Coming soon: "The Fallout From the UN Debacle: What's Next?"
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
Why Obama Is Losing the Jewish Vote
Dan Senor - The Wall Street Journal, September 14th, 2011
He doesn't have a 'messaging' problem. He has a record of bad policies and anti-Israel rhetoric.
New York's special congressional election on Tuesday was the first electoral outcome directly affected by President Obama's Israel policy. Democrats were forced to expend enormous resources in a losing effort to defend this safe Democratic district, covering Queens and Brooklyn, that Anthony Weiner won last year by a comfortable margin.
He doesn't have a 'messaging' problem. He has a record of bad policies and anti-Israel rhetoric.
New York's special congressional election on Tuesday was the first electoral outcome directly affected by President Obama's Israel policy. Democrats were forced to expend enormous resources in a losing effort to defend this safe Democratic district, covering Queens and Brooklyn, that Anthony Weiner won last year by a comfortable margin.
A Public Policy Poll taken days before the election found a plurality of voters saying that Israel was “very important” in determining their votes. Among those voters, Republican candidate Robert Turner was winning by a 71-22 margin. Only 22% of Jewish voters approved of President Obama's handling of Israel. Ed Koch, the Democrat and former New York mayor, endorsed Mr. Turner because he said he wanted to send a message to the president about his anti-Israel policies.
This is a preview of what President Obama might face in his re-election campaign with a demographic group that voted overwhelmingly for him in 2008. And it could affect the electoral map, given the battleground states—such as Florida and Pennsylvania—with significant Jewish populations. In another ominous barometer for the Obama campaign, its Jewish fund-raising has deeply eroded: One poll by McLaughlin & Associates found that of Jewish donors who donated to Mr. Obama in 2008, only 64% have already donated or plan to donate to his re-election campaign.
The Obama campaign has launched a counteroffensive, including hiring a high-level Jewish outreach director and sending former White House aide David Axelrod and Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to reassure Jewish donors. The Obama team told the Washington Post that its Israel problem is a messaging problem, and that with enough explanation of its record the Jewish community will return to the fold in 2012. Here is an inventory of what Mr. Obama's aides will have to address:
• February 2008: When running for president, then-Sen. Obama told an audience in Cleveland: “There is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel.” Likud had been out of power for two years when Mr. Obama made this statement. At the time the country was being led by the centrist Kadima government of Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and Shimon Peres, and Prime Minister Olmert had been pursuing an unprecedented territorial compromise. As for Likud governments, it was under Likud that Israel made its largest territorial compromises—withdrawals from Sinai and Gaza.
• July 2009: Mr. Obama hosted American Jewish leaders at the White House, reportedly telling them that he sought to put “daylight” between America and Israel. “For eight years”—during the Bush administration—”there was no light between the United States and Israel, and nothing got accomplished,” he declared.
Nothing? Prime Minister Ariel Sharon uprooted thousands of settlers from their homes in Gaza and the northern West Bank and deployed the Israeli army to forcibly relocate their fellow citizens. Mr. Sharon then resigned from the Likud Party to build a majority party based on a two-state consensus.
In the same meeting with Jewish leaders, Mr. Obama told the group that Israel would need “to engage in serious self-reflection.” This statement stunned the Americans in attendance: Israeli society is many things, but lacking in self-reflection isn't one of them. It's impossible to envision the president delivering a similar lecture to Muslim leaders.
• September 2009: In his first address to the U.N. General Assembly, President Obama devoted five paragraphs to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, during which he declared (to loud applause) that “America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.” He went on to draw a connection between rocket attacks on Israeli civilians with living conditions in Gaza. There was not a single unconditional criticism of Palestinian terrorism.
