Anti-Semitism in the Guise of Delegitimization and Anti-Zionism. By Barry Shaw
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/72030
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs staged a highly successful
event at the 5th Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem
between 12-14 May.
Delegates from around the world gathered to hear an impressive array
of speakers, led by Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The
conference was intense. Even the lunches during the three days became
platforms for keynote speakers including Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive
Vice Chairman of the Confederation of Presidents of Major American
Jewish Organization, Robert Wistrich,
Jerusalem mayor, Nir Barkat, and US Ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro.
The third day was taken up with numerous working groups each delegated
to address specific aspects of global anti-Semitism and come up with
solutions and action plans to counter this ongoing plague.
I joined the group discussing Anti-Semitism in the Guise of
Delegitimization and Anti-Zionism, which was chaired by Mitchell Bard
and Dr. Pascal Markowicz.
We were presented by a screen listing the many challenges and
questions faced by everyone affected by anti-Israel activism that
morphs into expressions of Jew-hatred and Israel denial.
It was clear, hearing the problems faced by students of campus to the
problems that heads of Jewish communities are increasing dealing with,
that anti-Semitism posing as anti-Zionism is rampant worldwide.
Fighting Hamas, BDS and Anti-Semitism
Participants from North and South America, Europe including the UK,
South Africa and Australia, told of the challenges they are trying to
counter in their countries.
True to the title of our session, it became apparent that, although we
discussed in depth the difficulties that Jews abroad and Israel in
general have been suffering from in recent times, the big black cloud
that shadows all our concerns is the anti-Semitism linked to all
aspects of the Palestinian cause.
As described in my book ‘Fighting Hamas, BDS and Anti-Semitism,’ its
fertile roots are deeply embedded in Gaza and Ramallah. Here is the
spearhead of a wider Arab malevolence against Jews rooted in their
faith and political systems.
As the title of our working group suggests, this strain of
anti-Semitism radiates from the Middle East into Western societies,
fanned by far left agitators, racial professors, lecturers and other
voices who call and act for the delegitimization of Israel and an end
to anti-Zionism.
The excuse that “we don’t hate Jews, we only hate Israelis” won’t wash
anymore. We in the know are now on the case, exposing the fraud of
this lie, a lie that has replaced the older canard of “I can’t be an
anti-Semite, some of my best friends are Jewish.”
The evidence is clear and is now being documented. It’s time the name
and shame the perpetrators, and call it for what it is.
Anti-Semitism is an international crime. However, despite the efforts
of major European Jewish organizations, the EU has been dodging the
issue of coming up with a definition of what is Anti-Semitism. We were
witness to statements made at the Jerusalem conference by European
representatives of an attempt of lumping any resolution or definition
of anti-Semitism with other issues such as Islamophobia into a broader
mix of “hate crimes.” We need to make the case that we deserve,
especially in Europe, a specific attention to our individual and
collective predicament.
One important outcome of the event was a wall-to-wall affirmation that
only Jews have the right to define what is, or isn’t, anti-Semitism.
As one person at the conference said, just as most Americans accept
that African Americans are the ones to recognize anti-black racism, it
is the Jews, and not the goyim who instinctively know, from
generations of bitter experience in every culture, what is
anti-Semitism.
If anti-Semitism is evil, and if the world desperately desires peace
between Israel and the Palestinians, it is legitimate to demand that
the United Nations, the European Union, the Arab League stop
supporting the development of a national movement that has the words
“Oh Muslim, there’s a Jew hiding behind me! Come out and kill him” as
the cornerstone of their founding charter as does Palestinian Hamas.
Europe and UN invests hundreds of millions of dollars, euros in the
advancement of a Palestine that will, inevitably, be a Jew-hating,
Jew-denying entity?
It is this, together with their declared admission that the
Palestinian cause is an Islamic movement of jihad in the name of
Allah, that must give every reasoning mind, let alone the political
representatives of Western liberal democracies, pause.
