Treat the apartheid slur - the "A-word" - like the "N-word"
Since Neve Gordon published his controversial Los Angeles Times op-ed "Boycott Israel" on August 20, critics have called for officials at Ben Gurion University, his academic home, to punish him or to risk losing donations. Cutting donations to a university because of an outspoken professor or suspending that professor for his views is as shortsighted and self-destructive as an Israeli citizen endorsing a boycott of his own country. Maybe I am perverse, but I relish these moments to demonstrate that Israel has freedom of speech and Israeli campuses have academic freedom - unlike their neighbors. At the same time, it is important to denounce Gordon and others for perpetuating the apartheid smear against Israel. Everyone who cares about peace in the Middle East and truth in the world must stop making the false comparisons between the difficult national conflict pitting Israelis against Palestinians and the ugly racist regime that discriminated against South Africans of color for decades. In his article, Gordon proclaims: "The most accurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state." This may be the trendiest, most politically correct, and most demeaning way to describe Israel today, but for a professor of politics to claim that it is "the most accurate way" is absurd. The unconscionable, inaccurate apartheid label insults anyone who supports the modern Jewish state of Israel as well as everyone who suffered under South Africa's evil apartheid system. 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. 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. The Anti-Racism Conference As It Should Have Been
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. Geneva is awash in the light green of early spring, nestled amid snowcapped mountains. Arriving from Israel, I found the city's tranquility surprising, until I remembered this was Sunday morning, not Monday. Still, the quiet set the tone for this first day, on the eve of what promises to be a tumultuous United Nations Review Conference on Racism, Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance beginning Monday (the UN shifted from Durban to Geneva hoping to avoid the riotous anti-Semitic atmosphere of Durban, 2001). Entering the city, I passed the Intercontinental Hotel, where Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is staying before addressing the conference Monday. Many Swiss citizens are urging their president not to shake Ahmadinejad's hand. "But," my taxi driver shrugged, "protocols must be followed." Open Letter to our Diaspora Affairs Minister
Dear Minister Yuli Edelstein, On April 5, Anshel Pfeffer welcomed you as Diaspora Affairs Minister with a bleak open letter in Ha'aretz, lamenting: "What a pity you've been given the emptiest brief of all in Netanyahu's mammoth cabinet." Pfeffer called your portfolio useless and toothless, with no budget, status, or clear mandate. I disagree. Of course I wish you had a huge war chest and a clear mission. But there is such a vacuum of leadership in this area, and such a pressing need for visionary statesmanship, you can accomplish much as a public leader. Jews in Israel and the Diaspora are thirsting for inspiration. The Minister of Israel-Diaspora Affairs is essentially responsible for promoting, fulfilling - and at this historical juncture - reviving Zionism. You have what American President Theodore Roosevelt called a "bully pulpit" to complete this important task. Good luck with it. Why I am a Zionist
Today, too many friends and foes define Israel, and Zionism, by the Arab world's hostility. Doing so misses Israel's everyday miracles, the millions who live and learn, laugh and play, in the Middle East's only functional democracy. Doing so ignores the achievements of Zionism, a gutsy, visionary movement which rescued a shattered people by reuniting a scattered people. Doing so neglects the transformative potential of Zionism, which could inspire new generations of Israeli and Diaspora Jews to find personal redemption by redeeming their old-new communal homeland. Tragically, Zionism is embattled. Arabs have demonized Zionism as the modern bogeyman, and many have clumped Zionists, along with Americans and most Westerners, as the Great Satans. In Israel, trendy post-Zionists denigrate the state which showers them with privilege, while in the Diaspora a few Jewish anti-Zionists loudly curry favor with the Jewish state's enemies. Jews should reaffirm their faith in Zionism; the world should appreciate its many accomplishments. Zionists must not allow their enemies to define and slander the movement. |
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