Thursday, April 07, 2005
Elder of Ziyon
"Don't depose Saddam - it will cause the Arab street to get upset!"
No one is saying that the right-wing Israelis who want to protest at their holiest site are going to hurt anyone - they are saying that they'll "provoke" Muslims into bloodshed. Once again, the world regards Muslims and Arabs as people who are somehow not responsible for their actions, who cannot be blamed for their crimes. It is an amazing racism that the liberal world has towards Arabs - they are expected to be treated as if they are wild bears, or people with low IQs - "Don't get too near the cage or you'll upset him!"
This soft bigotry plays well into Arab hands - they can always use their threat of not being able to control their people to get what they want. (Even though they control their people quite well when they want to.)
And you will never see anyone say "Don't pressure Israel - it will make them upset." No, Israelis are expected to be rational human beings who can understand the complexities of the situation, who can separate emotion from logic, who can be spoken to as equals. As opposed to Arabs, who have to be "managed" so they won't do anything rash. So Jewish sensibilities towards the Temple Mount or Hebron or Rachel's Tomb or Joseph's Tomb are downplayed because the Jewish love of these areas is irrational - it is only religious.
What is a shame is that there is an implicit agreement from the current Israeli government that Jews do not have full rights over some parts of Israel, and by extension this makes it appear that Israel's rights over any territory is suspect. As long as the rights of Jews to go wherever they want is not insisted upon, then "competing" rights of Arabs making areas Judenrein will win.
And that means that bigotry and anti-semitism is being approved by the Israeli government and everyone else who thinks that Jews cannot peacefully visit or pray at their simgle holiest site. If Israel doesn't stand up for the rights of Jews, no one else will.
