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The Forum > Article Comments > BDS campaign questions academics' courage > Comments

BDS campaign questions academics' courage : Comments

By Stuart Rees, published 21/1/2013

In the face of continuous human rights abuses affecting Palestinians, the time comes for citizens to find other ways to address these issues. The BDS movement provides one of the hopeful 'other ways'.

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I never said Greece was an ethnocracy. That’s your term, EJ, not mine. I just pointed out that they have a nationality law based on ancestry, not just parentage, as do the Palestinians, among others. The parentage criterion itself, where it exists, derives from the classical jus sanguinis (right of blood). Israel’s law of nationality imposes no biologiocal racial test as you seem to think. Jews are and always have been both a faith community and a national community, but consist of many biological races.

Israel's status as the state of the Jewish people does not prevent it from being a state for all its citizens (including minorities). Germany is the state of the German people and German is its official language even though there are many ethnic Turks (and other minorities) who live there as equal citizens but who do not share German culture (eg drinking lots of beer and eating pork knuckles). France, Italy, Spain and Greece are all states representing their majority language/culture group even though each of these countries has ethnic minority groups who live there as equal citizens but who don't share the majority culture.

In the 20th century there were a number of arrangements aimed at defining the future ethnic character of countries for the sake of peace eg the population exchanges between Germany and Poland, Poland and Ukraine, India and Pakistan. In 1922 1.3 million Greeks were expelled from Turkey and about 400,000 Turks were expelled from Greece. Israel and Palestine is another example. When the UN voted to support partition in 1947 the resolution clearly specified that one state would be a "Jewish state" and the other an "Arab state". The resolution even made it clear that the Jewish state would have an Arab minority and the Arab state would have a Jewish minority eg:

"[Each]State shall ensure adequate primary and secondary education for the Arab and Jewish minority, respectively, in its own language and its cultural traditions."

So the idea of Israel as the state of the Jewish people is nothing out of the ordinary and has very clear international legitimacy.
Posted by BSDetector, Thursday, 24 January 2013 2:01:52 PM
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Dear Julian,

<<Ethnocentrism a.k.a. racism is an evil if injustice is an evil.>>

Racism by itself (including its special cases of Zionism and antisemitism for that matter) is not evil or unjust - it depends what you do with it.

Suppose you refuse to marry someone, suppose you are not attracted to them due to their race - that's your private preference and there's nothing wrong with it. How would you feel for example if you were blamed of being an evil and unjust homophobic for preferring girls over boys as [sexual] partners? that's no different, we have right to our personal preferences!

Now of course, if you go and burn people's homes because of their race, then it's evil and unjust, but it would also be evil and unjust to burn people's homes for any other reason - for the victim it's all the same whether your motive was racist or you are just an arsonist who enjoys seeing fires, in both cases they lost their home and all personal effects, who cares why?

Similarly, for the dead Ukrainian farmer, or for the farmer who lost his/her family there, it matters not whether they were killed by racist Nazi Germany or by madman Stalin. The outcome is the same.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Thursday, 24 January 2013 6:31:23 PM
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This by an Arab Israeli very well known and well respected journalist is of interest

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3552/israel-election-palestinian-authority

How the Palestinian Authority Tried to Scare Israeli Voters

by Khaled Abu Toameh



It does not matter who is in power in Israel: no Palestinian leader has a mandate to make any concessions to Israel, let alone sign a peace treaty. Abbas knows this very well and that is why he will keep coming up with excuses to avoid signing a peace treaty, regardless of who is in control of the Israeli government.

The Palestinian Authority either does not know what it wants from the Israelis or is too afraid to admit that it does not have a mandate to sign a peace treaty with Israel.

When left-wing parties and candidates were in power, the Palestinian Authority leadership missed several opportunities to reach a peace agreement with Israel.

This happened at least twice during the past 13 years -- first, when then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak made a generous offer to Yasser Arafat at the Camp David summit and later when Ehud Olmert offered even more during his term in office.

So, the Palestinian Authority leadership first misses opportunities to reach agreements with left-wing and centrist parties. Then, when the right-wing comes to power, the Palestinian Authority starts complaining that there is no peace partner in Israel and calls on Israelis not to vote for Binyamin Netanyahu.

The Palestinian Authority's constant refusal to sign a peace treaty with Israel has undermined the left-wing in Israel, driving many Israelis towards right-wing parties such as Likud Beiteinu and Bayit Yehudi.
Posted by SF, Friday, 25 January 2013 7:34:40 AM
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