If you want to drive Israel haters crazy - do something good for Israeli Arabs

Nothing gets under the skin of Israel haters more than Israel acting in ways that contradict the principle by which they live their pathetic little lives.

And when that happens, they have to twist theire brains into geometrically improbable shapes in order to pretend that Israel's actions to end discrimination are really actions to enforce discrimination.

A wonderfully convoluted post at Electronic Intifada by Yara Sa'di is today's example:

The phony pluralism of Israel’s universities

Palestinian students at Israeli universities are likely to notice an increase in the number of scholarships they can apply for in the coming months. Various websites for academic institutions will also be translated into Arabic.

These changes are the result of a government decision to allocate some $82 million over the course of six years for integrating “minorities” into the higher education system.

At first glance, it may appear that Israel has undertaken a U-turn in policy following decades of discriminatory and exclusionary practices against Palestinian students.

Yet when deeper questions are asked, it becomes obvious that whatever intentions those who drafted this policy had, standing up for the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel was not one of them.

The new policy was devised as part of a project to boost “pluralism” in Israeli universities by ensuring greater access for minorities.

The Israeli Council for Higher Education, the body behind the project, has identified the minorities targeted as “Arabs, Druze and Circassians.”

So if Israel making a serious investment to help minorities is not really to help minorities, what is it for?

Israel has realized that its policies towards Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship were having an adverse effect on its image abroad.

Ah, it is the Arab student equivalent of "pinkwashing!"

And in case you don't make that connection...

[This logic,] for example, underpins the “pinkwashing” campaigns undertaken by Israel, which depict Israel as a defender of gay rights in order to divert attention away from the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.

Sa'di goes crazy over a little seen (and excellent) video that Israel's Council for Higher Education released last year. Thanks to her, now far more people will get to see this video showing how Israel is helping its minorities than the 150 who had seen it up until now:



The video frankly acknowledges that Israeli Arabs have a harder time than Israeli Jews to reach their academic and career goals, for various reasons, and it shows how things are changing for the better. With Israeli Arabs taking center stage.

Isn't that horrible? They must all be brainwashed by the Zionist propaganda machine!

Not only that, but the video is guilty in "its refusal to acknowledge that Palestinian citizens of Israel live under a system of apartheid." It's also guilty of not acknowledging that the Earth is flat.

Of course, being Electronic Intifada, it takes as a given that Israel institutionalizes racism at all levels, and the many other initiatives being done to improve Arab education and career growth are ignored. Because they don't fit the narrative. When the evidence becomes too overwhelming, then they are dismissed as mere public relations - PR that costs tens of millions of dollars and directs hundreds of people to act towards a goal of eliminating discrimination. Yeah, that makes sense!

Sa'di ends off with:

So long as Israeli universities remain committed to Zionism, no amount of money will lead them to become “pluralist.”

So unless Israel dismantles itself, it has no right to help Arabs, because that help doesn't really help.

Sa'di proves that she is the one who is bigoted against Arabs, not Israel.

For bigots like Sa'di, it is better that Arabs don't have any opportunities to improve their lives rather than work within a system that she believes is immoral to begin with.

Israel helping Arabs is immoral because it makes the Arabs less miserable and less likely to spend their entire lives with the same hate that she has.

This is the same racist logic that says that Palestinian Arabs in Arab countries must remain in misery as long as Israel exists, so they can be pointed at to prove Israel is at fault.

And Yara Sa'di is a "postgraduate student and activist from Haifa." Yet seeing other Israeli Arabs trying to reach new heights in this video fills her with anger and bile.

If that isn't bigotry, what is?