Posted on 07/15/2002 5:10:02 PM PDT by knighthawk
Over dinner on Sunday night at a Japanese restaurant off the much-bombed Jaffa Street in Jerusalem, Ofira Henig mentioned that she was leaving the next day for Berlin, Paris, and New York, in search of theatre companies to perform at next year's Israel Festival. When I said that sounded like pleasant work, she corrected me. She was dreading it. She knew that everywhere she went, people would pounce on her and demand that she explain why Ariel Sharon's government had re-occupied the Palestinian territories.
Insults from ignorant foreigners are not the heaviest of the burdens Israelis carry this year, but neither are they easy to bear. Anxious to rebuke Mr. Sharon, many intellectuals have decided to do it by punishing their Israeli counterparts. Among other things, that decision helped cripple the 2002 Israel Festival, Ms. Henig's first as artistic director. It took place in May and June, in the wake of the terrorist bombings and during the rise of anti-Israeli feeling in Europe. Five companies that had agreed to take part changed their minds. Three of them, from Italy, France and Belgium, withdrew after the program was printed and tickets sold. As a result, the biggest theatre in Jerusalem was dark for nine of the Festival's 19 nights.
Ms. Henig, like many Israelis with similar backgrounds, understands the irony in her position. She's a radical leftist who has often worked closely with Palestinian friends: "We grew up as artists together." She doesn't admire Mr. Sharon. Now she finds herself lectured by Europeans -- "even the Swiss!" -- who think they must explain Israel's realities to someone who lives with them every day.
Academic self-righteousness, never a pleasant thing to behold, has taken a particularly grotesque turn in this case. Certain European professors have in all seriousness compared the Sharon policy to both the Nazi Holocaust and South African apartheid. Apparently it is now permissible for a professor to say anything, no matter how obscene, against Israel; in certain academic circles, dislike of Israel has become so popular as to be almost mandatory.
So far as I know, the first signs of a cultural boycott appeared during the summer of 2001 in, of all places, Hobart, Tasmania. Michal Govrin, an Israeli novelist and poet, was scheduled to read at the Tasmanian Readers' and Writers' Festival in August. Suddenly, the Festival sent a letter withdrawing its invitation, explaining this action as a protest against the killing of Palestinian children. Ms.Govrin's admirers protested, and a Hobart newspaper supported her. The festival backed down and she went to Hobart, read from her novel The Name, and publicly discussed the attempt to erase her from the program. Nevertheless (as Ms.Govrin told me the other night) the professor directing the festival expressed her pique by rudely ignoring Ms.Govrin's presence.
European academics have set up two anti-Israeli petitions on the Internet, one calling for the boycott of Israeli scientific institutions, the other for breaking cultural links with Israel. So far, about 1,000 professors have signed on. The lists change constantly, but France has produced the most signatories. Many names on the petitions, though far from the majority, are Arabic. Some, countable in the dozens, are Jewish, including 10 from Israel. In Britain the notable anti-Israel signers include Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist, Victoria Glendinning, a popular biographer, and Ted Honderich, the Canadian-born philosophy professor. Only one gives a Canadian affiliation: Amini Massoud, a University of Saskatchewan mathematician.
If the subject were less tragic, we could enjoy this fresh proof that in academic life the combination of power-grabbing and impotence produces a vicious and ludicrous politics. Signers of the science petition proudly state: "I will attend no scientific conferences in Israel." (The ultimate punishment!)
An obscure University of Manchester professor, Mona Baker, has become famous by dropping Israeli professors from the boards of The Translator and Translation Studies Abstracts, two tiny publications she owns and edits. She's proud to have taken such an audacious stand. When criticized she says, "I'm damned if I'm going to be intimidated."
A counter-boycott statement has been gathering hundreds of signatures. Its manifesto rightly asks those blaming Israel to understand that it is responding to unacceptable violence, unleashed after Israel offered to end the conflict with a major compromise at Camp David in 2000. The manifesto predicts that boycotts will be self-defeating: "For the Israeli public, a boycott reinforces the perception that it must fend for itself. Within the Palestinian community, it sends the message to the non-compromising extremists that their strategy of violence is bearing fruit."
All this results from the world's bizarre habit of judging Israel by higher standards than those applied to any other nation and then condemning it where it fails to meet these standards. At the same time, the world has decided not only that the Palestinians are oppressed but also that they deserve about 100 times as much attention as all other oppressed peoples combined.
