought of Jews standing on their own feet in their own country.
If they really opposed apartheid, they'd be calling for boycotts of and divestiture from Dubai and Saudi Arabia.
Philo
March 3rd, 2010 9:18am"...equate the State of Israel with the rejected and racist policy of apartheid..."
One clear difference is that South Africa needed its blacks to make its economy work and therefore sustain the prosperity of the whites. South Africa could not consider dumping the blacks in their bantustans and leaving them to it.
Philo
March 3rd, 2010 9:31amCriticism of the state of Israel's behaviour towards the Palestinians is not anti-Zionism. Criticism of the state of Israel and anti-Zionism are not anti-semitism.
elixelx
March 3rd, 2010 10:22amHow very telling, and ever so pitiful, that IAW should follow hard on the heels of the Vancouver Olympics, and be JUST as CANADIAN an event...
What?! You don't like the implication that the participants in IAW are ALSO Canadian? And that on one campus alone, York, they far outnumber the entire Canadian Olympic delegation?
How justifiably proud you Canucks were of your Olympic Hosannas--and how ashamed you must be of the rabble-rousing of IAW.
The question is--what are you going to do about it?
I know yours is a British blog, Melanie, but this is being written by a Canadian ex-pat whose entire family lives around the corner from York University.
I have not addressed the problem in England, because, there, all is already LOST! Even rabidly anti-Zionist Spain has not caught the lethal infection--YET!
This from
Miranda Rose Smith
March 3rd, 2010 12:45pmDear Philo: Criticism of the state of Israel's behavior towards the Palestinians is not anti-Zionism, but lying, repeating hate-filled propaganda as fact, ignoring historical complications and extenuating circumstances, ignoring the fact that all kinds of people were expelled or fled from all kinds of countries after World War II and they're not all rotting in refugee camps more than 60 years later, ignoring the behavior of the Arab LEBANESE and Arab JORDANIANS towards the Arab now-so-called-Palestinians is anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.
Sonia
March 3rd, 2010 2:04pmTo Miranda Rose Smith: Well said.
Philo
March 3rd, 2010 2:06pmMiranda Rose Smith
March 3rd, 2010 12:45pm
I agree that the Lebanon and Jordan, among others, are to be condemned for their treatment of Palestinians ("the Arab now-so-called-Palestinians" has long since become a fatuous circumlocution). The fact that there have been refugees before and since is not obviously a sound argument. (If you consider any given murder, there will have been murders before and after, but this does not make the particular murder immune to criticism.) "Criticism of the state of Israel's behavior towards the Palestinians is not anti-Zionism, but lying, repeating hate-filled propaganda as fact, ignoring historical complications and extenuating circumstances..." - this may well apply to some criticism of Israel, but I think you would have to work a bit harder to show that it applies to all such criticism.
Fern Kettner
March 3rd, 2010 3:15pmIn a list of participating cities on the IAW website, 13 out of 49 cities are Canadian. Canada was at the vanguard of this movement and is cinsequently now also the first to realize that it's gotten entangled in a mess that doesn't really represent Canada and needs to find a way out.
Adam B.
March 3rd, 2010 10:54pmPhilo, you just can't help yourself, can you?
Let me ask you - are you happy with the way Israel is singled out? Are you happy with the process of vilification which is heaped endlessly upon her? Are you happy with the obsessive nature of the Israel bashing lobby, which comes at the cost of highlighting other much more pressing humanitarian crises? (Just read Melanie's blog on the Democratic Republic of Congo to get the true horrific piecture).
All I ever see from your posts is criticism after criticism. Why?
Incidentally, anti-Zionism is antisemitism. It means that the Jews are not entitled to self-determination. Funny that those who claim to be "anti-Zionist" would be the first to scream "racism" if one said any other ethnic group is not entitled to self-determination.
