'Queers against Israel' - are gays blinded by hypocrisy?
How could hatred of Israel be so intense that it blinds people to what they usually perceive as their most basic self-interest? This past Sunday in Montreal, a few dozen marchers in the 2009 Montreal LGBTA Gay Pride parade marched against what they called "Israeli Apartheid." Witnesses reported that many onlookers cheered these anti-Israel ideologues as they paraded by. Similarly, in late June in Toronto 180 protesters from "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid" (QuAIA) marched in an attempt to "reignite Toronto's queer community in the fight against apartheid," which is the latest trendy accusation against Israel. These antics take anti-Zionism to an absurd extreme. As I argued in a Montreal Gazette op-ed the day of the parade, identifying as "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid" defies logic, perverts history and distorts priorities. It reflects such hatred against Israel that maligning Zionism overrides all other causes, including gay liberation; it eclipses all identities, including one's sexual identity. The dirty little secret QuAIA must suppress is that Israel is the safest refuge in the Middle East for persecuted homosexuals, including Palestinians. Defending Israel is not Smearing Obama or Bullying Mary Robinson
Just as savvy lawyers teach their associates to pound the table harder the weaker their argument becomes, Israel's critics are accusing its defenders of "smear" tactics and "bullying." In the toxic atmosphere which pollutes Middle East discourse, rife with accusations about super-powerful Jews doing their dirty work through the omnipotent "Jewish lobby," Israel's defenders are frequently put on the defensive. These unfair, hysterical accusations undermine the democratic discourse essential to governing effectively, especially in a complicated, messy policy arena such as the Middle East. Let's face it, no one wants to be accused of McCarthyite tactics, and few people have the stomach these days to be on the wrong side of Barack Obama and his minions. People who dare criticize the American president get the kind of treatment Marc Stanley, the chairman of the National Jewish Democratic Council, meted out in The Jerusalem Post this week. Honoring Mary Robinson, Obama honors appeasement of anti-Semitism
In the latest example of President Barack Obama's utter and complete tone-deafness regarding Jewish sensibilities, the White House has announced that Mary Robinson will be one of sixteen recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States. While Robinson has had a distinguished career as the President of Ireland and a human rights activist, she has also displayed a consistent anti-Israel animus. Most disturbing, she was one of the people most responsible for the great debacle at Durban, 2001, when a conference convened to fight racism became a UN-sponsored hate-fest against Jews. At a time when Barack Obama should be honoring Winston Churchills in the fight against anti-Semitism, he has chosen a Neville Chamberlain, someone who appeased the haters at Durban and in the UN again and again, until it was too late. Taliban Judaism does not work in modern world
Once again haredim held massive, violent demonstrations over the opening of a parking lot on Shabbat near the Old City. Somehow, some bizarre rabbinic dispensation allows haredi radicals to launch their own unholy war on Shabbat, desecrating it by rioting. Other controversies regarding conversion and appointing Zionist chief rabbis for Jerusalem feed perceptions of a "religious-secular" divide. Actually, the push for a Zionist chief rabbi proves this is not a religious-secular issue but a clash pitting violent haredi radicals against patriotic Zionists. In this struggle, Orthodox Jews from around the world and Religious Zionists in Israel must stand strong. Those two (overlapping) communities must send a clear message to the haredi radicals, saying "back off." The message must be reinforced by religious Zionists fighting for quality of life in the State of Israel as ardently as many fight for every inch of the Land of Israel and by Orthodox Jews threatening to cut off donations to all haredi institutions if haredi violence persists. My Jerusalem jogging track
Almost every morning, I walk my children to school in Baka, in south-central Jerusalem, then jog toward the Old City. I jog 35 to 45 minutes. But I journey through thousands of years, celebrating Jerusalem, the Jewish people's eternal capital and the spiritual focal point for billions. Doctors debate if jogging is good for your body; my Jerusalem jogging track uplifts my soul. In Baka, I enjoy the jumble of houses and the mix of people. The Anglo and French immigrants-by-choice often live in the renovated houses. Many older neighbors arrived after Arab countries expelled them in the 1950s. Today, they are citizens, not perpetual refugees. I appreciate the flat, lush terrain amid the hills of the Judean Desert, especially in the stately German Colony. Obama at 100 days
