| -Caveat Lector-
 |
|
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| Linda
S. Heard: Icy gust cools Israel's relations with EU |
| | Special to
Gulf News | 04/11/2003 |
| |
There
is outrage whipping around the corridors of power in Israel, its tentacles
spreading to Jewish lobby groups. Such furious tremors are due to the
results of a poll, which the European Commission has been accused of
suppressing or, at least, delaying due to its unfavourable outcome on
Israel.
The poll – conducted last month – by Taylor Nelson
Sofres/EOS Gallup of Europe on behalf of the Commission, shows that 59 per
cent of some 7,500 Europeans polled throughout 15 EU-member countries
believe that Israel presents the greatest threat to world peace.
Neither North Korea nor Iran, those countries both Israel and the
US seek to portray as "evil" but America's favoured ally the Jewish state.
What's the betting if Pyongyang, Tehran or Damascus had toppled Tel Aviv
from its perch, the Commission wouldn't have been so reticent to publish
its findings?
It didn't take long for cries of "anti-Semitism" to
spring forth from the Israeli government via Natan Sharansky, Minister for
Diaspora and Jerusalem Affairs, who said: "Just like in the past when the
Jew was blamed for all the problems of the world, the 'enlightened' world
today uses that same claim about the Jewish state."
The Simon
Wiesenthal Centre is asking its sympathisers to sign a petition addressed
to the President of the European Commission demanding because Europe has
showed its "blatant bias" it should bow out of Mid-East peace
process.
What peace process? Would that be the defunct Oslo, the
Quartet's "road to nowhere", or the behind-closed-doors Geneva Accord?
There currently isn't one and this is, no doubt, one of the reasons
Europeans view a militarised occupying state which prefers guns, tanks and
missiles to dialogue as a dangerous entity.
Is it anti-Semitism (an
emotionally over-loaded word for racism directed at Jews) to view with
askance a nuclear power, led by a ruthless warmonger, illegally occupying
swathes of land, contemptuously ignoring numerous UN resolutions, and in
the process of packing a nation within its borders into a giant
poverty-stricken ghetto?
Is it anti-Semitism to be fearful of a
country, which has 200-plus nuclear missiles pointed at its neighbours;
which has invaded and occupied one of them for decades (Lebanon), and has
recently launched an unprovoked attack on another (Syria), not to mention
owning a fleet of nuclear submarines which ominously patrol the region's
waters?
Superpower dancing
Is it anti-Semitism to
view with suspicion an aggressive entity which appears to have the
superpower dancing to its every tune? This is a state which can do no
wrong in the eyes of the Bush administration and Congress. This is a
state, which can send its missiles to devastate heavily populated areas
with impunity.
It can carry out targeted assassinations with ne'er
a raised eyebrow and leave thousands homeless, refuse building permissions
and divert water supplies to such settlers even its own courts deem
"illegal". All of these crimes it commits in the name of "security".
And instead of brickbats from the US it receives billions of
dollars in aid. Israel apparently believes that it is and has been
attempting to redefine the term "anti-Semitism" to include any of its
detractors, saying that of any criticism is an attack on its very
survival.
So if the world were to go along with this skewed logic,
what could be the outcome? First, Israel has never shied away from
initiating pre-emptive strikes, as we saw in 1967 when it launched a
surprise attack on Egypt and, again, in 1981 when it took out Iraq's
Osirak nuclear facility. Its bombing of an allegedly disused militant
training camp near Damascus recently shows that its "survival" paradigm
hasn't changed.
Therefore, if Israel should choose to
pre-emptively strike any country it considers a threat, with whatever
means at its disposal, those who would subsequently condemn such a move
would automatically be "anti-Semitic". Have you ever heard such poppycock
in your life?
The former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed
recently said in defence of his keynote speech to the OIC conference: "Are
the Jews some kind of creatures who cannot be condemned in any way?" The
Israeli government would certainly like that to be the case although its
endeavours towards that end are not going down too well among Europeans it
seems.
Mahathir may have been wiser to have addressed his remarks
towards "Israelis" rather than "Jews", which would not have left him
vulnerable to being designated "anti-Semitic", but if the Israeli
government wants to call verbal onslaughts on Israel, the country, as
"anti-Semitic" meaning "anti-Jewish" then it cannot have it both ways.
Patently Israel wants the world to pigeonhole Jews and Israelis on
the same shelf, at least when it suits it. Jewish communities in the
Diaspora, though, may have another take on this.
There are Jews
both within and without Israel who are just as appalled at the Israeli
government's despicable treatment of the Palestinians as those Europeans
polled. Former IDF officer, writer and activist Uri Avnery numbered among
those in Yasser Arafat's Ramallah compound when the Palestinian leader was
threatened with expulsion.
Ruthlessly mowed
Adam
Shapiro from Brooklyn lent Arafat moral support when his compound was
shelled, and later married a Palestinian co-activist. A bulldozer driver
ruthlessly mowed down Rachel Corrie – a young AmericanJewish girl - while
she was attempting to save a Palestinian home.
Thousands of
Israeli reservists and airmen have refused to serve in the occupied
territories putting humane considerations before "patriotism". The Naturei
Karta, a secretive Jewish sect, vigorously campaigns against Israel's
occupation, standing shoulder to shoulder with Palestinians during
demonstrations.
Are those conscience-led Jewish people
anti-Semites? Or, self-hating Jews as fervent Zionists often like to term
those of their brethren who refuse to toe the Sharon line? I think not.
They are rather human, all too human. They know the difference between
right and wrong and are willing to make personal sacrifices to ensure that
justice is eventually done.
In the final analysis, the results of
the European poll had nothing to do with Jewsand everything to do with the
unnecessary suffering inflicted upon the Palestinian people by Sharon's
Israel together with the instability this is causing throughout the entire
Middle East.
Sharon and his self-interested, agenda-led minions can
cry foul as much as they like with 'anti-Semitism' as their fabricated
banner. But as the poll shows, the scales have already fallen from our
eyes and we (Europeans) – or most of us anyway - are no longer
listening.
The writer is a specialist writer on Middle East
affairs. She can be contacted at [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
© Al Nisr
Publishing LLC - Gulf News
Online |
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