• March 2010: During Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel, a Jerusalem municipal office announced plans for new construction in a part of Jerusalem. The president launched an unprecedented weeks-long offensive against Israel. Mr. Biden very publicly departed Israel.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton berated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a now-infamous 45-minute phone call, telling him that Israel had “harmed the bilateral relationship.” (The State Department triumphantly shared details of the call with the press.) The Israeli ambassador was dressed-down at the State Department, Mr. Obama's Middle East envoy canceled his trip to Israel, and the U.S. joined the European condemnation of Israel.
Moments after Mr. Biden concluded his visit to the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority held a ceremony to honor Dalal Mughrabi, who led one of the deadliest Palestinian terror attacks in history: the so-called Coastal Road Massacre that killed 38, including 13 children and an American. The Obama administration was silent. But that same day, on ABC, Mr. Axelrod called Israel's planned construction of apartments in its own capital an “insult” and an “affront” to the United States. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs went on Fox News to accuse Mr. Netanyahu of “weakening trust” between the two countries.
Ten days later, Mr. Netanyahu traveled to Washington to mend fences but was snubbed at a White House meeting with President Obama—no photo op, no joint statement, and he was sent out through a side door.
• April 2010: Mr. Netanyahu pulled out of the Obama-sponsored Washington summit on nuclear proliferation after it became clear that Turkey and Egypt intended to use the occasion to condemn the Israeli nuclear program, and Mr. Obama would not intervene.
• March 2011: Mr. Obama returned to his habit of urging Israelis to engage in self-reflection, inviting Jewish community leaders to the White House and instructing them to “search your souls” about Israel's dedication to peace.
• May 2011: The State Department issued a press release declaring that the department's No. 2 official, James Steinberg, would be visiting “Israel, Jerusalem, and the West Bank.” In other words, Jerusalem is not part of Israel. Later in the month, only hours before Mr. Netanyahu departed from Israel to Washington, Mr. Obama delivered his Arab Spring speech, which focused on a demand that Israel return to its indefensible pre-1967 borders with land swaps.
Mr. Obama has made some meaningful exceptions, particularly having to do with security partnership, but overall he has built the most consistently one-sided diplomatic record against Israel of any American president in generations. His problem with Jewish voters is one of substance, not messaging.
Mr. Senor is co-author with Saul Singer of “Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle” (Twelve, 2011). He served as a senior adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq in 2003 and 2004.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
The BDS Movement, Apartheid and The Real Racism
Students everywhere have been propagandized by anti-Israel and anti-Zionist groups to partake in the BDS (Boycott-Divestment-Sanction) movement. Taking advantage of the typical impressionable passion and altruism of college students (of which I remember all too well!), the movement, which is supported by liberal faculty world-wide has gained some traction over the past few years. Utilizing mostly disingenuous vitriol and founded upon one-sided and illusory theories, this movement has converted many young men and women who have fallen for it hook, line and sinker as they hear so-called intellectuals and thinkers preach their brand of hatred.
To acknowledge that many departments within our most well-known Universities and other institutions of higher learning are funded by anti-Israel organizations and governments should not be a surprise to most. To contend that there is a connection between the shift in dialogue to extreme anit-Israelism amongst these same institutions and the funding of those institutions would be attacked as libelous by some. One can do the research themselves quite easily through a relatively brief internet search of major funders if Institutions that are the loudest to voice anti-Zionist appeals. Although, as scientists, we are taught to never assume that an association determines causality, these facts do give one pause to reflect.
Fortunately, there are many "voices in the wilderness" arising out of the ashes of this anti-Semitic fire. One group, of which I am a member, the Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, attempts to carry on a balanced dialogue within the community of educators and help to bring some semblance of sanity to the fragile world of secondary and tertiary education. Their mission is as follows:
"Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, [SPME), is a grass-roots community of scholars who have united to promote honest fact based, and civil discourse, especially in regard to Middle East issues. We believe that ethnic, national, and religious hatreds, including anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism, have no place in our institutions, disciplines and communities. We employ academic means to address these issues.
We welcome scholars from all disciplines, faiths, and nationalities who share our desire for peace and our commitment to academic freedom, intellectual integrity, and honest debate."
