Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Responding to Bisharat

Once again, the shrill voice of the Palestinian movement is heard, this time through a column by the ever predictable George Bisharat. In essence, Mr. Bisharat indulges in the politically tainted vocabulary that happens to be stylish at the moment, and inappropriately appropriates the South African word "apartheid". "Apartheid’ is merely a politically loaded word selected specifically to demonize Israel. It also masks the role of the Palestinians in creating their own situation through diplomatic intransigence, sectarian violence and maximalism.

Mr. Bisharat attempts to cast a boycott of Israel as an innovative idea without even mentioning that the Arabs have been boycotting Israel since as early as 1921, 27 years before the establishment of Israel. The original Arab boycott forswore contact with any Jewish owned business operating in the British Mandate of Palestine, long before Israel’s independence in 1948. The Arab boycott of pre-state Israel was not motivated by any high minded ideals, just on the Arab resentment of the potential existence of a Jewish state. The Arab boycott of Israel is illegal for Americans under the 1977 amendments to the Export Administration Act (EAA)

We must accept such efforts as Mr. Bisharat’s for what they are, part of a series of propaganda attacks on Israel designed solely to cast Israel as the villain and the Palestinians as eternal helpless victims in a situation where neither is true. Mr. Bisharat’s spinning of the facts and twisting of history doesn’t change that a bit.

3 comments:

  1. Your simplification of the Arab boycott of Israel is both arrogant and repellent. Arabs boycotted Israel because they didn't want a Jewish state on Palestinian land.You seem to find it hard to accept that some people might oppose a state being established on lands that belong to someone else and establishing said state through terror and murder.
    "They attacked us because they hate our freedoms" Does this sound familiar and just as stupid as what you have stated? There is nothing quite so repellent as hubris from ignorant people or the invocation of morality from liars and deceivers.

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  2. "Arabs boycotted Israel because they didn't want a Jewish state on Palestinian land."

    I am just wondering- how do you rationalize the comment "Palestinian land" when there has been a continuous Jewish presence there for over 3,500 years?

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  3. Its particularly interesting that the Arab boycott began well before there was the prospect of a Jewish state, they were boycotting Jews. Perhaps if you understood the subservient"dhimmi"status of Jews in the Moslem world, you'd understand more clearly.

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