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BDS Movement: Barbarians Inside the Gates - Part I
by Denis MacEoin
May 7, 2014 at 5:00 am
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The Nazis invented the Jewish
boycott -- and went on from there to the Holocaust.
This is the wrong boycott in the
wrong place at the wrong time.
As you doubtless know, there has been, and continues to be, an
international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against the Jewish
state. This BDS campaign against Israel is dishonest -- it tells less than
half of a complex story, borrowing Palestinian lies and fables to bewitch
unthinking Westerners whose only formula for peace lies in the destruction of
the only national home for the Jews, possibly as well as the post-Nazi
destruction of the Jews themselves.Most interesting are remarks made in 2012 by Norman Finkelstein, an American academic who has made it his business to pursue hatred for Israel. He has expressed solidarity with Hezbollah and Hamas, and approved their policies of targeting Israeli civilians. In 2012, however, he declared that the BDS movement a "hypocritical, dishonest cult like the Munchkin cult in Oz" that tries to pose as human rights activists while in reality their goal is to destroy Israel. "I'm getting a little bit exasperated," he said, "with what I think is a whole lot of nonsense. I'm not going to tolerate silliness, childishness and a lot of leftist posturing. I loathe the disingenuousness. We will never hear the solidarity movement [back a] two-state solution." He also declared that the BDS movement has enjoyed few successes, and that, as in a cult, the leaders pretend they are hugely successful even though the general public rejects their extreme views.
On the cultural front, here, for instance, is Jennifer Grout, an American in her twenties from Boston reaching third place in the 2013 Arabs Got Talent show. You'll find several clips On YouTube of her singing very different sorts of Arabic songs, including one in which she plays the oud and sings part of Ba'id 'ani, a classic song by the great diva of the Arab world, Umm Kulthum. She does it brilliantly. The audience and the judges, laughing at her to begin with, are knocked sideways. They apparently cannot believe that a young blonde American woman, who now lives in Marrakesh, can do this. And here are two more musicians: Riff Cohen and Ester Rada. Both are Jews and both are Israelis. Born anywhere else, they might well by now be international stars. Both cross boundaries and show a degree of multiculturalism that can only be envied. But neither can enter "Arabs Got Talent." To the BDS campaigners, Riff and Ester are personae non gratae, as are all Israeli musicians, writers, artists, dancers, and actors. The offense they commit is to have been born where they were. This is the egalitarianism of the far left and the Muslim extremists. Your race does not matter, your nationality does not matter, your religion does not matter – unless, of course, you are Jewish and Israeli, in which case you are nothing but the scum of the earth. Every time an Israeli theater or dance troupe sets out on a world tour, it is pursued by bigots -- not merely bigots, but bigots who portray themselves as the epitome of enlightenment, fairness, and love among men. Except when that love concerns Jews. Then the smiles drop and the sparkle goes out of the eyes. BDS campaigners impose a cultural boycott on Israeli performers, yet their preferred style of protest -- interrupting events, shouting and screaming to drown out music, accosting fans as they try to enter a hall or committing acts of violence on European and American campuses, or at Canada's Concordia University, in a display of outright fascism not seen since the 1930s in Germany -- show deep contempt for Enlightenment fairness and culture in any form. They burn books and boycott artists perhaps to satisfy some adolescent fantasy of perfection: Aryan beauty against Jewish brains, the Workers' Paradise against successful economies, the law of God against all manner of heretics and infidels. And behind it all lies an ignorance so deep it is unreachable. Today it sometimes seems as if there are two Israels. One is a Jewish state under the rule of law, a democracy that venerates human rights, a compassionate country that gives new hearts to Palestinian children and sends aid to other countries in times of crisis. The other is the deliberate opposite, in which everything is evil: the people (by which is meant the Jewish people, regarded as innately evil) and their actions. Israel allegedly practises apartheid, it is a Nazi state, it kills and maims without compunction, it is a terrorist state, it commits genocide because that is the Jewish way, it is the single evil country in the world, even when set beside all the rogue states. For pure evil not even the greatest dictatorships can be compared to it. Anyone who has been to the first Israel and knows it will not believe the second Israel. But most of Israel's detractors, including the BDS supporters, have never set foot on its deserts or sailed on its seas. Their motives for believing lies, and citing them as the justification for their crimes, are, for some, the longing for a world remade in some romantic image. For others, it is the longing to impose the Islamic faith and its political ideologies on the world. What better place to start than with the Jews, with Israel, a country that was built to be a haven for those most likely to be persecuted? In 2012, Israel's famous dance troupe, Batsheva, founded in 1964 by Batsheva de Rothschild in association with Martha Graham, was greeted by loud, angry protests in London and Edinburgh. Even though its current artistic director, Ohad Naharin, has been described by the New York Times (a paper not given to saying anything