The world in which education lays, which is supposed to be founded upon integrity, balanced and thorough research, and passionate but respectful debate, has been nothing of the sort in recent times, at least with respect to Middle East politics. Although SPME is filled with scholars from various backgrounds and many disparate opinions - of which I am not always enamored - it is a breath of fresh air amidst this sometimes loathsome world that impacts our youngest and most brilliant minds and prospective leaders.
Apartheid as a concept has been at the core of the anti-Israel BDS movement on campuses throughout the world. Accusing Israel of being an apartheid state vis-a-vis the so-called Palestinians, is intentional. Its goal is to create inflammatory rhetoric and engender visions of hatred and the ethnic suppression of black South Africans of the late twentieth century.
There may be much to criticize about any nation's policies, with Israel not excluded, and every one of us should participate in the world dialogue to better all of human relations and interactions. But, to attack one of the freest nations on Earth and one which is clearly THE SINGLE MOST inclusive amongst an entire Middle East region filled with religious and ethnic exclusivity as an apartheid state is more than disingenuous...it is more than extremism...it is at best without any merit whatsoever and at worst itself wholly racist.
A simple question that one might ask as a litmus test for the apartheid accusation is this: would one rather be a "minority" Arab citizen in Israel - with full and equal rights and citizenship along with the Jewish majority - or a "minority" ANYTHING in Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, etc.? Yet, none of these countries whose leadership continuously turns a blind eye to and very often itself sanctions regular and continuous suppression and even murder of minorities based on ethnic or religious grounds, have been met by any similar calls for BDS. One might also ask the question: why are there no more Jews in these countries, many of which have had large and flourishing Jewish populations throughout their histories? Could it be due to persecution, suppression, and even murder along ethnic and religious lines? History gives us the answer to that question and it is a resounding YES!
Apartheid is defined variously and loosely as: A policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race, creed, color, religion or ethnicity. The term is much more broadly defined in Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as a crime against humanity:
For the purpose of this Statute, 'crime against humanity' means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
It seems to me that many of the regimes that actually fund the BDS projects can easily fit the very definition of apartheid that they are accusing Israel of. Might that attempt at fire-branding and vilification be a magician's sleight of hand to distract from the realities of the true forces of apartheid that these regimes support? I'll leave that question for you to answer yourselves.
Denis M. MacEoin is a novelist and a former lecturer in Islamic Studies. His academic specializations are Shi'ism, Shaykism, Babism, and the Bahai Faith, on all of which he has written extensively. His novels are written under the pen names Daniel Easterman and Jonathan Aycliffe. While I do not hold to all of Dr. MacEoin's perspectives on religion, spirituality and life in general, I respect him as a fellow member of the SPME and one who has a balanced and objective view of Islam and the people of the Middle East. Dr. MacEoin recently published a letter to the Edinburgh University Student Association after their decision to participate in a BDS project by voting to boycott Israel as an "apartheid" state. The letter follows:
The Committee
Edinburgh University Student Association
May I be permitted to say a few words to members of the EUSA? I am an Edinburgh graduate (MA 1975) who studied Persian, Arabic and Islamic History in Buccleuch Place under William Montgomery Watt and Laurence Elwell Sutton, two of Britain’s great Middle East experts in their day. I later went on to do a PhD at Cambridge and to teach Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University. Naturally, I am the author of several books and hundreds of articles in this field.
I say all that to show that I am well informed in Middle Eastern affairs and that, for that reason, I am shocked and disheartened by the EUSA motion and vote. I am shocked for a simple reason: there is not and has never been a system of apartheid in Israel. That is not my opinion, that is fact that can be tested against reality by any Edinburgh student, should he or she choose to visit Israel to see for themselves.