Frank P
March 4th, 2010 1:37amIf only the English were as skilled and practised at defending their nation and its indigenous people. Israel will be fine. The Jews will always survive both as a people and as a religion. Unfortunately they will also always be persecuted; not really because they are Jews, but because they are intelligent and resourceful and that leads to jealousy by those who are less so. The English however are becoming increasingly dysfunctional and diluted as a nation and are already almost unrecognisable as the people they were when I was born. The most painful condition of all, I suppose, is to be both English and Jewish. Oy Vey!
Presumably at some stage, choices will have to be made. I know what the decision will be and it is very unfortunate - for the English.
Miranda Rose Smith
March 4th, 2010 6:55amDear Philo: What I meant was that the Arab states could and should have taken in the Arabs who left or were expelled from Israel in 1948. Israel, far poorer then, took in the Jews who were expelled from Arab countries. Jordan should take the Palestinians in now. If the Arab states had spent as much money on helping the Palestinian refugees, their fellow Arabs, as they have on wars and propaganda against Israel, the Palestinian refugees would all be riding around in Cadillacs now. You know as well as I do why the Arab states don't take in the Palestinian refugees. They want an excuse to say to the world "You have to kick the Jews out of Palestine to make a home for these people."
The reason I say "the now so called Palestinians" is that during the Mandatory Period, hundreds of thousands of Jews were Palestinians. My boss's birth certificate lists "Palestinian" as his nationality.
I never said all criticism of Israel was anti-Zionism or anti-Semitism. I live here and I criticize it plenty.
Miranda Rose Smith
March 4th, 2010 6:56amDear Sonia: Thank you.
davidke
March 4th, 2010 8:26amOur universities including our finest ones are supine before the torrent of anti-semitism surging through their gates. No one will do anything until the first deaths.
Philo
March 4th, 2010 9:13amAdam B.,
To repeat the obvious: this is a site that promotes what might be dubbed a Likudnik or Lieberman defence of the state of Israel. It is only natural that those who think this defence open to criticism should criticise it here. I keep my efforts on other matters for more appropriate places. I do not recall you making any substantive points here about the Congo or anywhere else. You use them merely as opportune polemical devices against those who raise criticisms directly relevant to this site.
Your attempt to revise the meaning of words should not be encouraged: it leads to a loss of precision. If by "anti-Zionism" is meant the historical position that a Jewish state should not be established in Palestine, it is clearly not anti-semitic. No doubt an anti-semite might have maintained that position; but very many maintained it who were not anti-semites. If by "anti-Zionism" is meant a current position that the state of Israel should cease to exist, it is abhorrent but it is still not necessarily anti-semitic. I can understand why some supporters of Israel would want to smear all critics of Israel with anti-semitism. I can understand why some anti-semites would identify Israel with Jews. I cannot understand why any supporter of Israel with any sense would routinely blur the distinction.
You appear to have only the one thing to say and you say it relentlessly, devoting the rest of your energies to avoiding honest discussion of any criticisms raised.
Philo
March 4th, 2010 9:36amMiranda Rose Smith
March 4th, 2010 6:55am
The neighbouring states should indeed have taken in the refugees. This does not mean that the refugees should have renounced their legitimate claims.
Israel was keen to take in the Eastern Jews despite the strain on resources in the short term. The obvious and natural moral imperative was clearly uppermost. But Israel (by which I mean the leadership - Ben Gurion, Weizman et al.) looked on them as a second best source of labour to make up for the shortfall of good quality European immigrants. I think it fair to say that the Arab states lacked the same moral clarity, hard-headed self-interest, and outside aid. I do not think that Israel's success, such as it was, in assimilating Eastern Jewish immigrants and refugees requires Palestinian refugees to renounce their claims.
All the Arab states and all Muslim states have long since offered Israel full diplomatic recognition and full normalisation of relations (or whatever the jargon is) in return for a two state settlement based on the boundaries pre-1967.
The fact that hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants and the indigenous Jews had Palestinian passports in the Mandate does not make your locution any less fatuous when applied now. The term "Palestinians" is now used to refer to a particular people. No-one finds the term or its reference ambiguous. The circumlocution is simply pointless political point scoring. It is best you desist.
