Monday, 4/21/97 Anti-Semitism rears ugly head with attacks on
Israel Jew-haters mask their agenda by charging nation with racism,
mistreatment of Arabs
By Netanel Livni Zionism, the national liberation movement of
the Jewish people, is once again under attack. At college campuses
throughout the country, myths of Zionist oppression and of the
racist Zionist regimes in "Palestine" are once again invading the
world with anti-Jewish propaganda. At this critical time in our
history, Jews need to be more informed and more prepared in order
to answer the hateful rhetoric they encounter. The truth is that
anti-Zionism is just a new manifestation of old-school
anti-Semitism. So let us tackle some of the common lies that are
propagated against Jews every day. A common charge that we hear is
that Israel does not have a right to exist because it has displaced
the indigenous population of "Palestine." There is only one people
who have continuously lived in Eretz Israel (land of Israel) for
the past 3,700 years – the Jews. Jerusalem, in particular, has had
a Jewish majority since the 1840s, 40 years prior to the beginnings
of Zionism. Seventy-five percent of the land in east Jerusalem,
which the press calls "historically Arab east Jerusalem," has been
owned by Jews since 1947. The nations that inhabited the land prior
to the Jews are no longer in existence, for they have been absorbed
into various other peoples throughout the millennia. The Arabs of
Israel only came to the land in 632 with the Muslim invasion, at
which time they decided to name the land "Filastin," a term they
borrowed from the Romans. In fact, the very term "Palestine" is
misleading, for it has no Jewish connotation. The Romans first
named the land Palestine in the second-century CE (common era)
after crushing the last Jewish revolt in an attempt to minimize the
Jewish identity of the land. The historical Jewish ties to the land
were reinforced in the First Arab Congress, which was held in June
1913, at which Abdul-Hamid Yahrawi, the president of the congress,
said, "All of us, both Muslims and Christians, have the best of
feelings toward the Jews … We regard them as Syrians who were
forced to leave the country at one time but whose hearts always
beat together with ours." Many Jews also have a great religious
connection to Eretz Israel. According to the Torah, Judaism’s
holiest book, God made a covenant with the children of Israel in
which he promised them the land. Islam also recognizes this
covenant. The Qu’ran, Islam’s holiest book, states, "And certainly
Allah made a covenant with the children of Israel." (Sura 5, line
12) The fact is that Jews have carried the land of Israel in their
hearts whether in Eretz Israel or in the diaspora. Another common
accusation is that Israel violates the human rights of the
Palestinian Arabs. The facts are different. Israel granted full
citizenship to all of the Palestinian Arabs who fell within its
borders after the War of Independence. Arabic is an official
language in Israel. Israel remains to this day one of the few
countries in the Middle East where Arabs can legitimately vote and
the only one where women can vote. The only difference between the
rights of Arab Israelis and Jewish Israelis is that Arabs are not
required to serve in the army, although they may if they choose.
All Druze Arabs and many bedouins serve in the army. There are,
however, Arabs who live in the territories captured by Israel in
the 1967 Six Day War. These Arabs do have certain restrictions put
on their lives due to the security situation in Israel. While they
are not citizens, these Arabs do receive equal protection under the
law. For the first time, they were recently allowed to vote in
municipal elections. Additionally, since 1967, the living
conditions of Palestinian Arabs has substantially improved.
According to the Israel Ministry of Health, the infant mortality
rate declined from 120 per 1,000 live births in 1967 to 30 per
1,000 in 1988 and continues to improve to this day. Since the war,
the percentage of children born in hospitals has increased from 10
to 80 percent. When Israel became independent in 1948, there was
only one Arab high school in the land. Now, all Arab children are
required to attend one of the hundreds of Arab high schools in the
area. Furthermore, Israel has shown its willingness to give the
Palestinian Arabs more self rule by signing a series of dangerous
peace treaties which have so far given over 80 percent of the Arab
population autonomy. Along with these attacks on the character of
Israel have come attacks on Zionist ideology itself. These attacks
reached a peak when the UN passed its infamous "Zionism equals
racism" resolution. This charge is totally ridiculous because
Zionism by its nature is a color-blind movement. The Israeli Law of
Return, which allows any Jew instant citizenship in Israel,
recognizes neither previous nationality nor race. This charge of
racism was shown to be preposterous when in 1984, 1985 and again in
1991, Israel rescued 42,000 members of the ancient Ethiopian Jewish
community. This was the first time in history when thousands of
African people were brought en masse to a country – not as slaves,
but as liberated free people. Still, certain Israelis have, in
isolated incidents, spouted racist language. This fact does not
mean that all of Zionism is represented by this language any more
than the rhetoric of Pat Buchanan represents the Constitution of
the United States. There is one line anti-Semites who propagate the
lies about Israel will always repeat. They claim, "I am not
anti-Semitic, I am anti-Zionist." In order to answer this claim, we
must understand why in this day and age such a claim is made by the
anti-Semites. Ever since the Holocaust, the term anti-Semitism has
become unfashionable and politically incorrect; thus, the enemies
of the Jews began speaking in code, often replacing the word
Zionist for Jew and anti-Zionism for anti-Semitism. While the
terminology has changed, the charges and the effects remain the
same. Today instead of saying "the Jews control the world’s media"
or "the Jews control the world’s economy," which were common
slogans of European anti-Semites, we read in "anti-Zionist"
pamphlets such as ones from the former USSR: "The Zionists are
supported by … the economies of 80 percent of the capitalist
countries, and by 90-96 percent of the information media which dupe
the people." Obviously, these are the same hate-filled lies simply
transformed. As Benjamin Netanyahu described it, anti-Zionism is
"the same anti-Semitism dressed up in trendy terminology." In
practice, the distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is
meaningless because the targets of both movements are the same. The
New York Times ran a poll which discovered that 99 percent of
American Jews identify with the rights of the Jews to the Jewish
state. To be not anti-Semitic but merely anti-Zionist is absurd. It
is the equivalent of saying, "I am not anti-American; I just think
that the United States should not exist." Martin Luther King Jr.
summed it up when confronted with a student who opposed Zionism. He
said, "When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re
talking anti-Semitism." The tactics of Jew-haters might change
throughout the ages. The enemy might be of the classical religious
variety, the racial anti-Semitic kind or the modern anti-Zionist.
The hate is the same no matter what form it takes. Our duty is to
be informed so as to answer this bigotry whenever we encounter it.
Livni is a third-year biology student.