Justice in Palestine week at UCSD
Ron Evans
Updated May 2019; May 2011 version published at
SPME
Justice in Palestine week treats the UCSD community each May
to a stunning display of Israel-bashing. It goes so far beyond
legitimate criticism of Israel that it satisfies Natan Sharansky's
three criteria for the "new antisemitism". Sharansky described these
criteria in 2004 as follows
[1]
:
Whereas classical anti-Semitism is aimed at the Jewish people or the
Jewish religion, "new anti-Semitism" is aimed at the Jewish state.
Since this anti-Semitism can hide behind the veneer of legitimate
criticism of Israel, it is more difficult to expose.
Making the task even harder is that this hatred is advanced in the
name of values most of us would consider unimpeachable, such as human rights.
Nevertheless, we must be clear and outspoken in exposing the new
anti-Semitism. I believe that we can apply a simple test -
I call it the "3D" test - to help us distinguish legitimate
criticism of Israel from anti-Semitism.
The first "D" is the test of demonization. When the Jewish state is
being demonized; when Israel's actions are blown out of all sensible
proportion; when comparisons are made between Israelis and Nazis and
between Palestinian refugee camps and Auschwitz - this is anti- Semitism,
not legitimate criticism of Israel.
The second "D" is the test of double standards. When criticism of
Israel is applied selectively; when Israel is singled out by the
United Nations for human rights abuses while the behavior of known
and major abusers, such as China, Iran, Cuba, and Syria, is ignored;
when Israel's Magen David Adom, alone among the world's ambulance
services, is denied admission to the International Red Cross -
this is anti-Semitism.
The third "D" is the test of delegitimization: when Israel's fundamental
right to exist is denied - alone among all peoples in the world -
this too is anti-Semitism.
Two of Sharansky's three D's were anticipated in 2002
by Thomas Friedman, author and journalist for the New York Times.
Friedman, a staunch opponent of Israel's settlement policy, wrote,
"Criticizing Israel is not antisemitic, and saying so is vile.
But singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction -- out
of all proportion to any other party in the Middle East -- is antisemitic,
and not saying so is dishonest."
[2]
We now provide examples to show how Justice in Palestine exhibitions
satisfy the three D's.
Delegitimization
The illegitimacy of Israel is a precept of Hamas,
the elected party that has governed
Gaza since 2007. Hamas does not accept Israel's right to exist, and
has vowed to continue jihad until ALL of
Israel is turned into the Islamic
State of Palestine. See the 2010 speeches by the top three Hamas leaders:
Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh
[3],
[4] ;
Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar
[5] ;
and Political Bureau chief Khaled Meshaal
[6].
Updates:
The above sentiments are echoed in the following
passage from Article 20 of the new 2017 Hamas charter:
[6A]
"We do not leave any part of the Palestinian's land, under any circumstances,
conditions or pressure, as long as the occupation remains.
Hamas refuses any alternative which is not the whole liberation of
Palestine, from the river to the sea."
On April 2018, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh reiterated:
[6B]
"Palestine and Jerusalem belong to us. ...We will break the walls of the blockade, remove the occupation entity and return to all of Palestine."
One cannot overstate the fact that the top Palestinian leaders insist that
ALL of Israel belongs to Arabs and Muslims, "from the river to the sea".
See the December 2012 speech of Political Bureau chief Khaled Meshaal
[6C],
[6D]
as well as the
2011-2012 speeches of Prime Minister Haniyeh
[6E],
[6F],
and the speech of Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hammad
[6G].
Again in 2014, the top Hamas leaders assert that
all of Israel belongs to Palestinian Muslims:
[6H].
Some senior Fatah leaders broadcast
the same extreme views, e.g.,
[6I],
[6J].
It's not just top Palestinian leaders who hold such extreme views.
A poll in June 2014 shows that 60 percent of Palestinians say
that the five-year goal
"should be to work toward reclaiming all of historic Palestine,
from the river to the sea."
[6K].
Below is a photo of a 2010 Justice in Palestine exhibit prominently
displayed on Library Walk. The exhibit fits right in with the Hamas credo.
It labels the ENTIRE state of Israel as
"Occupied Palestine", showing a map of Israel completely draped
in the colors of the Palestinian flag. This
supports the idea of destroying the Jewish state and replacing
it with yet another Islamic state in the Middle East.
That's classic delegitimization.
Update: Essentially the same display (shown below)
was featured west of the UCSD Price Center on April 18, 2012 by
Students for Justice in Palestine at their Mock Israeli Checkpoint.
Demonization
An effective method for demonizing Israel is to conceal crucial information.
