Globe & Mail columnist Rick Salutin buys into four of the biggest myths peddled by the organizers of Israel Apartheid Week.
Myth: The "apartheid" label stems from the security fence. Salutin writes:
Cabinet minister Jason Kenney calls Israel Apartheid Week “a systematic effort to delegitimize the democratic homeland of the Jewish people” by linking it to racism, a line virtually mouthed by Opposition Leader Michael Ignatieff. That is way too cute. Any “settler state,” such as Canada, which took someone else's land, can be seen as illegitimate. But it's an abstract point. “Apartheid” became widely used in this context only when Israel began building what came to be called an apartheid wall, looming over Palestinians, sequestering more land, cutting them off from each other.
Fact: The apartheid label was generated by the rabid participants of the 2001 Durban conference, nearly a whole year before Israel decided to build its security fence. See how South Africa's former ambassador to Israel, Major General Fumanekile Gqiba, reacted to the apartheid comparison.
Myth: The security fence divides the West Bank into "Bantustans." According to Salutin:
The usage grew as Israel expanded settlements, built Israeli-only roads
and set up checkpoints so Palestinians would at best be left with
“Bantustans,” such as those that apartheid South Africa offered blacks,
rather than a true state of their own
Fact: The fence, checkpoints and roads are for Israel's security, not to segregate people. In 2007, Islamic Jihad chief Ramadan Shalah confirmed as much to Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV that the Israel's security measures effectively thwarts terror attacks.
Myth: Jewish students shouldn't be overly concerned by the campus debate's invective. Salutin says:
Most of the specifics come down to shouts at protests. As in: “Cries of ‘Die, Jew' and ‘Get the hell off campus' were heard.” The Canadian Jewish Congress's Bernie Farber says he's “never” seen it this bad “on the streets of Toronto and university campuses.” Well, I spend lots of time on streets in Toronto and it doesn't look like Kristallnacht to me. But wait, that's glib. It's these images that scare my friends: They evoke Nazi Germany. I know that.
politicians were proudly anti-Semitic. Here, anti-Semitism is unacceptable in all those ways. This whole debate proves it. We should be glad for that, and keep it in perspective.
Fact: The Jewish students of 1930s Germany received similar reassurances by people no less well-meaning or enlightened than Salutin. See more sober reactions from McGill's Professor Gil Troy and Israeli Bedouin diplomat Ishmael Khaldi.
Myth: Hamas can accomodate the existence of Israel.
Even Hamas has a (nuanced) position on living with Israel. You can look it up.
Fact: Okay, I looked up the Hamas charter. Here's what Salutin confuses for "nuance."
Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory)
. . .[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement.
. . .
There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad.
Moreover, on closer look, the charter notes early on Hamas's identification with the Muslim Brotherhood, an international movement with branches in Egypt, Jordan, even the US, and UK. International movements like the Muslim Brotherhood don't have a track record for the kind of nuance Salutin puts his faith in.