Let me spell this out, since I have the impression that those members of EUSA who voted for this motion are absolutely clueless in matters concerning Israel, and that they are, in all likelihood, the victims of extremely biased propaganda coming from the anti-Israel lobby. Being anti-Israel is not in itself objectionable. But I’m not talking about ordinary criticism of Israel. I’m speaking of a hatred that permits itself no boundaries in the lies and myths it pours out. Thus, Israel is repeatedly referred to as a ‘Nazi’ state. In what sense is this true, even as a metaphor? Where are the Israeli concentration camps? The einzatsgruppen? The SS? The Nüremberg Laws? The Final Solution? None of these things nor anything remotely resembling them exists in Israel, precisely because the Jews, more than anyone on earth, understand what Nazism stood for. It is claimed that there has been an Israeli Holocaust in Gaza (or elsewhere). Where? When? No honest historian would treat that claim with anything but the contempt it deserves. But calling Jews Nazis and saying they have committed a Holocaust is as basic a way to subvert historical fact as anything I can think of.
Likewise apartheid. For apartheid to exist, there would have to be a situation that closely resembled things in South Africa under the apartheid regime. Unfortunately for those who believe this, a weekend in any part of Israel would be enough to show how ridiculous the claim is. That a body of university students actually fell for this and voted on it is a sad comment on the state of modern education. The most obvious focus for apartheid would be the country’s 20% Arab population. Under Israeli law, Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews or anyone else; Muslims have the same rights as Jews or Christians; Baha’is, severely persecuted in Iran, flourish in Israel, where they have their world centre; Ahmadi Muslims, severely persecuted in Pakistan and elsewhere, are kept safe by Israel; the holy places of all religions are protected under a specific Israeli law. Arabs form 20% of the university population (an exact echo of their percentage in the general population). In Iran, the Baha’is (the largest religious minority) are forbidden to study in any university or to run their own universities: why aren’t your members boycotting Iran?
Arabs in Israel can go anywhere they want, unlike blacks in apartheid South Africa. They use public transport, they eat in restaurants, they go to swimming pools, they use libraries, they go to cinemas alongside Jews - something no blacks could do in South Africa. Israeli hospitals not only treat Jews and Arabs, they also treat Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank. On the same wards, in the same operating theatres.
In Israel, women have the same rights as men: there is no gender apartheid. Gay men and women face no restrictions, and Palestinian gays often escape into Israel, knowing they may be killed at home. It seems bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a boycott of Israel and say nothing about countries like Iran, where gay men are hanged or stoned to death. That illustrates a mindset that beggars belief. Intelligent students thinking it’s better to be silent about regimes that kill gay people, but good to condemn the only country in the Middle East that rescues and protects gay people. Is that supposed to be a sick joke?
University is supposed to be about learning to use your brain, to think rationally, to examine evidence, to reach conclusions based on solid evidence, to compare sources, to weigh up one view against one or more others. If the best Edinburgh can now produce are students who have no idea how to do any of these things, then the future is bleak. I do not object to well documented criticism of Israel. I do object when supposedly intelligent people single the Jewish state out above states that are horrific in their treatment of their populations. We are going through the biggest upheaval in the Middle East since the 7th and 8th centuries, and it’s clear that Arabs and Iranians are rebelling against terrifying regimes that fight back by killing their own citizens. Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs alike, do not rebel (though they are free to protest). Yet Edinburgh students mount no demonstrations and call for no boycotts against Libya, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iran. They prefer to make false accusations against one of the world’s freest countries, the only country in the Middle East that has taken in Darfur refugees, the only country in the Middle East that gives refuge to gay men and women, the only country in the Middle East that protects the Baha’is.... Need I go on? The imbalance is perceptible, and it sheds no credit on anyone who voted for this boycott.
