This might help you with some facts...(it's long, but if you're interested in the reality, please take the time to read it)Debunking25 left-wing and Arab myths from a left-wing Arab perspective
APRIL24, 2018, 5:04 PM 15
Fred MarounFred Maroun is a Canadian of Araborigin who lived in Lebanon until 1984
Left-wing and Arab enemies of Israel make a numberof accusations that they repeat as if they were facts. Here I take apart thosemyths from a left-wing Arab perspective.
I summarize the facts, but I include many links toother articles that provide further background. Some of the articles referencedare mine, where I reference serious sources not considered pro-Israel,including Haaretz, BBC, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The New York Times,CNN, and The Huffington Post. I also reference pro-Israel sources that areknown for their journalistic integrity, including The Times of Israel, TheJerusalem Post, and The Gatestone Institute.
This article is not for everyone.It is intended only for a narrow audience: People who are willing to base theiropinions on facts and not lies. Others are kindly advised tostay away, lest they be contaminated by facts that they would rather continueignoring.
1. “Israel can end the conflictby withdrawing from the “West Bank””
I would welcome the creation of aPalestinian state, but I would be lying if I said that the possibility isrealistic under current conditions. Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, and theresulting transformation of Gaza into a terrorist base shows what happens whenIsrael withdraws unconditionally. Since Israel left Gaza in 2005, manythousands of rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel and many tunnelswere built to try to infiltrate Israel. As reported by Haaretz in 2014, an online clock timer showed “how much time has passed since the last rocket was fired; Sadly, this counter never really gets above an hour”.
Israel cannot afford to make thesame mistake in Judea & Samaria (the correct name for the “West Bank”) whichis much closer to Israel’s large cities than Gaza is. If Israel withdrew fromJudea & Samaria unconditionally, it is virtuallycertain thatthe newly evacuated land would be controlled by terrorists dangerously hostileto Israel. Until Arabs agree to a reasonable solution that provides Israel thesecurity it requires, Israel’s military presence in Judea & Samariais fully justified, and even as an Arab, if I wantto be honest with myself, I have no choice but to support it.
2. “Israel keeps stealingPalestinian land”
Israel’svictories in defensive wars do not constitute stealing land. The land of Israel that is withinthe armistice lines resulting from the 1948 war (and usually referred to as theGreen Lines) was legitimately acquired by Israel in a war of self-defence.Judea & Samaria and Gaza were also legitimately acquired by Israel inanother war of self-defence in 1967 when several Arab armies congregated aroundIsrael with the objective of destroying it. Israel later gave back the vastmajority of that land in a peace agreement with Egypt, it voluntarilyrelinquished Gaza, and it voluntarily agreed to allow the Palestinian Authorityto administer a large part of Judea & Samaria, referred to as areas A andB. What disturbs me as an Arab is that Arabs have at every turn made the wrongdecisions, leaving them with less land, and even now that the Palestinians havehad a chance to show their administrative capability in Gaza and parts of Judea& Samaria, they transformed Gaza into a terrorist base and they choseto fund terrorism in Judea & Samaria.
3. “Gaza is an open-air prison /under siege”
When Israel voluntarily left Gazain 2005 under the hawkish Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and evacuated all Israelsettlements, it imposed no blockade on Gaza. Even the anti-Israel AlJazeera admits that the blockade “has beenin place since Hamas violently took over power from Fatah in 2007”, two yearsafter Israel’s withdrawal. The blockade was imposed by Israel and Egypt onlyafter the Hamas authority in Gaza started attacking Israel. The purpose of theblockade is to stop Hamas and other terrorist groups from obtaining weaponswith which to attack Israel. The legitimacy of the blockade was even recognized bythe United Nations, notusually known as a friend of Israel since it is controlled by a majority ofcountries hostile to the Jewish state.
A siege is defined as surroundingand attacking a fortified place in such a way as to isolate it from help andsupplies, for the purpose of lessening the resistance of the defenders andthereby making capture possible. This concept does not apply to Israel’sblockade on Gaza since Israel provides for the regular transfer of non-militarygoods into Gaza from Israel and through Israel, even when Israel is under attack fromGaza. Every day, “an average of 800 trucks enterthe Gaza Strip carrying food, medical equipment, fuel, building materials,agricultural inputs, textile products and more”.
In 2005, the Palestinians of Gaza had a choice.They could have used their newly acquired freedom to build a strong economy inthat coastal and fertile land, or they could have used that freedom to fightIsrael. The fact that they chose the latter is not Israel’s responsibility, andit is not too late for Gaza’s Palestinians to choose a different path. As anArab, I hope that they do so for their own sake.
