Let
World Judge Israel By Single Standard, Those Who Condemn Jews
By Same Standard
By
Alan M. Dershowitz
Israel News Agency
Jerusalem,
Israel December 20, 2013
A paradigmatic characteristic
of all bigotry is to take a fault that is widespread among all
cultures, races, religions and nationalities and to attribute
it singularly to one group.
For example:
Blacks are violent. Jews are cheap. Asians
are sly. Gays are pedophiles. Women are
irrational. Romanies (gypsies) cheat.
The truth,
of course, is that all groups have some among them with these
negative characteristics.
The bigots
who make these claims correctly point to the fact that some members
of these groups display the negative characteristics attributed
to the groups as a whole.
But the bigotry
consists of singling out any such group for unique condemnation
on the basis of these widespread faults without acknowledging
that members of other groups have them as well, sometimes in greater
proportion than the group that is singled out.
This is precisely
what is occurring in the context of the nation state of the Jewish
people, Israel, being singled out for boycotts, divestment and
sanctions.
As the president
of the American Studies Association, Curtis Marez, acknowledged,
after his organization singled out Israel for an academic boycott:
Many other countries, including all of Israels neighbors,
have far worse records when it comes to human rights and academic
freedom.
Moreover,
other countries (including China, Russia and Turkey) have had
longer and far more oppressive occupations than Israel without
offering (as Israel has) to end the occupation as part of a negotiated
peace. But Prof.
Marezs
response to the charge of bigotry in applying the double standard
to the nation state of the Jewish people was We have to
start somewhere.
That is the
characteristic response of the bigot. When it comes to condemning
violence, we have to start somewhere, so lets target African-Americans
for stop and frisk. When it comes to stopping pedophilia, we
have to start somewhere so lets start with profiling
gays. Surely this would be recognized as bigotry personified.
Marezs
benighted response is more than simply bigoted, it is mendacious.
His association
is not simply starting with Israel, it is stopping with Israel.
A vote to boycott Chinese, Cuban, Russian or Palestinian academic
institutions which are worse by every measure of civil liberties,
human rights and academic freedom than Israeli institutions
would garner few, if any, votes. This too is the paradigm of bigotry:
starting and ending with one ethnic or religious group and applying
a different standard to every other group.
When Harvard
University adopted a quota system directed only against Jewish
applicants, its president, A. Lawrence Lowell, justified singling
out Jews, because, he claimed, Jews cheat.
When told
that Christians cheat, too, he responded: Youre changing
the subject. Were talking about Jews now.
He too had
to start and stop somewhere. So he singled out the Jews. Was this
anti-Semitic? The answer to the question, is the singling out
of the nation state of the Jewish people for an academic boycott
an act of anti-Semitism, the answer is, if the shoe fits ...
Here not only
does the shoe fit, but like Cinderellas slipper, the bigoted
shoe in this case fits only one group: academic institutions in
the nation state of the Jewish people.
There are
those who claim that the BDS movement against Israel cannot be
anti-Semitic, because it is directed at a country and not at individuals.
But by treating Israel as the Jew among nations singling
it out for condemnation when others are far worse by any relevant
standard the advocates of BDS are simply expanding the
notion of anti-Semitism beyond the individual to the nation state
of the Jewish people. When Nazis condemned Jewish physics,
Jewish art and Jewish business practices,
they too claimed that they were focusing on Jewish institutions
rather than Jewish individuals. That defense wont work.
Treating the Jew among nations precisely the way classic anti-Semites
have treated the Jewish people is simply a new adaptation of the
oldest of prejudices.
So let the
world condemn those who single out the nation state of the Jewish
people for the application of a double standard. Let the world
understand that bigotry is bigotry whether directed against the
Jew among nations or the Jew within nations.
Let those
who want to boycott nations apply the simple test of morality:
the worst first. Let them apply another moral test: focusing first
on those countries in which dissent is not tolerated and in which
there is no internal recourse against violations of human rights.
Applying these
tests to Israel would put the nation state of the Jewish people
at the very bottom of countries deserving to be boycotted. But
by ignoring the worst and condemning a nation that is near the
very top in terms of human rights, academic freedom and the rule
of law, the bigotry of the condemners becomes obvious.
So let the
world judge Israel by a single standard and let the world judge
those who condemn Israel by that same standard.
The writer,
ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ, is a veteran professor at Harvard Law School,
is a prominent advocate for Israel in the United States. Edited
by Joel Leyden.
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