Another excellent article from Spiked:
"Brendan O’Neill
The politics of anti-Zionism
Today’s widespread attacks on Zionism as ‘expansionist and racist’ are historically illiterate, and not as radical as they sound.
Critics of Israel often argue that one can be an anti-Zionist without being an anti-Semite. They are absolutely right.
Criticising an ideology is not the same thing as expressing hatred towards a group of people. One of the most pernicious, implicitly censorious instincts in the current debate about the Middle East is the attempt by elements of the pro-Israel movement to label all criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic. The US State Department claims that today’s ‘unremitting criticism of Israel… encourages anti-Semitism’ (1). This is a cynical attempt to write off opponents of Israel as simply prejudiced, and thus not worth engaging with. We should insist on maintaining a conceptual distinction between rational criticism of Zionism and anti-Semitism.
However, while opposition to Zionism is entirely legitimate, it is worth asking what motivates the politics of anti-Zionism today. Criticism of the ‘Zionist state’ is widespread, not only in Arab regimes but throughout polite society in Europe. And the language that is used to denounce Zionism becomes shriller and more historically illiterate every day."
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Ali al-Mugri's The Handsome Jew
Hudson NY
February 1, 2011
Last year the Yemeni writer and intellectual Ali al-Muqri published his new novel with one of the most important publishers in the Arab world, the Lebanese Dar al-Saqi. Al-Muqri is known in the Arab world for his elegant style (he is a poet as well); for his research on the past of the Arabs; and for his engagement in favor of minorities in his country. His previous novel, Black Taste, Black Smell, on the condition of a group marginalized in Yemen because of their dark skin, was very well received by the Arab public. It seems, though, that with his last novel, al-Muqri did something wrong, at least as far as its title and its subject are concerned.
The Handsome Jew tells the story of Fatima, the educated daughter of a mufti, who falls in love with a Jew. Set in seventeenth century Yemen, the novel addresses the issue of tolerance towards other religions and social classes – a hundred pages in which the author said he just wanted "to reveal a memory in the form of an intimate love story that goes beyond dislike and class hatred between two religions." No ideology, no political hints; but this was not sufficient to avoid strong criticism from all sides. You only need to have a quick look at reviews of the novel and interviews with its author in Arab newspapers, satellite channels and websites and you will immediately realize that "The Handsome Jew" has never been regarded as a literary work.
Ali al-Muqri, for instance, in an interview with the Kuwaiti daily al-Awan, was asked: "Why did you chose to write a novel whose main character is a Jew and why did you choose "The Handsome Jew as a title?", and: "Is the aim of your novel to 'enlighten' the image of the Jew at a time when Jews kill Palestinians in occupied territories?", and: "Are you trying with your novel to draw a distinction between the Arab Jew and the Jew who has destroyed the world to turn Palestine into his country?" Even the interview on al-Jazeera's website contains questions like, "Your novel tells about the love between a Muslim girl and a Jew; don't you fear a political lecture over it in the shadow of the Arab-Israeli conflict?"
These questions clearly demonstrate that there is no way to write about the Jews in the Arab world without being boycotted, or at least without problems. In another review of al-Muqri's novel you can read: "[…] the beginning of the book is acceptable, where Muslims are described as tolerant while Jews are not but then the novel becomes unbearable, mainly because Jews seem strangely ready to get on good terms with others. This is something that in contemporary history they are not able to do. In the novel, Muslims oppress Jews; they steal lands and belongings so that the Jews are compelled to fly to Jerusalem. Some passages of the novel seem to show that al-Muqri went for a fanciful justification for the Israeli occupation of Palestine; he even dared to look for it in the Koran."
more...
"Over our dead bodies" respond both Hamas and Fatah to the suggested crime of including the Holocaust in the curriculum of schools in the West Bank and Gaza.
There must be extreme cognitive dissonance in groups whose two main pastimes appear to be:
1. Holocaust denial
2. constant comparisons of their hated opponents to Hitler and the Nazis
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Will a UN Agency Succumb to Palestinian Threats?
Hudson NY
by Khaled Abu Toameh
March 4, 2011
Palestinians are up in arms over plans to teach the Holocaust in their schools in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"Over our dead bodies." This has been the response of Hamas and Fatah officials to unconfirmed reports that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency [UNRWA] may include the Holocaust in the curriculum of schools that it operates in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The Palestinians have even warned UNRWA against committing the "crime" of including the Holocaust in the curriculum, threatening to foil the reported plan.
Many Arab governments have been teaching their constituents that the Holocaust is something that Jews made up to justify the creation of a homeland in Palestine.
They believe that the entire history of the Jews is one big "fabrication." Just recently, the Western-funded Palestinian Authority published a "study" that allegedly proves that the Western Wall has no religious significance to Jews.
According to the reports, the Holocaust would be taught to Palestinian children in the context of a lesson on human rights.
One can understand why Hamas would be opposed to such a move. But it is not clear why a Palestinian government that receives funding from the US and Europeans and that is formally involved in a peace process with Israel would be denying children the right to learn about the suffering of the other side.
"UNRWA should implement the curriculum of the host countries," said Ziad Thabet, Deputy Minister of Education for the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip.
…
Fatah activist Salah al-Wadiyeh urged Palestinian leaders to "confront this plan and to stand united against it." He said that teaching the Holocaust in Palestinian schools was a "Zionist plot aimed at brainwashing our children and instilling in them sympathy for their killers. They are trying to occupy our minds through this scheme… Palestinians know, more than any other people, the history of their enemies and their lies and endless false claims."
The Palestinians are opposed to teaching the Holocaust in their schools because first, many believe it never took place, and second, they are afraid that it some young men and women might identify with the Jews' plight during World War II.
The Palestinians, like many other Arabs, have convinced themselves that the Holocaust is nothing but a "Zionist conspiracy" to justify the occupation of their lands.
Other Arab governments are prepared to admit that Jews were indeed slaughtered during the Holocaust, but that the figure six million has been exaggerated to win sympathy and "extort" Germany and other European countries into paying compensation.
Israeli newspapers often publish stories documenting Palestinian suffering and human rights violations both by by the IDF and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But when was the last time anyone read an article in a Palestinian or Arab newspaper about the suffering on the other side?
Teaching the Holocaust to Palestinian children should be seen as a sign of strength, and not weakness. The Palestinians should learn from those Israelis who supported teaching the "nakba" [catastrophe – the establishment of Israel in 1948] and the poems of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish in Israeli schools.
It now remains to be seen whether the UN agency will succumb to the Palestinian threats.
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