4. “Israel is an apartheid/raciststate”
Israeli laws and police practicesdo not give preference to any race. All ethnicities, including Arabs, are treated equally. Freedom of religion is alsoguaranteed and strictly enforced, and so is protection ofholy sitesof allreligions. One proof that Israel values diversity is its fast growingMuslim population. The onlypreference given to Jews is that Jews have an unlimited right of return toIsrael, under the Law of Return, which is understandable considering that oneof the reasons Israel exists is to be a haven for Jews who are persecutedelsewhere. Any of many Muslim and Christian countries, some of which are veryrich, could provide such a law for Muslims or Christians if they so wished, butnone of them do. Israel should be praised by leftists like me for ignoringrace, gender, level of education, and economic background in order to acceptand support any Jews who wish to return to Israel.
Israel also guarantees freedom ofassembly, movement, and voting to all citizens, which include Arabs. There area dozen Arabs in the Knesset (Parliament) and an Arab judge of the SupremeCourt. Further, Arabs are very well represented in Israeli universities, bothamong students and staff. As a left-wing Arab who knows the level of bigotryand racism that exists in the Arab world, Israel is a breath of freshair. I want the samefor us!
5. “The “West Bank” is an evenworse apartheid”
Judea & Samaria is indeed anapartheid system, but to thedisadvantage of Jews, not ofArabs. Arabs can live and travel anywhere in Judea & Samaria, althoughArabs who do not hold Israeli citizenship cannot live in the 1% of Judea &Samaria that consists of Jewish communities, and they must have a securitypermit to visit. Jews, on the other hand, can only live in that 1% and cannoteven travel to large portions that are controlled by the Palestinian Authority(PA). Overall, Arabs have far more rights and far fewer restrictions in Judea& Samaria than do Jews. The ban on Jews in PA-controlled areasreflects the Arab world’s attitude towards Jews since Arabs countries haveexpelled practically all Jews they once had.
As a left-wing Arab, I think that the Arabinability to accept Jews among them is shameful and counter-productive.Religious and ethnic diversity is an asset, not a weakness.
6. “Jewish settlements in the“West Bank” are illegal”
There are reasonable legalopinions on both sides of the question of whether Jewish settlements in Judea& Samaria are illegal, but there is no dispute on one fact, which is thatthe Arab deportations of Jews from Judea & Samaria during the war of 1948were illegal and even criminal. The return of Jews to that land is only fair,and there is no reasonable rationale as to why Jews in Judea &Samaria should not bewelcome withina Palestinian state if such a state was formed on that land, unless one is toaccept that Arabs areincapable ofliving peacefully with Jews.
As an Arab, I know that many ifnot most individual Arabs are capable of living peacefully with Jews. If Arabregimes are not capable of it, Jews should not be the ones punished by beingbanned from settling on land that has a Jewish history that is far deeper than anyPalestinian history.
7. “It is the Israel-Palestinianconflict”
At the time when Israel gainedindependence in 1948, those who referred to themselves as Palestinians were the Jews. ZuheirMoshan, PLO Commander from 1971 to 1979 said, “The Palestinian people does notexist. The creation of a Palestine state is only a means for continuing ourstruggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity.” But even if we accepta distinct Arab Palestinian identity, it is very clear that the conflict is notbetween Israelis and Palestinian, but between the entire Arab world and theJews, as indicated by the Arab world’s refusal toaccept the1947 UN partition plan that gave the Jews a tiny state where they had only aslight majority.
Arabs had a choice from thestart, and they still do: accept the Jewish stateand benefit fromIsrael’scontributions to the Middle East, or fight the Jews tooth and nail. It isunfortunate for Arabs like me that they chose the latter. The Arab worldis very slowly moving towards acceptance of Israel, but we are not there yet,and the support that the Arab world still provides to the Palestinianextremists in continuing the conflict is an important obstacle to itsresolution.
8. “Trump caused Arabs to riot inJerusalem”
The attacks on Jews in Jerusalemdate back to long before US President Donald Trump was involved in politics. Inthe war of 1948, Israel barely retained part of Jerusalem, theJewish residents were forcibly exiled from the portion that the Arabs occupied,and Jewish religious sites were destroyed anddesecrated. Afterthe war of 1967 during which Israel took back all of Jerusalem and annexedit, no Arabs weredeported by Israel, andIsrael even voluntarily granted Jordan guardianship of “Haram al-Sharif”, theIslamic holy site on the Temple Mount.
Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grandmufti of Jerusalem at the time, made the claim in 1929 that the Jews wished todestroy Al Aqsa Mosque, causing a massacre of Jews by Arabs. Israel clearly has the militarycapability today to destroy Al Aqsa Mosque if it wished to do so, but it doesnot, yet that lie is still repeated, and it is the cause of Muslim riots.
Trump’sdeclaration on Jerusalem was simply the recognition of a fact. Trump, in my opinion, didnot go far enough, and should have declared Jerusalemindivisible andfully part of Israel; a position that Barack Obama expressed six months beforehe became President. Arabs like myself who are truly concerned about preservingall religious sites and all religious rights in Jerusalem are quite pleasedwith Israel’s administration of Jerusalem.
9. “Israel threatens Lebanon”
As a Lebanese person, I want whatis best for Lebanon, and that would be peace with Israel. Israel has absolutely nointerest andhas never had any interest in occupying or threatening any part of Lebanon. Itsonly interest has been to prevent terrorist attacks from Lebanese soil, firstby the PLO then by Hezbullah. It is the Hezbullah-controlled Lebanon that insists on maintaining a state of war with Israel, and that state of war does not benefit the Lebanese people. It only benefits Hezbullah and its Iranian master by giving Hezbullah an excuse to remain armed and to maintain an illegitimate control over Lebanese institutions.
10. “Israel is run by aright-wing government that is no better than Hamas”
The analogiesbetween Hamas and Israel’s Likud party are nothing more than a dishonest attempt todemonize Israel. Israel has accepted, and even initiated, on several occasions,partition plans that would have seen the creation of a Palestinian state nextto Israel. Many Israelis today typically vote for right-wing parties due totheir doubt that the PA will ever agree to a reasonable peace plan. However,even the current Israeli government, which is a coalition of mostly right-wingparties, has consistently requested to negotiate peace with the Palestinians,whereas the PA has consistently refused. Israeli Prime Minister BenjaminNetanyahu even released hardened terrorists in an attempt tokick-start peacetalks, and as an Arab who opposes terrorism, I thought he went too far, but itis certainly a proof of his commitment to peace. Before him, Menachem Beginnegotiated peace with Egypt, and Ariel Sharon withdrew unconditionally fromGaza; both were considered hawkish right-wing Prime Ministers.
Palestinian authorities, on theother hand, continue to encourageterrorism andto refuse to pursue peace. That is the real obstacle to peace.
The Netanyahu government isright-wing by Israeli and Western standards, but it is in fact far to the leftof any Arab regime, including on the issue of peace. Left-wing people, as wellas peaceful Arabs, have every reason tosupport Israel, and noreasonable excuse for opposing it.
11. “Israel commits genocideagainst Palestinians”
This is the most absurd of allthe myths. The populations of Palestinians in Gaza and Judea &Samaria keep growing by record numbers. Even theMa’an News Agency, a Palestinian news agency, reported in 2011 that sinceIsrael’s independence in 1948, the Palestinian population had grown 8-fold; this is an average of 3.4%yearly growth rate, far higher than the average world population growth,which varied between0.8% and 2.1% duringthe same period. If Israel is attempting to massacre Palestinians, it is themost ineffective genocide in history. Yet we know that Israel’s military ispowerful and extremely effective. Israel has clearly never shown anyinclination towards genocide.
But even though the accusation is easy to refute,enemies of Israel repeat it anyway because they know that it deeply pains manyJews who still carry the scars of the Holocaust and who have pledged that“Never Again” would genocides be allowed to take place. As a left-wing Arab, Iam deeply embarrassed that my fellow leftists and Arabs sink so low as to makethis highly callous and calculated accusation.
12. “If some Palestinians behavebadly, it is out of desperation”
There are hundreds of groups worldwide that areactively seeking independence and typically under far worse conditions and withfar fewer options than the Palestinians. Those include Armenians in Azerbaijan;the Jumma people and the Bengali Hindus in Bengladesh; a dozen different groupsin Burma; Mongolians, Tebetans, and Uyghurs in China; Abkhazians, Ossetians,and Armenians in Georgia; seven groups in India; and many others over allcontinents. If any of these groups was offered a state, as Palestinians wereoffered several times already, it is highly unlikely that it would have turnedit down, yet terrorism is typically a very rare occurrence among those groups.