"Criticism of the state of Israel's behavior towards the Palestinians is not anti-Zionism, but lying, repeating hate-filled propaganda..." Conflating criticism of Israel's behaviour towards the Palestinians with anti-Zionism and both with anti-semitism is rife among defenders of Israel's behaviour towards the Palestinians, on this site as much as anywhere. I did not charge you with saying that all criticism of Israel is anti-Zionism. What you did say is that all criticism of Israel's behaviour towards the Palestinians is lying etc. Your own, no doubt trenchant, criticisms of Israel, whatever they happen to be about, are not to the point.
Ian C
March 4th, 2010 11:57amIn contrast to this there was a superb article in yesterday's FT by historian ANdrew Roberts, in response to two articles by Henry Siegman and David Gardner on the death of the Palestinian in Dubai. For those who are interested.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8bd8d25e-2663-11df-aff3-00144feabdc0.html
Groovy Times
March 4th, 2010 1:38pmPhilo: Regarding the Congo, Darfur, Iran, Saudi Arabia etc: "I keep my efforts on other matters for more appropriate places".
Can you provide us with some evidence. I think this is sanctimonious bluster on your part, and your real obsession is Israel, and as you apply Israel to a different standard from all other countries you are discimanatory, prejudiced and bigoted against the only country in the world to claim Jewish sovereignty.
Or would you have us believe the Jewish nature of this state is purely coincidental?
I'll be happy to apologise to you Philo, should you provide evidence to prove your universal humanitarian credentials.
philip kay
March 4th, 2010 8:02pmI have visited Israel and I was shocked by the 'fascist' element in the Likud Party. It is mainly these exttremists who are behind the theft of Palestinian land and the illegal settlements on the West bank and who are complicit in the war crimes committed by the armed forces when they attack Arab enclaves.
Israel has a right to exist and conduct its affairs in peace. So do the Palestinians. Saudi Arabia and the Emirates may be financing muslim extremism. America bank roles Israel and gave it nuclear weapons.
The UK needs to firmly and fearlessly rebut Muslim extremists within its shores and robustly defend its secularism. Israel needs to comply with the UN resolutions re: pre 67 territory, that it presently so contemptuously and arrogantly flouts. Then there might be progress towards peace in the Middle East.
Miranda Rose Smith
March 5th, 2010 8:40amNot-so-dear Philo: Where did I say that all criticism of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is lying? I criticize it plenty. I think the Israelis are being suicidally nice.
Philo
March 5th, 2010 8:44amGroovy Times
March 4th, 2010 1:38pm
I am in the happy position of not feeling any need to seek an apology from you for your presumption and impertinence.
Miranda Rose Smith
March 5th, 2010 8:57amDear Mr. Kay: What theft of Palestinian land?
Isaac Bickerstaff
March 5th, 2010 9:17amThere appears to be a curious quirk in logic here. Anyone who criticises Israel's crimes has to demonstrate their universal humanitarian credentials (although such credentials would still not permit them to criticise Israel); anyone who supports Israel's crimes does not have to demonstrate any concern whatsoever for any other crimes (although they are permitted to mention other crimes to shame the critics of Israel, if the crimes are committed by Muslims or by non-Western states).
Miranda Rose Smith
March 5th, 2010 9:46amDear Mr. Bickerstaff: Anyone who wants to can criticize the Israelis for trying to stay alive (I assume that's what you mean by "Israel's crimes") without demonstrating any humanitarian credentials whatever. Just exactly where on this website does anyone support Israel's crimes? It's the people who think it's a war crime for Jews to shoot back when Arabs are shooting at them that totally ignore far worse conduct by other countries.
Pete Hoskin
March 5th, 2010 11:58amAdam B: further to the message you sent, all the comments that we've recevied from you on this thread have been approved. Maybe one has been lost into the Web ether? If so, apologies.
Adam B.
March 5th, 2010 12:02pmPhilo, all Arab and Muslim countries have stated that they wold accept Israel? Can you tell me when Iran made this statement, and its proxies Hizbollah and Hamas?
