Even though I’m a Zionist and a Jewish woman, I’m also an eternal Pollyanna. I truly believe that all people are good. I have spent a lot of my ink here begging people not to hate on the Cordoba Project, a lot of my free time pleading with my fellow Jews to remember many happy years of Muslim/Jewish coexistence and just trying to be a good neighbor and friend to anyone.
It appears that As’ad AbuKhalil, the supposedly famous “Angry Arab News Service” blogger, is also trying to feel the love for the Jewish people. He chastises Jewish readers who embrace anti-Muslim causes that are “dangerous on the long term” and “ destined to poison for years and decades to come the relationship between Jews… and all Muslims and Arabs.” OK, As’ad. Now you’re going to condemn those in Arab world who spread lies about Jews, right?
Nope. Instead we get this:
I of course want only poisoned relationship[s] with Israel, but I believe that our fierce and categorical rejection of Zionism in Palestine should be separate from the attempt to establish–especially after the demise of Israel–harmony and brotherhood/sisterhood between Arabs/Muslims and Jews.
As soon as Israel is destroyed, he wants to build bridges between Arabs and Jews, and then we can have harmony and brotherhood/sisterhood. If this is his idea of friendship, he must get invited to all the parties.
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this view. But this isn’t some loony Al Qaeda nutjob in a cave in Afghanistan; this is a college professor at Cal State Stanislaus, deciding that certain countries do not have a right to exist. I’m all for freedom of speech, but it makes me realize that there are people in this world who don’t get that destroying Israel isn’t a very peaceful gesture. This is why I am so very grateful to Fidel Castro for speaking up for the Jewish people and finally understanding what Jews have gone through for the last two millennia. Mr. Castro may have his issues, but he gets what many Jews hear when they listen to people talking about the destruction of the Jewish state.
Natan Sharansky spoke of the three Ds which define whether this is bigotry or constructive criticism: demonization, double standards and delegitimization. This “Angry Arab” displays all three—making this, according to Sharansky, bigotry.
After examining fifteen pages of his site, I could not find a single positive mention of Israel. If earlier examples can be found, I would be happy to retract that statement. The Angry Arab sees Israel as an evil state.
This leads into the double standards. He greets any misdeed Israel commits with the phrase “This is Zionism,” but portrays any sins committed by Muslims as an isolated acts, not a representative of Islam. If Israel does anything right, he ignores it; if Israel does anything wrong, it doesn’t deserve to exist. Could anyone survive such rigorous scrutiny? I doubt if even the “Angry Arab” could.
Finally, he engages in delegitimization. No other country in the world has its very existence under debate, but the Children of Israel have always been a chosen people. The “Angry Arab” rejoices that “Israel’s years are numbered,” and talks of his “excitement” that “young Arabs, secular and religious, all carry the flame of rejecting Zionism categorically.” It must be wonderful to see so many people willing to spend another generation at war, trying to destroy their fellow man.
I have to wonder how he plans to liquidate the land of Zionists and liberate it, but there’s no way to do it peacefully. There can be no sisterhood/brotherhood with those who delegitimize Jews as a people and seek to destroy a nation-state. There are lines that can’t be crossed.
Is this the kind of professor California wants on its payrolls?