Palestinians have been mistreatedand continue to be mistreated byArab regimes, andthey face apartheid in Arab states (which, asan Arab, I am ashamed of), and some may be understandably frustrated that theydo not yet have an independent state, but they receive extensive supportand funding, and they do not face any sortof genocide at the hands of Israel. Compared to practically any other groupthat seeks statehood, Palestinians have far less reason to feel desperate, yetthey are extensively involved in terrorism. Hamas even admits to targeting civilianswhile predictably claiming to have excuses to do it.
Palestinians have had manychoices to make over the last 70 years, and they have far too often made the wrong ones. Palestinian terrorism continuesin fact because Palestinians are not desperate and can afford, due tointernational aid, to hold off onaccepting any solution until they can get what their terrorist organizations have alwaysopenly demanded – the destruction of the Jewish state.
13. “Israel created thePalestinian refugee crisis”
There would not be a singlePalestinian refugee today if the Arab world had accepted the 1947 UN partitionplan, which Israel did. Both Jewish and Arab refugees resulted from a war thatIsrael did not want but the Arab world imposed on Israel. While the Israel-Arabconflict generated 711,000 Palestinian refugees, it alsogenerated 856,000Jewish refugees from Arab lands. The Jewish refugees were absorbed by othercountries, mostly Israel, but the Arab world refused to absorb Arab refugees,keeping them in camps with limited rights. As an Arab, I regret that the Arabworld lost the richness of diversity that Jewish Arabs offered, and I am angrythat the Arab world uses Palestinian refugees as pawns against Israel.
In 1952, the UNRWA (UnitedNations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees) director, Sir AlexanderGalloway, put it bluntly when he said, “It is perfectly clear that theArab nations do not want to solve the Arab refugee problem. They want to keepit as an open sore, as an affront against the United Nations and as a weaponagainst Israel. Arab leaders don’t give a damn whether the refugees live ordie.” The Arab world, not Israel, created the Palestinian refugee crisis andensured that 70 years later, it is still not resolved. Imagine if Canada,70 years after a Syrian refugee came here, he, his children, grand-children, andgrand-grand-children were still considered refugees and had much less rightsthan citizens? There is no doubt that it would be denounced as racism andxenophobia, yet the Arab world gets away with the same crime when it comes toPalestinians.
14. “The conflict is a disputeover land”
Israel is less than 0.2% of thesize of the Arab world, not to mention other enemies of Israel such as Iran.When the Arab world refused the 1947 UN partition plan, Israel was even tinier andeven more fragmented. Theconflict has never been about land but about Arabs rejecting Jewishself-determination in the Middle East. After the 1967 war during which Israeltook a significant amount of land in a war of self-defence, Israel sought toreturn land for peace, but the Arab world’s response was three Nos: no peace, no negotiations, andno recognition of Israel.
Why are my fellow Arabs so afraid of one tinyJewish neighbour? I never understood that.
15. “Zionists are the new Nazis”
Like the accusation of genocide,this accusation is easy to refute and is mainly meant to bring back painful memoriesfor Jews. Nazism was marked by two significant aspects: Military expansionismand a form of racism/bigotry that led to the coldblooded murder of ten millionnon-combatants, including six million Jews. But Israel is not engaged in anyracist activity and even less in any genocide. Israel’s wars were alwaysundertaken in self-defence to stop military and terrorist attacks. Any landacquired by Israel was legitimate under the laws of war, and Israel has alreadyreturned the vast majority of that land (most notably the Sinai which alone ismore than double the size of Israel) in exchange for peace, and it would havereturned even more if Syriaand the Palestinians had agreed to peaceagreements that Israel was willing to accept.
In addition to the Jews not being“the new Nazis”, what disturbs me most as an Arab is that it is in fact thePalestinians who in the past had ties to Nazis and who today, as explainedby Palestinian writer Bassam Tawil, behave in ways that are similar to the Nazis.
16. “Even Jews think that Israelis a terrorist state”
Some naïve Jews feel guilty overaccusations that Zionism is a modern form of Nazism, and a few are simplyantisemitic.However, the number of Jews who buy the dishonest anti-Zionist rhetoric is verysmall and very marginal. They are a convenient tool in the hands of Israel’senemies, so they are quoted often and their importance is magnified well beyondtheir numbers. Their existence, in fact, demonstrates the democratic nature ofIsrael and the Jewish community. The Arab world, on the other hand, toleratesno dissent from imposed opinions.
In Lebanon, my country of origin,it is even illegal tocommunicate inany fashion with an Israeli. Because of my support forpeace with Israel, I cannever visit my own native country.