I ask you to show some common sense. Get information from the Israeli embassy. Ask for some speakers. Listen to more than one side. Do not make your minds up until you have given a fair hearing to both parties. You have a duty to your students, and that is to protect them from one-sided argument. They are not at university to be propagandized. And they are certainly not there to be tricked into anti-Semitism by punishing one country among all the countries of the world, which happens to be the only Jewish state. If there had been a single Jewish state in the 1930s (which, sadly, there was not), don’t you think Adolf Hitler would have decided to boycott it? Of course he would, and he would not have stopped there. Your generation has a duty to ensure that the perennial racism of anti-Semitism never sets down roots among you. Today, however, there are clear signs that it has done so and is putting down more. You have a chance to avert a very great evil, simply by using reason and a sense of fair play. Please tell me that this makes sense to you. I have given you some of the evidence. It’s up to you to find out more.
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Denis MacEoin
I do thank G-d above for men and women with a voice of reason who maintain a balanced but integrity filled understanding of world-wide affairs. Unfortunately, their voices have indeed been more a part of "the wilderness" rather than the mainstream. It is time for us to direct our prayers that sanity would somehow return to the world of secondary and tertiary education...something that has been missing from the mainstream for decades as liberalism and left-wing agendas have become an established majority on campuses. That is not to say that liberalism and left-of-centeredness is necessarily a pejorative description. After all, freedom of thought is the foundation for higher education - freedom to express all opinions. None-the-less, balance and integrity are keys to freedom's success, no matter what part of life we are talking about.
To acknowledge that many departments within our most well-known Universities and other institutions of higher learning are funded by anti-Israel organizations and governments should not be a surprise to most. To contend that there is a connection between the shift in dialogue to extreme anit-Israelism amongst these same institutions and the funding of those institutions would be attacked as libelous by some. One can do the research themselves quite easily through a relatively brief internet search of major funders if Institutions that are the loudest to voice anti-Zionist appeals. Although, as scientists, we are taught to never assume that an association determines causality, these facts do give one pause to reflect.
Fortunately, there are many "voices in the wilderness" arising out of the ashes of this anti-Semitic fire. One group, of which I am a member, the Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, attempts to carry on a balanced dialogue within the community of educators and help to bring some semblance of sanity to the fragile world of secondary and tertiary education. Their mission is as follows:
"Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, [SPME), is a grass-roots community of scholars who have united to promote honest fact based, and civil discourse, especially in regard to Middle East issues. We believe that ethnic, national, and religious hatreds, including anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism, have no place in our institutions, disciplines and communities. We employ academic means to address these issues.
We welcome scholars from all disciplines, faiths, and nationalities who share our desire for peace and our commitment to academic freedom, intellectual integrity, and honest debate."
The world in which education lays, which is supposed to be founded upon integrity, balanced and thorough research, and passionate but respectful debate, has been nothing of the sort in recent times, at least with respect to Middle East politics. Although SPME is filled with scholars from various backgrounds and many disparate opinions - of which I am not always enamored - it is a breath of fresh air amidst this sometimes loathsome world that impacts our youngest and most brilliant minds and prospective leaders.
Apartheid as a concept has been at the core of the anti-Israel BDS movement on campuses throughout the world. Accusing Israel of being an apartheid state vis-a-vis the so-called Palestinians, is intentional. Its goal is to create inflammatory rhetoric and engender visions of hatred and the ethnic suppression of black South Africans of the late twentieth century.
There may be much to criticize about any nation's policies, with Israel not excluded, and every one of us should participate in the world dialogue to better all of human relations and interactions. But, to attack one of the freest nations on Earth and one which is clearly THE SINGLE MOST inclusive amongst an entire Middle East region filled with religious and ethnic exclusivity as an apartheid state is more than disingenuous...it is more than extremism...it is at best without any merit whatsoever and at worst itself wholly racist.