Philo
March 5th, 2010 3:39pmMiranda Rose Smith
March 5th, 2010 8:40am
Eh?
"Criticism of the state of Israel's behavior towards the Palestinians is not anti-Zionism, but lying, repeating hate-filled propaganda as fact, ignoring historical complications and extenuating circumstances..."
philip kay
March 5th, 2010 3:59pmDear Miranda Rose Smith
The theft of land after the 67 war, the building of settlements on Palestinian land, the redrawing of the green line to Israeli benefit, the driving out of Palestinians from their homes which are then taken over by Israeli's. That theft of land, Miranda.
Adam B.
March 5th, 2010 4:30pmPhilip Kay "Palestinian land"?
What makes it "Palestinian"?
Adam B.
March 5th, 2010 4:46pmPhilo, I am sceptical. You claim that this site is devoted to a "Likudnik" view of the conflict. But this thread is about something called "Israeli Apartheid Week" which Melanie rebuts here. This has nothing to do with Lieberman or Likud, (by the way Lieberman isn't part of Likud) but everything to do with the systematic demonisation of the Jewish state. This is a concerted campaign. What does the very title of this campaign tell you - is it simply a criticism of the Israeli government or a vilification of Israel as a whole? I would argue it is the latter. Yet your posts show no understanding or sensitivity of how Jewish students feel uncomfortable on campus. It is in fact a national scandal, brushed under the carpet by the media and excused by people lke you.
I can tell you from experience that Jewish students are increasingly uncomfortable on campus. When I was at Univesity, the Jewish Society routinely had its noticeboard trashed, antisemitic graffiti was daubed on J-Soc posters and in the men's room, antisemitic videos imported from the Arab world were shown in the JCR, the extremist group Hizb-ut Tahrir set up a stall at he entrance, with posters denouncing the Jewish students - in short, Philo, it was grim. That is what this thread is about. Yet on you go with your endless attacks on Israel, a country that can do no right, whilst your silence on the topic of the thread, an annual hate-filled and grotesque event, is deafening.
I do believe anti-Zionism is racist - yes, before 1948, one could argue the merits of establishing a Jewish state without being antisemitic - but we are past that stage now. To argue for the dismantling of Israel not only denies the Jews the right to self-determination, it essentially argues that 6 million Jews should be forcibly removed and taken elsewhere.
That is racism.
Adam B.
March 5th, 2010 4:57pmPete Hoskin, thanks for looking. My apologies, it's just quite frustrating when one spends time on a post and then it disappears!
Travis
March 5th, 2010 7:04pmThere is a smell of 1938 in the air.
Isaac Bickerstaff
March 6th, 2010 8:48pmMiranda Rose Smith,
To help you understand why it is that the IDF is so blase about breaking international law and the laws of war try reading what has been said by Col. Reisner, the former head of the IDF's legal department. Until such times as our indifference to what our armies do allows us to wink at yet further categories of invasion and slaughter (as long as they are perpetrated against peoples less important than us), what Israel has done to Palestinian Arabs and to Lebanese is strictly speaking criminal.
Adam B.
March 7th, 2010 7:51pmPhilo, anything to add? Where are you?
Stephen Barraclough
March 7th, 2010 8:21pmBut if anyone complains of the IDA's behaviour, or that of the 'settlers' of Israel, one is labelled something unpleasant, with aggrieved voices raised high! I'm afraid that Israel will have eventually to realise that others [particularly the British] always like to defend the weaker party, especially against an opponent with a massive weapons superiority. And a propenstity to 'overkill'!
Adam B.
March 7th, 2010 10:41pmStephen, the "weaker" party (a smart move by the Arabs who moved from overwhelming superiority in the guie of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Morocco, Libya - all of whom have sent forces to attack Israel in the past - to localising it to the Palestinian Arabs) is not necessarily in the right.
By the way, it's IDF, not IDA.
When were you labelled something unpleasant?