17. “Israel targets civilians andchildren”
When civilians or children areunintentionally killed in IDF operations, it is front-page news all over theworld, resulting in very negative publicity for Israel. Israel gains nothingfrom killing Palestinian civilians, but Palestinian terrorist organizationsgain world sympathy, which is why they often place civilians in dangerouspositions during conflicts with Israel. Israel goes to great extents to avoid civiliancasualties. When civilians are killed, it is in spite ofIsrael’s best efforts, notbecause of them.
Those who mistreat Palestinianchildren are in fact the Palestinian authorities who teach themhatred towardsJews and Israel, thus ensuring that the conflict can never be resolvedpeacefully.
The targeting of Israeli civiliansby Palestinian terrorists is largely ignored by mainstream media, but even moresurprisingly, while some courageous Arabs such as Khaled Abu Toameh and Bassam Tawiloften raise the issue of Palestinian terrorists’ violence and abuse against Palestinian civilians and children, the mainstream media ignores that too. As an Arab, I believe that this is a form of racism against Arabs, indicating that the world neither expects much from Arabs nor cares about their wellbeing.
18. “Israel is an imperialistproject”
Jews are aboriginal people to theland of Israel. They are the ones who have been victims of imperialism. Theysuffered many massacres, including two sieges ofJerusalem by the Romans (63 BC and 37 BC), massacres by the Romans (4-6 BC, 36,66, 115-117, and 132-136), the siege of Jerusalem by the Persians (614), themassacres by Christians (605 and 1099), the Hebron and Safed attacks by Kurdsand Muslims (1517), the destructions of Tiberias and Safed by the Druze andArabs (1660), the siege of Jaffa by the French army (1799), the Hebron massacreby the Egyptians (1834), the attack on Safed by the Druze and Arabs (1838), TheArab attacks on Petach Tikva (1886), the riots in Jerusaleminstigated the Grand Mufti (1920), the Jaffa Arab riots (1921), the Arab Riots in Safed (1929), the Hebron massacre instigatedby the Grand Mufti (1929), the Great Arab Revolt (1936-1939), and the Tiberius massacre byArabs (1938). As a result of thesemassacres, many Jews were forced to flee.
As an Arab, it is my duty to recognize the Arabresponsibility in several of these massacres, and I wish that other Arabs didthe same rather than fabricate claims of imperialism. The Zionist project ofallowing Jews to return to their land is in fact the opposite of an imperialistproject. It is an attempt to reverse in a small way centuries of imperialistattacks on the Jews. Of course, the dead and their potential descendants cannever be brought back, but Israel allows the descendants of the Jews whosurvived to return to the land that they should never have been forced toleave.
19. “Israeli Jews are European”
Some of Israel’s Jews haveEuropean lineage, but it would be false to say that all or even most of themdo. There are a little over 6 million Jews in Israel today. Many of them areJewish refugees from Arab lands or their descendants. We know that there were originally711,000 Palestinian refugees, and the UNRWA claimed in January 2015that living refugees and their descendants total 5 million people. It islogical then to assume that from the original 856,000 Jewish refugees from Arablands, we now have at least 5 million Jewish refugees and descendants. By thatestimate, Arab Jews make up the majority of the six million Israeli Jews. Thereare also many Israeli Jews who are descendants of Jews who never left the landof Israel. Even among the Israeli Jews whose ancestors lived in Europe, theonly ones who would have no Middle Eastern blood are those who converted toJudaism, but conversion to Judaism is relatively rare since Jews, unlikeMuslims and Christians, do notproselytize.
Israel’s official numbersfrom 2015 showthe following counts based on paternal country of origin for a total of 6.3million Israeli Jews:
· Israel:2.8 million.
· Africa:0.9 million.
· Russia:0.9 million.
· Asia: 0.7million.
· Europe:0.7 million.
· Americaand Oceania: 0.3 million.
In addition, implying that Israelis who emigrated fromEurope to Israel are somehow less worthy than Israelis who have been in theMiddle East for generations is offensive. As an Arab who immigrated to Canada,I would not want Canadians to consider me or other Arab Canadians any lessworthy of being here than those who were born here. That’s what we immigrantscall xenophobia.
20. “Jews have no right to havetheir own state”
The Jewish state has at least asmuch the right to exist as any other state on earth. Jews have a continuoushistory ofover 3000 years in the land of Israel, despite being repeatedly massacred andforced to flee. If the Jewish people is not allowed to be independent on thatland then no people should be allowed to be independent anywhere. How could Idemand that my fellow Lebanese be independent if I can’t accept theindependence of another people? The reality is that rejecting the Jewishpeople’s right to self-determination cannot be described as anything otherthan antisemitism, regardless of whether the person rejecting that right is an Arab like me or a leftist European.