pleasant about Israel) as "one of the most fascinating dancemakers on the planet", the BDS campaigners want no dance lovers anywhere to watch Batsheva's dancers perform. Is that not vandalism in the oldest meaning of the word? When the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra came to London, an admiring audience turned up at the Royal Albert Hall to find itself surrounded by masses of vociferous protesters who tried to drown out the music. The BBC had to postpone its broadcast. No one was prosecuted: officials from the Hall refused to cooperate with Jewish lawyers who tried to bring disruptive shouters to justice. The Royal Albert Hall, one of the most important centers for classical music, would not help bring these vandals to book. Have they no shame? Again, in 2012, when Israel's well-regarded theatre company, Habima, came to Britain to perform in London, the BDSers were again out in force. Famous actors, such as the painfully misinformed Emma Thomson, supported the boycott, and painted a great theatre company in the worst possible light. With so many attacks on Israel's culture and her diplomats, are we not reminded of the Nazis, who burned modern art and encouraged bad-taste paintings that celebrated the ideals of kinder, kirche und küche [children, church, and kitchen]? They made bonfires of books, destroying everything they could not understand, whether books by Marx, Freud or any other Jew -- and eventually anyone whose ideas they found uncomfortable. James Joyce's Ulysses went up in flames along with thousands more. These self-appointed arbiters of "good" despised jazz, which they called Negro music; and the Reichsmusikkammer banned atonal music, pop, country, and, naturally, anything by Jewish composers, as apparently threatening to tear down the entire edifice of German civilization. The Nazis did not invent the boycott -- that was done by my Irish fellow-countrymen back in 1880, when we boycotted landlords for their severe exactions, starting with land agent Captain Charles Boycott, whose name has stuck ever since. But the Nazis invented the Jewish Boycott, and went on from there to the Holocaust. Not content with destroying anything cultural of which they self-righteously disapproved, the Germans wiped out a people who had helped make Germany great. Jewish professors, teachers, musicians, writers, businessmen, and psychiatrists were first boycotted, then shot, then gassed -- and by the war's end, Germany, which had been a prosperous nation, stood in ruins, utterly bereft of any culture to speak of, its erstwhile leaders dead or on trial for war crimes, its people in rags, its much-vaunted superiority in tatters, and its greatest "enemies" -- the Jews -- on the verge of creating what is now one of the most successful nations on earth. If some boycotts produce good results -- most famously the international boycott of South Africa, which helped destroy the apartheid system there -- they will work as long-term solutions only when they bring real promise of change for the better, when they are fair, when their targets are genuine, and when there is at their heart some real sense of decency. Given so many sick societies in the Middle East, a boycott of Israel can only intensify this sickness. The BDS campaign is not just dishonest, it is racist: it targets only Jews -- not the Turks for occupying Cyprus, the Pakistanis for invading Kashmir or the Chinese for obliterating Tibet. It is genocidal: it supports and rewards whoever works -- often through violence -- to abolish the state of Israel and then possibly the rest of the Jews. Rather than see the dispute as a pack of Arab and Muslim nations trying to destroy the one non-Muslim state in its midst -- a state the size of Vancouver Island that is trying to defend itself against attacks ultimately meant to destroy it -- Israel's adversaries see the dispute as it has been crafted for over thirty years by leading public relations agencies, hired by oil-rich Muslim nations. They see the dispute as if a small but vicious nation wakes up each day and thinks about how to make the Palestinians' lives as miserable as possible -- when nothing could be farther from the truth. The dispute, according to those with this mindset, can only apparently end by capitulating to all Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim demands. The Palestinians, it seems, do not have to do a thing. This view is ill-informed. If the Israelis did give the Palestinians what they want without even their least attempt to work for peace, it would spell an end to the only truly free country in the Middle East – because that is what the Palestinian demands boil down to. Such a view is unjust: how come the leaders and citizens of truly corrosive regimes, such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are never the focus of any boycotts, cultural or otherwise? It is actually also cruel to the Palestinians: they are denied accountable leadership, equal justice under law from their own rulers, no possibility of free speech or free media or even the possibility to earn a decent living so long as they disdain peace and make suicidal demands on their neighbor. One might well ask if the boycotters' real concern is the welfare of the Palestinian or actually, as it clearly appears, the obliteration of Israel. It is the wrong boycott in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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Topics: Denis MacEoin
Solidarity Against Female Genital Mutilation
by Irfan Al-Alawi
May 7, 2014 at 4:00 am
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"No victim files charges
against her own parents." — Rayeyeh Mozafarian, University of Shiraz,
Iran.
Muslims should take the
initiative in opposing FGM; campaigns against this violation of women's
rights are underway already in several Muslim lands.
