“Israeli Apartheid Week” – which was launched in 2005 at University of Toronto – is currently taking place on many college and university campuses in North America and the United Kingdom.
The singling out of the Jewish state for criticism and advocating for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israeli businesses and academia has been defined as modern-day antisemitism. That point becomes obvious when looking, for example, at the Israeli Apartheid Week-Toronto Facebook page, which advertises an IAW event featuring Tha’er al-Shali, a Palestinian-Syrian filmmaker from Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, Syria, who “will talk about the experience of Palestinian-Syrians and the experience of the Yarmouk camp.” Considering the unspeakable human-rights violations and murder of thousands of innocent Syrian men, women and children by the Syrian regime, putting the blame on Israel for the suffering of Syrian civilians is the ultimate level of cynicism, lies and distortion reached by those who support Israeli Apartheid Week.
The Israeli daily Ma’ariv, in an article on this year’s Israeli Apartheid Week, which takes place February 24-March 2, notes that “in the forefront of the struggle are not just Islamists, but also many Jewish students who have been brainwashed.”
According to the Ma’ariv author, Israeli Apartheid Week “is, in effect, Racism and Anti-Semitism Week, even though Jews and Israelis take part in it as organizers and spokespeople…. Almost none of those involved in Israeli Apartheid Week deny the right of other peoples to define themselves. They deny the right of self-determination only to the Jews. The struggle is not against outrages; it is against the national state of the Jewish People. The struggle is not against racism; it is racism.”
Hamas and its supporters are part and parcel of the campaign and of the BDS movement, Ma’ariv says, asking why they “do not protest against the mass slaughters being perpetrated by political Islam everywhere it has even an iota of power?”
Yediot Ahronot, another Israeli daily, asks who actually represents the majority of Arabs in Hebron, east of the Green Line. Is it “those who go out to demonstrate or those who, at the same time, work and earn their living in nearby Kiryat Arba or the Jewish communities in the area?”
Arabs who go about their daily business and choose to coexist peacefully “are transparent,” the article continues. “The young parking lot attendant, the taxi driver, the waiter, many of the shop assistants at the mall in Malha, Arab patients, nurses and doctors in Jewish hospitals, Arab lecturers and students – they are all transparent, unlike those who riot in the streets. They are seen very well. Those with pretensions of statehood bite the hand that feeds them. They feed on water, gas, electricity, work, technical and professional know-how, port services and the collection of a major part of their taxes, medical services and security for their establishment figures. Even the construction of the [Palestinian] city of Rawabi depends on Israeli companies.”
Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces established a field hospital in the Golan Heights to treat wounded Syrians escaping the horror taking place in their native country. Others have been treated in northern Israeli medical centers as well.
The State of Israel provides equal opportunity to all its citizens, Jews and non-Jews alike.
Date: Feb. 24, 2014