21. “Europe supported Zionismbecause of guilt over the Holocaust”
The reverse is in fact true: Europe’s support forZionism, although always weak, was stronger before the Holocaust than duringand after the Holocaust.
The First Zionist Congress tookplace in 1869, 64 years before the Nazi party came to power in Germany.Britain’s BalfourDeclarationsupporting“the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”occurred in 1917, two decades before the start of the Holocaust, but instead ofhelping Zionists, Britain imposed restricted immigration of Jews throughthe White Papers of 1922, 1930, and 1939,even while the Holocaust was taking place in Europe.
An embargo wasimposed bythe United States and supported by Europe on the sale of weapons to Israel andthe Palestinian Arabs, starting in December 1947, soon after the United Nationsannounced a partition plan for Palestine. The embargo did not prevent Arabsfrom obtaining weapons, but it severely affected Israel which was able tosurvive only due to secret sales of armaments from Czechoslovakia, with the quiet approval of theSoviet Union. None of the countries that should have felt guilt for theHolocaust, most notably Germany, helped Israel get established or survive theArab onslaught.
22. “Israel’s support for LGBTrights is a cover for its crimes”
Israel’s support for LGBTrights should bepraised, notdemonized. Accusations of “pinkwashing” are in fact themselves a smokescreenfor supporting Israel’s enemies who consistently use terrorism and hatred to ensure that the conflict continues.
As a left-wing Arab, I have supported LGBT rightsall my life and I have always been disturbed by the fact that LGBT rights arepractically non-existent in the Arab world. Instead of denouncing Israel’ssupport for LGBT rights, leftists should show their support for Arabs bydemanding that Arab states emulate Israel.
23. “The BDS movement is areasonable response to Israel”
The boycott-divestment-sanctions(BDS) movement is not an appropriate response to Israel because Israel’sactions are lawful and justified. The BDS movement – founded by Omar Barghouti who opposes the concept of a Jewishstate – is in fact detrimental to peace, and it is drivenby antisemitism not by peaceful idealism. Even if we ignore the anti-Semitism widely promoted by BDS advocates on university campuses, social media, and elsewhere, the stated demands of the BDS movement aloneshow the truth about the BDS movement. The BDS movement presents an image ofrespectability, but that is far from thetruth. Since,its objectives, if achieved, would result in the killing of Jews andthe return of the remaining Jews to the stateless and precarious status thatthey had before May 1948, the BDS movement represents an anti-Semitism at parwith Hamas.
As an Arab who would like to see the Arab worldbecome modern, liberal, democratic, and innovative, I would like to seeexchanges between Israel and its neighbors, and lots of it, including trade,tourism, economic cooperation, cultural exchanges, and much more.
24. “Hatred of Israel is okaybecause anti-Zionism is not antisemitism”
Hatred of an entire people isnever justified, and it is particularly wrong in the case of hatred of Israelbecause it is very clearly based onantisemitism andnot on legitimate reasons. The related claim that Arabs cannot be antisemiticbecause they are Semites is a deflection based on a misleading andfalse interpretation ofthe term antisemitism. As explained by EncyclopediaBritannica, “The term anti-Semitism was coined in 1879 by the German agitator Wilhelm Marr to designate the anti-Jewish campaigns under way in central Europe at that time”. Anti-Zionism is in factantisemitism, whetherthe person holding the belief is an Arab like me, a leftist like me, orneither.
25. “Israel is the cause ofconflicts in the Middle East”
Israel’s enemies have accusedIsrael of initiating or encouraging conflicts to divert attention from itself.They have accused Israel for example of supporting ISIS. None of theseaccusations have ever been supported by credible evidence. The reality is thatthe Middle East has been involved in wars and conquests for many centuries. TheJews were several times massacred and expelled. Middle Eastern wars have a longhistory and were caused by several factors unrelated to Israel, including thetwo world wars, Shia/Sunni rivalry, Turkish imperialism, Roman imperialism, Persianimperialism,the Muslim empires, European imperialism, and tribalism.
Israel on the other hand, has only had oneobjective, existing in peace, which it has so far not been allowed to do. As anArab who would like to be able to visit my native country Lebanon without riskof being jailed because I communicate with Israelis, peace cannot come soonenough.