A simple question that one might ask as a litmus test for the apartheid accusation is this: would one rather be a "minority" Arab citizen in Israel - with full and equal rights and citizenship along with the Jewish majority - or a "minority" ANYTHING in Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, etc.? Yet, none of these countries whose leadership continuously turns a blind eye to and very often itself sanctions regular and continuous suppression and even murder of minorities based on ethnic or religious grounds, have been met by any similar calls for BDS. One might also ask the question: why are there no more Jews in these countries, many of which have had large and flourishing Jewish populations throughout their histories? Could it be due to persecution, suppression, and even murder along ethnic and religious lines? History gives us the answer to that question and it is a resounding YES!
Apartheid is defined variously and loosely as: A policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race, creed, color, religion or ethnicity. The term is much more broadly defined in Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as a crime against humanity:
- Murder;
- Extermination;
- Enslavement;
- Deportation or forcible transfer of population;
- Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;
- Torture;
- Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;
- Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;
- Enforced disappearance of persons;
- The crime of apartheid;
- Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health
Later in Article 7, the crime of apartheid is defined as:
The 'crime of apartheid' means inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, committed in the context of an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.
It seems to me that many of the regimes that actually fund the BDS projects can easily fit the very definition of apartheid that they are accusing Israel of. Might that attempt at fire-branding and vilification be a magician's sleight of hand to distract from the realities of the true forces of apartheid that these regimes support? I'll leave that question for you to answer yourselves.
Denis M. MacEoin is a novelist and a former lecturer in Islamic Studies. His academic specializations are Shi'ism, Shaykism, Babism, and the Bahai Faith, on all of which he has written extensively. His novels are written under the pen names Daniel Easterman and Jonathan Aycliffe. While I do not hold to all of Dr. MacEoin's perspectives on religion, spirituality and life in general, I respect him as a fellow member of the SPME and one who has a balanced and objective view of Islam and the people of the Middle East. Dr. MacEoin recently published a letter to the Edinburgh University Student Association after their decision to participate in a BDS project by voting to boycott Israel as an "apartheid" state. The letter follows:
The Committee
Edinburgh University Student Association
May I be permitted to say a few words to members of the EUSA? I am an Edinburgh graduate (MA 1975) who studied Persian, Arabic and Islamic History in Buccleuch Place under William Montgomery Watt and Laurence Elwell Sutton, two of Britain’s great Middle East experts in their day. I later went on to do a PhD at Cambridge and to teach Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University. Naturally, I am the author of several books and hundreds of articles in this field.
I say all that to show that I am well informed in Middle Eastern affairs and that, for that reason, I am shocked and disheartened by the EUSA motion and vote. I am shocked for a simple reason: there is not and has never been a system of apartheid in Israel. That is not my opinion, that is fact that can be tested against reality by any Edinburgh student, should he or she choose to visit Israel to see for themselves.
Let me spell this out, since I have the impression that those members of EUSA who voted for this motion are absolutely clueless in matters concerning Israel, and that they are, in all likelihood, the victims of extremely biased propaganda coming from the anti-Israel lobby. Being anti-Israel is not in itself objectionable. But I’m not talking about ordinary criticism of Israel. I’m speaking of a hatred that permits itself no boundaries in the lies and myths it pours out. Thus, Israel is repeatedly referred to as a ‘Nazi’ state. In what sense is this true, even as a metaphor? Where are the Israeli concentration camps? The einzatsgruppen? The SS? The Nüremberg Laws? The Final Solution? None of these things nor anything remotely resembling them exists in Israel, precisely because the Jews, more than anyone on earth, understand what Nazism stood for. It is claimed that there has been an Israeli Holocaust in Gaza (or elsewhere). Where? When? No honest historian would treat that claim with anything but the contempt it deserves. But calling Jews Nazis and saying they have committed a Holocaust is as basic a way to subvert historical fact as anything I can think of.