Barack Obama has just completed his first hundred days as president, an artificial benchmark rooted in Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. John Kennedy proved more successful than his first hundred days suggested, marred as they were by the aborted Bay of Pigs attack against Cuba. George W. Bush's presidency ended less successfully than it began. Still, a presidential character starts forming during this honeymoon, while story lines emerge that determine a president's destiny. Obama's greatest challenge has been saving America's economy, but he cannot ignore foreign policy. Domestically, Obama wants to match Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, presidents who restored hope, revived the economy, and redefined Americans' relationship with government - in this case correcting Reagan's anti-government drift. Regarding foreign policy, Obama appears to follow Theodore Roosevelt with a twist. TR advised: "Speak softly and carry a big stick." So far - and the presidency remains young - Obama is speaking softly to enemies, treating friends coolly and carrying a medium-sized stick. Israeli 6th graders learn hope, not hate
On Monday, just before Yom Hazikaron, Israel's Remembrance Day, and shortly after I returned from the Durban Review Conference in Geneva, I was invited to talk about Durban to my son's 6th grade class in Jerusalem. He attends a Dati-Mamlachti, religious public school, Efrata, in Baka. I have spoken to elementary school classes at various Jewish day schools in Montreal over the years, so I have some sense of what kids this age know and don't know about current events, and about Israel. What shocked me - and then in many ways impressed me - (beyond their excellent, polite behavior throughout the class) was how shocked so many of the sixth graders in Jerusalem were by the depth of anti-Israel hatred on display at the Durban II conference. Message at Durban: I am a Zionist and proud of it
DURBAN DIARY Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University and the author of Why I Am A Zionist: Israel Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today. He is attending the Durban Review conference as an observer. After four days in the Durban Review conference's upside down, bad-is-good Orwellian world, my soul hurts. Here in Geneva, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is lionized, despite his genocidal threats toward Israel and the United States, despite his regime's sexism and homophobia, despite his government's suppression of dissidents, while Israel is demonized, despite its peaceful aspirations. Here, absolute dictatorships like Libya, Saudi Arabia and Syria condemn imperfect democracies like the US, Canada and Israel. Amid this travesty, my soul hurts as a Jew, because I reject this libel that Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, is racist. Remembering the Holocaust after Ahmadinejad denied it
DURBAN DIARY Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University and the author of Why I Am A Zionist: Israel Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today. He is attending the Durban Review conference as an observer. Thanks to tremendous prep work by the Jewish community along with human rights organizations and democracies ashamed by Durban I, Durban II has been mild. Despite the undercurrent of hostility - and the occasional security threat -- the UN's move from Durban to Geneva worked. The NGO delegates' lounge has the festive schmoozy air of any conference. The streets have been relatively quiet. Ahmadinejad's antics, the UN's perversity
DURBAN DIARY Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University and the author of Why I Am A Zionist: Israel Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today. He is attending the Durban Review conference as an observer. "The UN really is a beautiful thing," I thought as I waited to pass through security at UN headquarters in Geneva. I was standing in a living, breathing poster for multiculturalism, amid delegates of different colors, from different cultures, representing different countries. My reverie was interrupted when the security guards pulled aside one delegate just ahead of me from an Arab country. Emblazoned on the folder he used to carry his papers was the slogan ZIONISM IS RACISM, with a swastika added for good measure. This, alas, is the reality of the modern UN. The great betrayal comes from hijacking noble ideals as a masquerade to obscure harsh hatred. Casually walking around with a 'Zionism is Racism' folder reflects an identity of negation, built around hate, rather than around something positive. This is modern Palestinian nationalism's great tragedy - and crime. |
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