Israel must deal with the hypocrisy of Jewish critics and American Jewish rabbis. A good example concerns our brothers and sisters at J Street who published a full-page ad in The Forward. While acknowledging Gilad Shalit’s captivity and Hamas’ rockets, they “hope” that Israel will end the “counter-productive” Gaza blockade and remain proudly hopeful about “the possibility of two states, Jewish and Palestinian, living as neighbors, in peace and security.”
The J Street rabbis’ who signed the ad refuse to understand that dealing with Hamas is like dealing with Hitler or with Al-Qaeda, evil does not negotiate, nor does fascism. Maybe they are too frightened to face and challenge evil, which is not fathomable, not receptive to appeasement, not even to surrender.
Since many of the rabbi-signatories are women and/or feminists, I wonder if they would give a battered woman or a rape victim the same advice: Sit down with your batterer, reason and compromise with him, forgive him, act non-violently, show the world that you are more ethical than he is. It is remarkable that, even though the obscenity of rape and the inviolable rights of women over their bodies are among the shibboleths of those who are on the front line of demonizing Israel, feminists and other liberals are almost totally silent when Muslims violate these sacred codes.
I would suggest to J Street and their supporters to publish full page adds about the real Middle East where the Palestinian Arabs, and the Iranians treat their own people with savagery, dismissing even the most basic human rights. Only by reporting in full page ads what the enemies of Israel do to their own people, can we begin to understand that the campaign of Boycotting, Divestment, and Sanctions is nothing more than a diversion tactic.
Case No. 1: Human rights report: PA forces using torture for years
The Palestinian Authority security forces have been using torture on Palestinian Arabs on a systematic basis for years, according to a report by the Arab Organization for Human Rights in Britain. The report found that torture techniques in PA prisons included shabh [hanging], beatings with cables, pulling out nails, and suspension from the ceiling, flogging, kicking, cursing, electric shocks, sexual harassment and rape.
At least six Palestinians have died under torture in PA prisons and many former detainees have permanent physical disabilities, the report found. The human rights organization said that it has documented such “crimes” from October 2007 to October 2010. During that period, PA security forces in the West Bank detained 8,640 Palestinian Arabs.
“Every one of those detainees has been subject to humiliating and degrading treatment and stayed in cells for more than 10 days,” the report said. “The analysis shows that an astonishing 95% of the detainees were subjected to severe torture, others feeling the detrimental effects on their health for varying periods.” “Men and women from all sectors of Palestinian society have been subject to arrest and torture,” the report noted. “These include students, workers, teachers, doctors, engineers, university professors and lawyers.” “In order to put pressure on detainees, close relatives, even minors, are brought to the interrogation center, where they may be tortured in front of the detainee in order to try to force a confession of guilt,” the report said.
Case No. 2 : 'I wed Iranian girls before execution'
In a shocking and unprecedented interview, directly exposing the inhumanity of the Achmadinajad regime in Iran, a serving member of the paramilitary Basiji militia has told detailed aspects of his earlier service in the force, including his participation in the rape of young Iranian woman prior to their execution.
In the Islamic Republic of Iran it is illegal to execute a young woman who is a virgin. Therefore, a "wedding" ceremony is conducted the night before the execution: The young woman is forced to have sexual intercourse with a prison guard - essentially raped by her "husband", "I could tell that the girls were more afraid of their 'wedding' night than of the execution that awaited them in the morning. And they would always fight back, so we would have to put sleeping pills in their food. By morning the girls would have an empty expression; it seemed like they were ready or wanted to die.
The campaign to demonize and de-legitimize Israel is nothing more than a diversion policy to deflect Arab leaders from having to be accountable and responsive to the needs of their people. When millions are purposely nursed by fantasies, hypocrisies, and conspiracies to explain away their own failures, they begin to believe their own propaganda. Quite simply, Arab societies where allegiance is to the tribe rather than to the nation, that does not believe in democracy enough to institute it, that shuns female intellectual contributions, allows polygamy, insists on patriarchy, institutionalizes religious persecution, ignores family planning, expects endemic corruption, tolerates honor killings of women, and defines knowledge as mastery of the Quran. The behavior of Arab leaders and the case examples above should be the reported narrative of the Middle East, only then can one understand the complexities involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
In Arab politics today, from the Palestinian Authority to the Ayatollahs of Iran, opponents are neither answered nor rebutted. They are discredited, imprisoned, exiled or murdered and with each disaster, defeat, or tragedy, it is always the Zionist/occupation/imperialist conspiracies that are to blame. Let the hypocrisy end now, it is time to end the conspiracy of silence. Confronting the wave of hypocritical intolerance towards Israel begins at home.