Likewise apartheid. For apartheid to exist, there would have to be a situation that closely resembled things in South Africa under the apartheid regime. Unfortunately for those who believe this, a weekend in any part of Israel would be enough to show how ridiculous the claim is. That a body of university students actually fell for this and voted on it is a sad comment on the state of modern education. The most obvious focus for apartheid would be the country’s 20% Arab population. Under Israeli law, Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews or anyone else; Muslims have the same rights as Jews or Christians; Baha’is, severely persecuted in Iran, flourish in Israel, where they have their world centre; Ahmadi Muslims, severely persecuted in Pakistan and elsewhere, are kept safe by Israel; the holy places of all religions are protected under a specific Israeli law. Arabs form 20% of the university population (an exact echo of their percentage in the general population). In Iran, the Baha’is (the largest religious minority) are forbidden to study in any university or to run their own universities: why aren’t your members boycotting Iran?
Arabs in Israel can go anywhere they want, unlike blacks in apartheid South Africa. They use public transport, they eat in restaurants, they go to swimming pools, they use libraries, they go to cinemas alongside Jews - something no blacks could do in South Africa. Israeli hospitals not only treat Jews and Arabs, they also treat Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank. On the same wards, in the same operating theatres.
In Israel, women have the same rights as men: there is no gender apartheid. Gay men and women face no restrictions, and Palestinian gays often escape into Israel, knowing they may be killed at home. It seems bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a boycott of Israel and say nothing about countries like Iran, where gay men are hanged or stoned to death. That illustrates a mindset that beggars belief. Intelligent students thinking it’s better to be silent about regimes that kill gay people, but good to condemn the only country in the Middle East that rescues and protects gay people. Is that supposed to be a sick joke?
University is supposed to be about learning to use your brain, to think rationally, to examine evidence, to reach conclusions based on solid evidence, to compare sources, to weigh up one view against one or more others. If the best Edinburgh can now produce are students who have no idea how to do any of these things, then the future is bleak. I do not object to well documented criticism of Israel. I do object when supposedly intelligent people single the Jewish state out above states that are horrific in their treatment of their populations. We are going through the biggest upheaval in the Middle East since the 7th and 8th centuries, and it’s clear that Arabs and Iranians are rebelling against terrifying regimes that fight back by killing their own citizens. Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs alike, do not rebel (though they are free to protest). Yet Edinburgh students mount no demonstrations and call for no boycotts against Libya, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iran. They prefer to make false accusations against one of the world’s freest countries, the only country in the Middle East that has taken in Darfur refugees, the only country in the Middle East that gives refuge to gay men and women, the only country in the Middle East that protects the Baha’is.... Need I go on? The imbalance is perceptible, and it sheds no credit on anyone who voted for this boycott.
I ask you to show some common sense. Get information from the Israeli embassy. Ask for some speakers. Listen to more than one side. Do not make your minds up until you have given a fair hearing to both parties. You have a duty to your students, and that is to protect them from one-sided argument. They are not at university to be propagandized. And they are certainly not there to be tricked into anti-Semitism by punishing one country among all the countries of the world, which happens to be the only Jewish state. If there had been a single Jewish state in the 1930s (which, sadly, there was not), don’t you think Adolf Hitler would have decided to boycott it? Of course he would, and he would not have stopped there. Your generation has a duty to ensure that the perennial racism of anti-Semitism never sets down roots among you. Today, however, there are clear signs that it has done so and is putting down more. You have a chance to avert a very great evil, simply by using reason and a sense of fair play. Please tell me that this makes sense to you. I have given you some of the evidence. It’s up to you to find out more.
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Denis MacEoin
I do thank G-d above for men and women with a voice of reason who maintain a balanced but integrity filled understanding of world-wide affairs. Unfortunately, their voices have indeed been more a part of "the wilderness" rather than the mainstream. It is time for us to direct our prayers that sanity would somehow return to the world of secondary and tertiary education...something that has been missing from the mainstream for decades as liberalism and left-wing agendas have become an established majority on campuses. That is not to say that liberalism and left-of-centeredness is necessarily a pejorative description. After all, freedom of thought is the foundation for higher education - freedom to express all opinions. None-the-less, balance and integrity are keys to freedom's success, no matter what part of life we are talking about.
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