Extremists and Their Message In the contentious debate about the Middle East conflict, there are many voices. Among the most intolerant and hateful is the viewpoint promoted by "Israeli Apartheid Week." The extremism of the Apartheid Week organizers can be better understood when looking at some of the speakers from past Apartheid Weeks. Omar Barghouti, a featured speaker during Apartheid Week 2009, doesn't bother to hide that his goal is to rewind history by returning the Jewish people to the dark era in which being a Jew meant being an ethnic minority. With chilling frankness, Barghouti admits that he seeks to replace Israel with what he describes as "a unitary state, where, by definition, Jews will be a minority." Not only is this immoral goal opposed by those who would be most harmed (Jews), but it also runs counter to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the international community, and human rights leaders. (See more here.)
Samir El-youssef, a Palestinian writer who criticizes both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict and genuinely seeks reconciliation, says that Barghouti's calls to boycott Israel are "full of questionable assumptions, biased assertions, reductive and dismissive statements, condemnations and accusations against those who disagree with him." Barghouti has "other concerns than peace on his mind," he adds. Norman Finkelstein was another extremist participant from Apartheid Week 2009. Just before his scheduled lectures on campuses in New York City and Atlanta, the Teheran Times published a venemous interview with Finkelstein in which he called Israel a "vandal state," an "insane state," a "lunatic state" and a "terrorist state." And those were the nicer things he had to say about the country. He also referred to the Jewish state as a "satanic state" from "the boils of hell" which "is committing a holocaust in Gaza." While he directs such venom toward Israel, Finkelstein has expressed support for Hezbollah, a violent, racist group listed by European and North American countries as a terror organziation, in part because of its numerous attacks on Americans and its deadly bombing of a Jewish community center in Argentina. (Hezbollah leaders have explained that they seek to destroy Israel, force most Jews out of Israel, and [not unlike Barghouti] relegate the remaining few to minority status.) Not to be outdone in the hate department is Apartheid Week 2009 speaker Ronnie Kasrils, who has argued that Israelis are "baby killers" that "behav[e] like Nazis." It's disturbing that these statements by Barghouti, Finkelstein and Kasrils each match items in the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia's list of "examples of the ways in which anti-Semitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel." That list includes:
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Monday, March 1, 2010
Extremists and Their Message - Israeli Apartheid Week