Perhaps a subtle reason lurks behind these opinions. Perhaps the world so loves Israel that anything less than perfection registers as the gravest sin. It seems likelier that many of those behind the boycotts have found new ways to express old-fashioned anti-Semitism and free themselves of national guilt over treatment of Jews in the past. Their tone suggests that they delight in the chance to hate Israel while simultaneously appearing virtuous.
Prior to 1948, Jews were allowed to settle anywhere on that land. Now is no different than then. Are you seriously suggesting that Palestinians should be able to keep Jews off "their" land while Jews must allow Palestinians in Israel?
I hate the fact that America has been dragged by Israel's lobby into taking Israel's side blah blah blah George Washington blah blah blah.
Why do you characterize it so? You do not see America's interest in making the decisions she has?
Why do you think we're on "Israel's side?". We aren't. We are for stability and prosperity. We are simply honoring our committments, which is to provide Egypt and Israel money for US made weapons in order to maintain stability. We pressure Israel to hold back from taking certain measures for the same reason.
Reiterating a sovereign nation's right to resist and counterattack those who make war against it does not mean we are "taking their side". And by refusing to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state run by a terrorist is not taking "Israel's side".
1. And ancient Israel came into being in the first place because it invaded 'Eretz Kena`an and killing and expelled de, 'ow you say, masses of rewolutionary indigenous Canaanite pipples. You certainly don't think there was anything wrong with that, do you? Oh, but maybe you think the ancient Jews were Israelites and the modern Jews are "Khazars."
2. Regardless of how long ago Israel was destroyed, is it or is it not Biblical prophecy that it must be reestablished? Is or is not the Jewish G-d the Creator and Ruler of the universe and everyone in it? Or are you one of those enlightenment rationalist types who gets his conservatism from reason and logic rather than Biblical revelation?
Someone insulted you by suggesting you leave the Republican party. Considering the low opinion of the Bible you show on this thread, I suggest you switch to the Communist party.
And I've been a Republican a lot longer than twenty pitiful years, pal.
Doubt it. But we here at Free Republic are a magnanimous lot and realize that you may have mistakenly wandered in here and would like to help you return to your village (they've been bitching and whining about how their idiot ran off):
Considering that Jews and Samaritans were a plurality in 619 and that the Muslim Arabs did not invade until about 640, you need to get a calculator. Try 1300 years. Even then they were not a majority until after the end of the Crusades.
All of the sudden people are in need to protest against Israel but totaly ignoring that Arab state are far worse.
That I call being blind.
Do you suppose that's what they want?
Is that your notion of justice? It seems people have to version of justice. One for the people they like and one for Israel.
I call that anti-Semitism. Not justice.
One day we will all be judged upon.
Genesis 12:
[1] Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: [2] And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: [3] And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
Why Israel Is The Victim And The Arabs Are The Indefensible Aggressors In the Middle East
The Myth Of The Palestinian People
-Ariel Sharon & Israel-- The myths of Sabra and Shatilla and the war in Lebanon --
-Online book debunking the "Sharon Terror story--
-Israel Arabs Palestinians THE BATTLE FOR TRUTH--
-Crash Course in Middle East History--
-Setting the Historical Record Straight--
Great concise explanation of 67 borders and UN res 242 here.
Isn't there enough land in Israel to accommodate Jewish Israelis? Jewish settlements are illegal because they violate the Fourth Geneva convention, which forbids the occupying power (Israel) from planting colonies of its nationals (Jewish settlers) in the territories it occupies.
Why do you characterize it so? You do not see America's interest in making the decisions she has?
No I don't. Our government's excessive support for Israel has made enemies and led to unnecessary war, death and destruction.
You are misinterpreting the Geneva convention. This is applicable when occupying sovereign land. Palestine is not sovereign, and the west bank is not part of any sovereign state. Therefore, the settlements are not illegal.
It's not my interpretation. I rely on the official position of the Conference of High Contracting Parties To the Fourth Geneva Convention held on July 15th, 1999:
The participating High Contracting Parties reaffirmed the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. Furthermore, they reiterated the need for full respect for the provisions of the said Convention in that Territory.
No. You rely on The participating High Contracting Parties. That is not all the parties, and specifically excludes those who refused to participate in the conference and/or the position statement.
Unfortunately, they are not a judicial body or an impartial trier of fact. They are a political block which makes decisions based on political considerations. Their pronouncements are not enforceable nor should they be considered fair and impartial considerations of all relevent facts.
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