The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum

=> Palestinians blast anti-Semitism meeting

Palestinians blast anti-Semitism meeting
Posted by Matay (Guest) ashuroyo@yahoo.com - Saturday, May 1 2004, 22:51:49 (CEST)
from 217.120.238.27 - co422728-a.olden1.ov.home.nl Netherlands - Windows XP - Internet Explorer
Website: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/4A21536D-3C02-42F1-A3D2-CE87068EA34C.htm
Website title: Aljazeera.Net - Palestinians blast anti-Semitism meeting

[ 190 x 151 - 1.06 ko ]
Palestinians blast anti-Semitism meeting
by Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank
Thursday 29 April 2004 1:21 PM GMT


A two-day international conference on anti-Semitism in
Berlin has drawn
criticism from Palestinians who have described it as a "red
herring" and a
"sly distraction" aimed at diverting attention from their
oppression by
Israel.




The conference, held under the auspices of the Organisation
for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), is expected to issue a
set of decisions
and recommendations linking "some" anti-Israeli sentiments
to
anti-Semitism.



Clause-3 of the conference's summary statement says that
the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict should not be allowed to serve
as a cover for
the expression of anti-Semitic positions and opinions.



Moreover, the 55-nation forum has effectively agreed that
there is a link
between criticising Israeli actions and policies on the one
hand and
expressions of classical anti-Semitism.



Speaking at the conference on Wednesday, US Secretary of
State Collin
Powell pointed out in a short speech that while criticising
Israel was
legitimate, the line is crossed when critics employ Nazi
symbolism to do
so.



"It is not anti-Semitism to criticise Israel, but the line
is crossed when
the leaders of Israel are demonised and vilified by the use
of Nazi
symbols."



Ignored



Powell and other speakers, however, ignored the use of Nazi
symbols and
comparisons by Israeli officials to demonise Arab and
Muslim leaders.



Only Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen, whose country
holds the rotating
EU presidency, voiced a more balanced approach to the issue
of racial
hatred.



He told the forum that it was wrong to use "race" for
political reasons,
either as an offensive weapon or as a shield to fend off
criticisms.




OSCE meet diverts attention from
Israeli oppression of Palestinians


Palestinian academics, while denouncing anti-Semitism as a
morbid
phenomenon, have voiced deep misgivings about the
conference and
especially its "tendentious timing".



Mahmud Nammura, an author who writes extensively about
anti-Semitism and
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, called the Berlin
conference a "red
herring" and "sly distraction".



"It is a shame that instead of paying attention to the
Nazi-like
persecution of the defenceless Palestinian people at
Israel's hands, the
OSCE is effectively telling Israel that it is ok to
continue to slaughter
Palestinians and destroy their homes since opposing these
crimes would be
a form of anti-Semitism."



In an interview with Aljazeera.net, Nammura said he was
100% sure the real
purpose of the conference was to cover up "the shameful
Israeli crimes in
Rafah, Jenin and Nablus".



European leaders had a duty to combat all crimes and not do
so only
selectively, Nammura said. By focussing only on the lesser,
though still
condemnable, acts, those leaders were acting unevenly.



"I want to ask the leaders of Europe: Which crime is more
serious? The
desecration of a Jewish grave in some French town, or
destroying an entire
neighbourhood in Rafah? Scrawling a swastika on the wall of
a Jewish
synagogue in Italy or turning Palestinian towns and
villages into virtual
concentration camps?"



Obscene



Nammura, a veteran peace activist from Hebron, castigated
the "obscene and
corrupt lumping of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism".



"I believe that when Jews behave and act like Nazis, they
should be
compared to Nazis. This wouldn't be a sweeping condemnation
of Jews, but
rather a rejection of evil actions, behaviour and dogmas."



Nammura cited a plethora of statements and remarks by
Jewish religious
leaders and Israeli officials in which they described
Palestinians as
"scum, vermin and dirty animals that ought to be
exterminated".



"When Israeli cabinet ministers openly call for the total
obliteration of
Islam from the face of Earth, or call for the liquidation
of the
Palestinians because they have inferior genes [as Israel's
deputy defence
minister Ze'ev Baum said recently], then we can
legitimately compare them
to the Nazis."




