Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a columnist for The Independent, has a long history when it comes to poisonous diatribes against Israel and Jews who support the state. She regularly describes Israel as a “racist” and “apartheid” state yet claims that some of her best friends are Jewish.
Her latest screed continues in this vein with some particularly disturbing comments even by her low standards. Chief among these is this statement:
Hamas is a wicked and dangerous force in the Middle East. But Israel is now more wicked and dangerous.
A look at the evil and anti-Semitic Hamas Charter, not to mention Hamas’s deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians as recently as last summer, is enough to demonstrate that the real wickedness on display here is Alibhai-Brown’s despicable claim that Israel is more virulent than a vicious terror organization.
But that is only one of many issues with Alibhai-Brown’s piece. She begins by praising Time magazine columnist Joe Klein for criticizing Israel even though he is, according to her, a “loyal Zionist all his life.” She writes:
It took courage to write with such honesty. It took a perceptive and reflective Jew to articulate what millions felt around the world. He will, by now, have felt the slings and arrows of outraged zealots.
Furthermore:
It isn’t easy to be a principled and mindful Diasporic Jew. Accused of treachery by insiders and mistrusted by outsiders, they can’t win.
Some still do censure the racist Israeli state, but carefully. Many don’t speak out because criticism of Israel provokes defensive Zionist fury and bolsters diehard anti-Semites.
On the contrary, it does not take a great deal of courage to criticize Israeli policies. Plenty of Diaspora Jews do that and it is their right to do so. If they do so “carefully” it is because they are not indulging in the demonization and delegitimization that characterizes so much of the hateful invective aimed at Israel these days. Aside from the Diaspora, even more Israelis are critical of their own government as befits a healthy democracy which has just held an intensely fought election. Of course, Alibhai-Brown can’t help but add the “racist” adjective into the mix as well treating Zionism as a dirty ideology.
Alibhai-Brown continues:
Many of us Muslims are caught in the same bind: if we condemn Islamicist ideologues, defensive Muslims get furious and anti-Muslim hatred is boosted.
There is, however, no moral equivalence between Jews criticizing the actions of Israel and Muslims criticizing Islamist terror. Zionists defending Israel are not the same as “defensive Muslims” justifying the ideology or actions of Al-Qaeda or Islamic State terrorists.
Alibhai-Brown then addresses the opposition to a one-sided anti-Israel conference taking place at Southampton University. As Petra Marquardt-Bigman writes:
The official announcement describes the conference as “a ground-breaking historical event on the road towards justice and enduring peace in historic Palestine.” The conference is supposedly “unique because it concerns the legitimacy in International Law of the Jewish state of Israel;” however, as students of antisemitism will know, there is nothing “unique” about singling out the world’s only Jewish state for delegitimization.
According to Alibhai-Brown, however, those thousands of people who have expressed their opposition to this conference are “agitators” against the “scholarly deliberations” involved in questioning Israel’s right to exist.
It’s then time to bring in some Holocaust abuse:
Jewish thinkers and writers in the US, UK and Israel are now questioning the way the Holocaust has been cheapened and used to justify inhumane policies and actions.
The only cheapening of the Holocaust is caused by those such as Alibhai-Brown who contend that there is some moral equivalence between the slaughter of six million Jews and Israeli treatment of the Palestinians. She then goes on to lionize a selection of anti-Zionist UK Jews who represent a very vocal fringe of Israel-haters who claim credibility by virtue of speaking “as a Jew.”
Alibhai-Brown concludes:
I wish more of us Muslims acknowledged Jewish men and women who, in spite of intolerable pressures, fight for Palestine, an ethical, just Israel and equality for all. I wish more Muslims were as fair-minded and honourable as these Jewish resistors.
In Alibhai-Brown’s hateful worldview, there are good Jews and bad Jews. The good Jews are those who oppose Israel while the bad Jews are Zionists.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and these “fair-minded and honourable Jewish resistors” are welcome to each other.
[sc:graybox ]You can take action now. Click “Strongly Disagree” at the bottom of Yasmin Alibhai’s article, add your comments to the conversation underneath or send your letters to [email protected] remembering to include your postal address and daytime telephone number to stand a chance of publication.