Late in March, British authorities undertook their first prosecutions
against female genital mutilation, which has been prohibited in the United
Kingdom since 2003. As revealed
by BBC News on March 21, "Dr. Dhanuson Dharmasena, 31, of Ilford,
east London, will be prosecuted for an alleged offence while working at the
Whittington Hospital in London. Hasan Mohamed, 40, of Holloway, north London,
faces a charge of intentionally encouraging female genital mutilation."The two accused appeared in Westminster Magistrates' Court on April 15, were granted bail, and ordered to present themselves at Southwark Crown Court on May 2. According to the BBC, director of public prosecutions Alison Saunders said the Crown Prosecution Service was asked by the Metropolitan Police to examine allegations that "following a patient giving birth in November 2012, a doctor at the Whittington Hospital repaired female genital mutilation that had previously been performed on the woman, allegedly carrying out female genital mutilation himself." Ms. Saunders said, "Having carefully considered all the available evidence, I have determined there is sufficient evidence and it would be in the public interest to prosecute Dr. Dhanuson Dharmasena for an offence contrary to (Section) 1 (1) of the Female Genital Mutilation Act (2003). "I have also determined that Hasan Mohamed should face one charge of intentionally encouraging an offence of FGM, contrary to section 44 (1) of the Serious Crime Act (2007), and a second charge of aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring Dr. Dharmasena to commit an offence contrary to (Section) 1 (1) of the Female Genital Mutilation Act (2003)." The relevant section of the British law declares, "A person is guilty of an offence if he excises, infibulates or otherwise mutilates the whole or any part of a girl's labia majora, labia minora or clitoris." Reportage on the London indictments by the local Islington Tribune specified that Mohamed "is charged with encouraging the doctor to repair pre-existing FGM on a female patient at Whittington Hospital after she gave birth there." Britain has taken an important step in enforcing, after more than 10 years, its regulation against FGM, an atrocious practice that is often alleged to be Islamic. Even some radical clerics who defend the custom, such as the Qatar-based hate preacher Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, admit that support for FGM is based on unreliable, "weak" precedents in Islamic law. Al-Qaradawi argues that the brutal imposition of FGM is acceptable if desired by parents. But he notes, "women in Islamic nations lived for centuries without circumcision being a concern, as it did not exist." Although FGM is associated often with Islam, it is found commonly in non-Muslim areas of Africa and among immigrants to the West from that region. Muslims should take the initiative in opposing FGM; campaigns against this violation of women's rights are underway already in several Muslim lands. The best known such effort has taken place in Iraqi Kurdistan. In a recent interview, Thomas von der Osten-Sacken, who is affiliated with WADI, an Iraqi-German organization supporting human rights and civil society in the Middle East, described the beginning of the Kurdistan campaign. Von der Osten-Sacken recounted, "Following the toppling of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003, mobile teams we organized [went to] various Kurdish villages and towns to offer medical services. One year later, women started approaching the team members about having been cut… It was a taboo to discuss but… we started helping women in 35 villages." The Kurdistan anti-FGM movement gained attention in media. In 2011, the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq made FGM a crime, and interviewer Heidi Basch-Harod states that FGM "in Iraqi Kurdistan has significantly decreased, from 90 percent to zero percent in some areas. Nevertheless, the practice has not disappeared." In neighboring Iran, researcher Rayeyeh Mozafarian, of the University of Shiraz, conducted interviews about FGM there between 2007 and 2009. In her work, which she was permitted recently to publish, she explained, "why FGM is carried out in private houses by midwives and not by surgeons in hospitals." Iranian law does not mention FGM, but does punish mutilation of the body. Yet Mozafarian found, "Despite the practice being liable to prosecution, practically nobody is charged… No victim files charges against her own parents." Women cut as adults "accept the mutilation as a religious necessity as demanded by local religious authorities." Since such women are liable to have their daughters' genitals cut, Mozafarian has called for a public appeal by Iranian women to end FGM. Coinciding with the United Nations-sponsored International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation, which was observed on February 6, 2014, Y – Pulse of Oman, an English-language news portal, disclosed that while FGM is banned in hospitals in Oman, a sultanate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula aligned in foreign affairs with Iran, it "is being carried out on babies and young girls" across the country. Although FGM is illegal in Egypt and Somalia, high rates are well-known in both.
FGM in Oman has been studied by another valiant figure, Habiba Al-Hinai, who has completed a statistical overview of the problem locally. "FGM constitutes a widespread phenomenon in Oman in all age groups," Al-Hinai said. "The results (of the study) shocked me. Being an Omani, I didn't realize how prevalent it is." Al-Hinai added, "We are not just talking about rural areas and uneducated women. It is happening everywhere, even in [the Omani capital] Muscat, and educated, cultured women support it. ... Yet no one wants to talk about it. It's still a taboo subject." With Britain appearing to have delayed its application of the anti-FGM law for a decade, and the UN unreliable, the fight against FGM is being carried by women activists in Iraqi Kurdistan, Iran, Oman and elsewhere. They deserve effective solidarity by every moderate Muslim and every non-Muslim concerned for human dignity. Let the silence surrounding FGM be broken.
Related
Topics: Irfan Al-Alawi
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