German Foreign Minister Joschka
Fischer (R) at the OSCE meet

Some Israeli academics tend to agree that the Berlin
conference is
motivated by "less than genuine considerations".



Professor Moshe Zimmerman of the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, a
prominent historian and expert on the holocaust and Nazism,
told
Aljazeera.net that the Berlin conference was an Israeli
government effort
to ward off international criticism of Israeli policies and
actions
against the Palestinians.



"We have to differentiate between classical anti-Semitism
and criticisms
of Israeli policies and practices. The first is hating Jews
for being Jews
while the second represents rejection of certain
objectionable policies
and actions," he said.



Asked if comparing some Israeli leaders like Ariel Sharon
to Nazi leaders
was legitimate under certain circumstances, Zimmerman said
the
admissibility or inadmissibility of such a comparison
depended on the
facts at hand.



"Comparison is an analytical term. If you want to make the
comparison,
then you have to prove it, you have to locate the
comparable elements, the
similarities."



Zimmerman, who in 1995 sparked a controversy in Israel when
he suggested
that there was a striking similarity between Jewish
settlers in Hebron and
"Hitler youth", lambasted Israeli leaders for applying Nazi
epithets
against Israel's critics while fulminating when the same
epithets are used
against Israeli and Zionism.



Roots



"I think Israeli leaders have to ask themselves if their
policies are
contributing to the rise of anti-Semitism. They can't call
Palestinians
and Arabs Nazi names and protest vociferously when similar
names are used
against Israel."



Zimmerman opined that "anti-Semitism among Arabs and
Muslims" is rooted in
the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.



"I believe contemporary anti-Semitism is an outcome of the
conflict.
Hence, I am convinced that if and when the conflict is
resolved, there
will be a sharp decline in anti-Semitism. However, if the
conflict
deteriorates, I am afraid the worrying phenomenon will
exacerbate further,
not only in the Middle East, but in Europe as well."





Some Palestinian leaders, such as Arab Knesset member
Muhammad Baraka,
believes that Israel's manifestly racist policies against
non-Jews,
including its own Palestinian citizens, provide a strong
inducement for
many people to make the comparison between Zionism and
Nazism.

"I believe that when Jews behave and act like Nazis, they
should be
compared to Nazis"

Mahmud Nammura,
author


In an interview with Aljazeera.net, Baraka sounded
ambivalent about
lumping Zionism, anti-Semitism and Nazism in one "static
conceptual
frame".



"We know that Nazism was a colossal evil, it was
responsible for killing
of tens of millions of people, including millions of Jews,"
said Baraka.



However, he added that Zionism was also espousing
manifestly racist ideas
reminiscent of the fascist movements that appeared in
Europe in the
beginning of the last century.



"Look what they are doing to the Palestinians in the West
Bank and Gaza.
Even here in Israel proper, if a Palestinian citizen of
Israel marries a
woman from the West Bank, he will have to leave his country
and lose his
right to citizenship. As far as I know this doesn’t occur
anywhere else
in the world."



Nammura, Zimmerman and Baraka all agree that forums such as
the Berlin
conference will do little to combat anti-Israeli feelings
and
anti-Semitism as long as Israel continues to treat
Palestinians the way it
does.



"In the final analysis, people, whether in the Arab world
or in Europe,
would rather believe what they see on their TV screens. You
can't remove
anti-Semitism while Israel continues to generate more
anti-Semitism. In
order to overcome the symptoms, you've got to treat the
root causes
first," says Zimmerman.



Baraka agrees. "Israel can't behave the way it is behaving
and then shout
[accusations of] anti-Semitism at her critics."


Aljazeera
By Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank

You can find this article at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/4A21536D-3C02-42F1-A3D2-CE87068EA34C.
htm



---------------------


The full topic:



Content-length: 10909
Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/vnd.ms-excel, application/vnd.ms-powerpoint, applicatio...
Accept-encoding: gzip, deflate
Accept-language: nl
Cache-control: no-cache
Connection: Keep-Alive
Cookie: *hidded*
Host: www.insideassyria.com
Referer: http://www.insideassyria.com/rkvsf/rkvsf_core.php?.FIZb.
User-agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)



Powered by RedKernel V.S. Forum 1.2.b9