(Canadian Jewish News) Gerald Steinberg - In Syria, one of the Middle East's most oppressive regimes has killed thousands of its citizens, but university campuses in North America and Europe are silent. There is also no "Saudi apartheid week," no protests against the killings of members of the Coptic community in Egypt, and no boycott of Turkey for systematic discrimination against its Kurdish citizens, or of Iran for systematic attacks against non-Shiite minorities. Instead, the self-proclaimed voices of peace are using all of their energies and resources for an obsessive attack against Israel with another round of "Israeli apartheid week." The use of the "apartheid" libel is inherently racist and discriminatory, targeting the existence of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. If the officials of European governments who support ostensible human rights organizations that actively promote the "apartheid" libel actually took the principles of human rights and democracy seriously, they would use their resources to protest the real oppression of the Arab and Iranian dictatorships. Their silence speaks volumes about the double standards and cynicism that has captured and distorted the moral agenda beyond recognition. The writer is executive director of NGO Monitor and chairman of the political studies department at Bar-Ilan University.
2012-03-12 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive