The HRW Apartheid Report: Does It Matter?
It's a drill Israel knows all too well. A well-known NGO writes a report blasting Israel. The Foreign Ministry slams it as agenda-driven, anti-Israel drivel. The media runs a few stories. And the issue fades - until next time. How important is a report accusing Israel of apartheid by a veteran anti-Israel activist who was deported from Israel because of his BDS activities, even if that report is put out by one of the world's better known, but wildly imbalanced, human-rights organizations?The ‘Apartheid’ Smear, Antisemitism and the Unending Battle to Destroy the Jewish State
It doesn't matter that much anymore in the corridors of power in Western democracies. One Israeli official said the halo of the human-rights organizations has come off over the years and they don't command the same respect or influence among leading governments as they once did.
Where it does matter is among young people who do not have a good grip on the history of the conflict. It will provide ammunition for anti-Israel activists, primarily on campuses and the streets, but also in parliaments. A two-state solution won't be enough for those who view Israel as an apartheid state. For them, it will be necessary to cancel apartheid, which - in their view - means Israel.
On December 14, 1979, the UN would apply a libel that Jews would be quite familiar with — that of seeking to control the world. In resolution 34/103, titled “Inadmissibility of the policy of hegemonism in international relations,” the UN declared that “racism including zionism and apartheid are all forces which seek to perpetuate unequal relations and privileges acquired by force and are, therefore, different manifestations of the policy and practice of hegemonism.” It went on to condemn:
imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, apartheid, racism including zionism and all other forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination and interference, as well as the creation of spheres of influence and the division of the world into antagonistic political and military blocs.
You see, not only are Jews the ultimate racists, they are also seeking to manipulate and dominate the world.
Still, it did not stop there. A few years later, on May 4, 1982, the UN’s Economic and Social Council adopted resolution 1982/18 on the “Situation of women and children in the occupied Arab territories,” in which it:
Consider[ed] that international co-operation and peace are threatened by colonialism. neo-colonialism. fascism, zionism, apartheid and foreign occupation, alien domination and racial discrimination in all its forms.
Not only are Israelis the purveyors of racism and intent on world domination, they’re also fascists, too. Why not compare Jews to Nazis? They’d gotten away with the labels of apartheid and seekers of world domination.
The progression was not accidental. To understand this, one need only look at a 1974 speech at the UN by the head of the PLO’s political department, Faruq al-Qadumi. While boasting about a resolution that told the Palestinians they could use “all means” to achieve their “right of return,” as well as a second resolution that gave the PLO permanent observer status at the UN, Faruq said:
We did not come here to reconcile terrorism with Zionist usurpation. We came here to bear witness to the historic difference between us and the Zionists. We regard diplomatic activities as a part of our activities on the battlefield.
You see, Arab League Secretary-General Azzam Pasha’s 1948 “war of extermination and momentous massacre” had failed. Days before the Six-Day War, PLO founder Ahmad al-Shukeiri famously said of the upcoming war that “[t]hose who survive will remain in Palestine. I estimate that none of them will survive.” He was wrong, too, as were the invading Arab armies in 1973.
Knowing they could not defeat the Jews in conventional war, they still refused to accept the right of the Jewish people to live in their own state in their ancient homeland in peace. They instead chose to continue the battle in other ways, namely terrorism, and, as we see with HRW today, antisemitic libels that won’t end with the “apartheid” label.
The existence of Muslim Only water fountains at the Temple Mount shows that Apartheid does exist.https://t.co/2KoCqBJykK
— Joe Burns (@Joe_Burns_Irish) April 29, 2021
Noa Tishby: A member of ‘The Squad’ is slandering the Jewish state — again
Contrary to Tlaib’s claim that “the violence was not stopped by” the government, a strong police force was present at the LEHAVA protest to curb potential violence, according to The New York Times, a paper not exactly known for its sympathy for the Jewish state.
Police arrested both Israeli and Palestinian agitators, though most of the detained were Jews from West Jerusalem. Plus, Israeli security forces created a buffer on both Thursday and Friday night in an attempt to isolate the two warring camps.
LEHAVA staged an unjustifiable, indefensibly racist demonstration. However, in all the coverage up to that point, I didn’t see a single outraged post or tweet by the Squad or other left-wing heroes condemning Hamas or the many live-streamed hate-crime attacks against Israeli Jews.
The hypocrisy, the double standards, the constant instinct to blame only one side in a complex and nuanced cycle of cause and effect — these amount to dangerous propaganda with immediate and lasting repercussions.
Tlaib and her fellow activists, especially those who hold elected office, should broaden their frame to get the full picture of what’s going on in Israel and the wider region. If they had done so, they might have seen that while a fringe group was representing the worst of Israeli society, another group of Arabs and Jews led by the organization Peace Now were marching jointly in Jerusalem, calling for calm.
Israeli peace marches, unfortunately, get fewer clicks and retweets.
The Tikvah Podcast: Christine Rosen on the New Crime Wave and Its Consequences
The United States is undergoing a spike in violent crime. Murder rates have increased drastically in big cities across the country, from Atlanta and New York to Milwaukee and Seattle. For the roughly 7 million Jews in the United States, four out of five of whom live in cities, incidents of violent crime can’t be ignored. The cities where most American Jews live are the very places that are growing more dangerous.
American Jews aren’t the only ones affected by rising urban crime, of course. Hate crime directed against Jews is very high, but as Christine Rosen wrote in the March 2021 edition of Commentary, “the vast majority of these homicides were black Americans, including many children, 55 of whom were killed in Chicago last year alone.” Here’s a case where two of America’s most urban populations, black people and Jews, are together imperiled by the return of urban disorder.
On this week’s podcast, Rosen joins Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver to discuss her essay, and how different ways of looking at law enforcement reveal different philosophical understandings of the human condition.