Israel's claim to monopoly on suffering is wearing thin
by Rime Allaf
Where in the world does one have to be in order to be indignant at Israel's routine treatment of Palestinians (documented daily on every TV channel) and not raise a storm? Scandinavia is certainly not far enough. When Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja dared to opine last week that Israel's intent was to "suppress, humiliate, subdue and impoverish the Palestinians" and that "it is quite shocking that they should continue toward the Palestinians policies similar to those which they were victims of in the 1930s," the reaction was quick and expected, and Israel's ambassador to Finland considered that the minister's statements were based on "an outburst of personal animosity" (read anti-Semitism).
Elsewhere in Scandinavia, a new ambassador with a rotten past has come to Denmark, in spite of the Danish Justice Ministry's reservations, the Danish people's disgust and Amnesty International's protests. Carmi Gillon, former head of the Israeli General Security Services, is a self-confessed perpetrator of torture (or what the Israelis call "moderate physical pressure," which is how normal people would describe aerobics). However, he is protected by the Vienna Convention's provision for diplomatic immunity (which Israel decided superseded the UN Convention against Torture, ratified by Denmark in 1987) and can walk the streets of Copenhagen with impunity.
In Israel, the torture of Palestinians is rewarded with a high diplomatic post. As usual, with arrogance and a selective observance of international treaties, Israel bestows upon itself the right to choose which laws to apply, and which laws to ignore. This prerogative of double standards also extends to accusations, that of racism in particular: Israel can accuse others of racism, but cannot be itself accused of the crime. The gist is clear, and by now we should be accustomed to, if not fed up with, the intricacies of politically correct statements according to Israel and company.
The Jewish lobby's relentless campaigning has successfully turned a number of notions into absolute tenets, providing the basis for Israeli rationale: a) no people suffered like the Jews did; b) no people committed crimes like the Nazis did; c) no people can claim to have suffered anything like Jews' suffering at the hands of Nazis.
As a consequence of the above, the world has been led to believe that anything Israel does pales in comparison, and that it can never be compared to other criminals. We thus have to accept that the Jewish people's suffering justifies any Israeli action, in the same way one would blame a difficult childhood for any action made in adulthood, while excusing the behavior. Woe is Israel. Further to that, the Jewish lobby has smartly turned the tables in Israel's favor, disarming the people accusing it of racism by branding them with the best-known form of racism: anti-Semitism. Try to bring attention to the Palestinian people's suffering by accusing its oppressor and bingo, you're anti-Semitic, a risk few people in the world are willing to take. Discredit the accuser, and shift the attention away from Israel's status of oppressor to that of victim of racism. How convenient.
Why would anything be different at the World Conference Against Racism? This futile meeting is nothing more than a mock stage for helpless victims of every kind of racial discrimination to exchange horror stories, and for the superpower and its colonial friends to act concerned, albeit aloof.
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Mary Robinson, UN high commissioner for human rights and head of the Durban conference, has gone out of her way to express her opposition to any mention of Zionism in the final declaration, and to any direct criticism of Israel, the same state that has repeatedly violated countless UN resolutions. Perhaps trying to emulate John F. Kennedy in Berlin, but ending up supporting the Israeli occupier, Robinson proclaimed: "I am a Jew." Of course. Why would anyone want to be a Palestinian? Why be a victim when you can be the oppressor? The United States, and US-wannabes Britain and Canada, have loudly made a point of their decision not to honor the rest of the world with a high-level representation at this conference, sending junior diplomatic staff to attend. George W. Bush warned beforehand that the United States would not take part if the conference "picks on" Israel, or denigrates it for its treatment of Palestinians. Other Western countries were less vocal, but the only European foreign ministers present are those of Belgium and Germany.
While some condemnations of racism are perfectly acceptable although pointless to the powers that be, others are again labeled as racism themselves. There are multitudes of people rightly demanding an end to the abhorrent racism and discrimination they have been subjected to. Nobody has objected to their claims, and no powers have made their participation in the conference subject to the removal of such claims. Except with reference to Israel, of course. Palestinians cannot even claim that they are subject to racism without in turn being called anti-Semitic.
Without even going into the irony of Semites being called anti-Semites by fellow Semites, suffice to say that Israel's sole raison d'etre is based on racial discrimination, where being Jewish grants you every right. A so-called democracy that does not even have a formal constitution or recognized borders, and that states the holder's religion on identity cards, Israel openly grants Jews basic rights which are denied to Palestinians, purely on the basis of their ethnicity. In Israel, one is either a Jew with infinite privileges (including the right to emigrate to Israel) or a "miyutim lo yehudim" (i.e. a non-Jew, with no right of return, no right to own land, and a long register of prohibitions too numerous to list). If this is not discrimination based on the concept of racial superiority, if this is not racism, if this is not the same type of discrimination previously practiced in notoriously racist governments such as South Africa's apartheid regime and Germany's Nazi rulers, then perhaps the latter were not racist after all. But logically, if we accept that a country confers or denies human rights based on ethnicity, then we accept that the country is racist. Either all are racist, or none are.
Israel's existence rests on the foundations of Zionism, which lays down the principles of a state for a people (Jews) at the expense of another (Palestinians). Therefore, Zionism is a racist ideology, and Israel is a racist state. Today, Jews in Israel are the Aryans of Nazi Germany, and the whites of apartheid. And yet, we are castigated for voicing these truths, even during a conference convened precisely for the purpose of discussing racism and discrimination.
America and Israel walked out of the conference because they claim it degenerated into an Israel-bashing session. In fact, it is they who made such a big deal of the attempts to condemn Israel before the conference even started, and it is they who have pushed the other, equally important racism issues aside, thus
hitting several birds with just one stone and evading the weighty slavery issues.
[snip]
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