Criticizing Israeli Policies Is Not the Same Thing as Anti-Semitism
Tang Li, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
During the past two-months I've taken up a new hobby of engaging
people in discussion groups on the Internet. Its been an amazing journey into
finding out what people are willing to say when they feel they are hidden
behind the anonymity of a screen name! As you may expect, Ive found myself in
passionate debates, particularly whenever it comes to the issue of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The site that I had been exploring is a US-based one and as can be expected,
most of the participants in the forums are American. The experience of talking
to Americans on the Internet has been astounding.
Here we are on the Internet, the medium that is supposed to be the most
free-flowing ever invented. The Internet was supposed to liberate people and
increase freedom of speech.
Then, there is the fact that you are having a discussion with Americans, a
people who are supposed to be brought up in the culture of many freedoms, a
people who have been brought up in the belief that their society gains strength
from being diverse.
When you read the views of Americans on the Internet that discuss the Arab
Israeli conflict, all these perceptions about the US and Americans believing in
the love of freedom disappears.
The stance that most Americans have taken with regards to the Arab-Israeli
conflict can be summed up in a sentence: Israel is Gods Land and anybody who
disagrees with it deserves to be obliterated.
Its frightening to see the way in which the minds of a great people have
been limited in such a way. These are, after all, the people who are supposed
to be the anti-thesis of what Osama Bin Laden and his ilk stand for.
I am not anti-Jewish. I have Jewish friends and relatives who I love, respect
and admire. I do admire Israels achievements in making the desert bloom.
Israels scientists have made breakthroughs that made life better for humanity
as a whole. And yes, there is the fact that Israel is the homeland of a people
who have suffered immensely during World War II.
However, I take issue with Israels indiscriminate shelling of civilians in
the Palestinian territories and no one outside Israel and the US disagrees that
the invasion of Lebanon was open breach of human rights. What I find even more
worrying is the fact that the US actively uses its veto in the UN Security
Council to block any efforts by the international community to call these
actions what they actually are War Crimes against innocent civilians.
Thread after thread on this issue reads like this: Israel does not start its
conflicts and the casualties it inflicts are just unfortunate results of its
self-defense.
Lets look at the evidence this summers conflict in Lebanon. It started with
Hezbollah capturing two uniformed soldiers and it ended with Israel conducting
artillery shelling that resulted in hundreds of dead Lebanese civilians, at
least a thousand injured and half a million people displaced from their homes.
Read any Internet posting from a nonAmerican on the issue and you have the
same response Israels attack of Lebanon was inexcusable.
To Americans, it seems that the Arabs just got what they deserved for not
accepting Israel as Gods Land. I questioned this and asked one American
youth what type of God he worshiped if he allowed his Chosen People, to send
a helicopter gunship to take out Sheikh Yassin, an old man in a wheel chair. I
was accused of being a communist who was brainwashed into not realizing that
Israel is Gods country, and the Arabs have to understand that if they
disagreed with this, they would have their a** kicked by Israels superior
military power.
It seems that to many American minds, people like me dont understand the
situation in the Middle East and Gods design for the place. Im frightened by
the display of this mindset. America is after all the nation that saved the
freedom-loving world from the idea of the Master Race, in the 1940s. And yet,
here we are at the dawn of the new millennium, supposedly in more tolerant
world of American values triumphant and yet we have America with the support of
many of her people openly advocating the right of Gods Chosen, to do as they
please with others.
Why cant they see that a constructive dialogue on Israel is not a sign of
anti-Semitism? Are the people in the nation that has produced more Nobel
prizes than any other so incapable of understanding the difference between
criticism of policy and criticism of a race? Evidence seems to point that way
and that frightens me.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=89080&d=21&m=11&y=2006
---------------------------------
"My Verdict: The new Yahoo! Mail is far superior..." The Wall Street Journal.