How is it possible that they invest hundreds of millions of dollars
and euros in the advancement of a Palestine that will, inevitably, be
a Jew-hating, Jew-denying entity?
How can there be any doubt of this when the Hamas hatred and the
Jewish state denial of the Palestinian Authority spills over into the
manifestos and charters of the PLO (adopted by the Palestinian
Authority) and the constitutional document of the Fatah Party?
The aims and objectives of the Palestinian cause are blatantly
defined. They are consolidated by the statements of Mahmoud Abbas, he
of the Holocaust denial doctorate, who denies three thousand years of
Jewish heritage and existence, rejects the Jewish state and the
existence of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people as
legitimated in the international treaties of the League of Nations and
further enshrined in Article 80 of the United Nations Charter. In
further anti-Semitic references, Abbas has declared that Palestine
will be Jew-free and that any Arab selling land to a Jew will be
executed.
This is part of the Palestinian anti-Semitism that denies and
delegitimizes Israel.
A question that usually leaves European diplomats with a blank look in
their eyes is what sort of Palestine they are trying so hard to
create. Some mutter that they are working to develop institutes
necessary to achieve a democratic Palestine living in peace with
Israel. But they are stumped when asked what responsibility they take
if Israel surrenders essential territory according to their demands
and political pressure that results not in peaceful Palestine but a
radical Hamastan?
According to all Palestinian polls and elections, Hamas consistently
gains the support of between 64-78% of Palestinian society. That’s a
majority every time. The latest evidence that Palestine will be
Hamastan was the student elections at Bir Zeit University in April
where Hamas won 26 seats compared to Fatah’s 19. It must be pointed
out that Bir Zeit is not in the Gaza Strip but seven kilometers north
of Ramallah within easy reach of Palestinian Authority headquarters,
and only 20 kilometers from Jerusalem. So a Hamas controlled Palestine
is not a guess. It’s a certainty.
This makes the US Administration and European urging for the
establishment of a Jew-hating, jihadi state standing on territory
belonging to a liberal democracy, highly disturbing.
What is equally disturbing is the apparition of the fevered efforts of
hundreds of dubious NGOs, supported politically, morally and
financially by most European governments. Some have politicians who
are being exposed for their dislike of Jews.
Those of us active in defense of Israel against the demonization and
delegitimization campaigns that use thousands of eager young European
volunteers regularly witness their Palestinian lovefest comes with an
equal, if not more passionate, Israeli hatefest which leaves us
wondering if Jew-hatred is not at the heart of it.
The delegitimization of Israel , the attempt to deprive the Jews, and
only the Jewish people, of the right to self-determination,
nationhood is anti-Semitism
Therefore, we are entitled to ask why they adopt this aspect of
Palestinian concern yet ignore the abuse of Palestinian rights at the
hands of both Palestinian leaderships in Ramallah and Gaza. They also
do or say nothing about Palestinians that are suffering in Arab lands.
Their exaggeration of anti-Israel claims and insults is out of
proportion to other world crisis points that apparently do not concern
them. This obsessive behavior that targets the Jewish state points to
anti-Semitism. In fact, colleagues can attest to fairly regular
outbursts of anti-Jewish utterances from these NGO volunteers.
And so we see the spread and growth of anti-Semitism in the guise of
delegitimization and anti-Zionism. Once, and for a period far too
long, they claimed victory with a slogan of “Zionism is Racism” which
won favor in the United Nations for sixteen years until, after a
prolonged struggle, it was struck down in 1991. It was struck down,
but didn’t die. It is still alive and killing.
It is the anti-Zionists who are the racists. It is the Israel deniers
who are the discriminators.
It is essential to define anti-Semitism to include the denial of
Jewish rights to freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and the
denial of Jewish rights to self-determination as enshrined in
internationally binding documents.
The delegitimization of Israel and the attempt to deprive the Jews,
and only the Jewish people, of the right to self-determination and
nationhood is anti-Semitism.
(These are the personal reflections of the author and not the official
positions of the working group or the Israeli government.)
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