For example, exhibits suggest that
Israeli checkpoints and barriers are motivated by racism
[7, Photo 7],
while revealing nothing about the suicide attacks that have been averted; see
[8] and
the dramatic video
[9].
A display panel
[10, Photo 14]
demonizes Israel and Jews by presenting a purported Sharon quote
that conveys the age-old antisemitic
message that Jews control America.
There is evidence that this
unsubstantiated quote was fabricated by a pro-Hamas group
[11],
[12].
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "Zionism" as
"an international movement
originally for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious
community in Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel"
[13].
A Justice in Palestine exhibit in 2011 demonizes today's Zionism
by associating it with Jewish exclusivity and ethnic cleansing in
the form of expulsion and transfer
[14, Photo 7].
This reflects the "Zionism is racism"
message of the defunct 1975 UN Resolution 3379. (That
resolution was overturned in 1991,
the only resolution ever revoked by the UN.)
The exhibit disregards the fact that a quarter of the population
of Israel is non-Jewish, and more than 20% are Arab. Exclusivity?
Ethnic cleansing?
Israel, called "the Zionist entity" by many who deny its right to exist,
is far less exclusive than Hamas or any other
Arab government in the Middle East. This leads nicely to the
final criterion: double standard.
Double Standard
A 2011 Justice in Palestine exhibit charges Israel with
MURDER (in capital red letters)
[15, Photo 2].
Palestinians intent on destroying Israel have launched over
11000 rockets into civilian populations within Israel
[16], while
dispatching dozens of suicide bombers to blow up Israeli civilians
[17].
The exhibits do not take issue with that.
But when Palestinian civilians are killed, it's called MURDER.
That's a double standard, and demonization as well.
Palestinian militants demonstrate a shocking unconcern for children.
In April 2011, Hamas fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli school bus
[18].
Palestinians send their children
into Israel strapped with explosive belts
[19],
[20].
As was noted at a US Senate Hearing
[21],
they teach their children from a very young age to yearn to die as martyrs
[22].
Knowing that Israel tries to avoid civilian casualties,
Palestinian militants intentionally put their children at risk by firing
missiles at Israel from populated areas
[23],
[24],
[25],
[26],
[27].
The Justice in Palestine exhibits completely ignore this
abuse of children,
while bemoaning the way Palestinian children are treated by Israel
[28, Photo 4].
Exhibits accuses Israel of racism
[29, Photo 6],
while disregarding Hamas's venomous antisemitism
[30],
[31],
[32],
[33],
.
A display panel
[34, Photo 6]
demands the right of return for displaced Palestinians.
The display pays no heed to displaced Jews,
despite its lofty pronouncement of "solidarity with all
oppressed peoples of the world"
[35, Photo 6].
Many Israelis are descendents of the 850,000 Jews forced out of
Arab countries
[36].
Concluding Remarks
The "right of return" is often used as code for
Islamization of Israel
[37]. Even Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas acknowledged
that absorbing a large number of refugees "would mean the end of Israel"
[38, page 3].
Osama Hamdan, head of the Hamas Foreign Liaisons, dispels any doubt about
how Hamas interprets the right of return.
In a May 2011 televised interview
[39], he said,
"When we talk about the liberation of Palestine, we are talking about the
notion of return: the return of the refugees to their homeland, and the
return of the Israelis to the countries from which they came."
Hamdan's plan may need some tweaking: nearly half of the 5.8 million Jews
in Israel are descendants of refugees from Arab countries (which are
now essentially Judenrein)
[40],
[41].
Update: Helen Thomas's pronouncement that Israelis should
"go home" cost Helen her job in the White House press corps
[42].
Justice in Palestine week's "historically informed" narrative
[43, Photo 6]
is designed chiefly to portray Palestinians as perennial victims of Israel.
There is nothing in the narrative, for example,
about the human rights abuses of the Palestinian government
[44],
about the Black September slaughter of Palestinians in Jordan
[45],
about the Tel al-Zaatar massacre of Palestinians in Lebanon
[46],
or about Kuwait's expulsion of over 400,000
Palestinians after the PLO supported
the Iraqi invasion
[47].
Some UCSD professors have dignified Justice in Palestine week with praise
such as
"exceptional laboratory of learning", "amazing intellectual forum",
"superior educational experience"
[48].
Yet the exhibits appear to be no more instructive
than say an Afghan narrative on US aggression which neglects to mention
the Taliban or September 11.
We can't expect much to change in the ensuing years.
Justice in Palestine exhibitions on Library Walk
will no doubt continue to vilify
Israel alone. Some professors will continue to applaud, and
others will continue to point
out the hypocrisy.
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