An Israeli Soldier to American Jews: Wake Up! By Hen Mazzig. The Times of Israel, October 10, 2013. Also here.
Ex-Israeli Soldier Denounced on US Campus for Not Raping Palestinian Women. By Daniel Greenfield. FrontPage Magazine, October 14, 2013. See also The Blaze.
BDS movement distilled – when Israeli soldiers not raping Arab women is racist. By William A. Jacobson. Legal Insurrection, October 19, 2013.
The next hate fest. By Alan Dershowitz. New York Post, February 25, 2013.
Dershowitz unveils new hasbara claim: IDF has lowest rape rate. By David Samel. Mondoweiss, March 4, 2013.
Refusing to Rape=Racism if you are an Israeli soldier. By Phyllis Chesler. PhyllisChesler.com, December 24, 2007.
Heb. U. Paper Finds: IDF Has Political Motives for Not Raping. By Hillel Fendel. Arutz Sheva 7, December 23, 2007.
Academic: IDF dehumanizes Palestinians by not raping them. By Vic Rosenthal. FresnoZionism, December 26, 2007.
The Raping of Israeli Academia – Tal Nitzan, Zali Gurevitch and Hebrew U. By Lee Kaplan. Israpundit, January 3, 2008.
Complete Story of “No Rape = Racism” Essay. By Steven Plaut. Words and War, January 3, 2008. Abridged version at The Jewish Press.
Monday, December 16, 2013; Hen Mazzig, Stand With Us Northwest. Video. El Shaddai, December 18, 2013. YouTube.
Mazzig:
This
new form of bigotry against Israel has been called the “new anti-Semitism,”
with “Israel” replacing “Jew” in traditional anti-Semitic imagery and canards,
singling out and discriminating against the Jewish state, and denying the
Jewish people alone the right to self-determination. The new anti-Semitism is
packaged in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (BDS), which claims
to champion Palestinian rights though its real goal is to erode American
support for Israel, discredit Jews who support Israel, and pave the way for
eliminating the Jewish state. One of BDS’ central demands is the “complete
right of return” for all the descendants of the original Palestinian refugees,
subtle language that means the end of Israel as the Jewish homeland because it
would turn Israel into a Palestinian-Arab majority state.
It is
surprising that an extremist group like BDS is ever taken seriously, but BDS
advocates have found receptive audiences in some circles. Their campaigns are
well organized and in many cases, well financed. They have lobbied
universities, corporations, food co-ops, churches, performing artists, labor
unions, and other organizations to boycott Israel and companies that do
business with Israel. But even if these groups don’t agree to treat Israel as a
pariah state, the BDS activists manage to spread their anti-Israel
misinformation, lies and prejudice simply by forcing a debate based on their
false claims about Israel.
To give
you a taste of the viciousness of the BDS attacks, let me cite just a few of
the many shocking experiences I have had. At a BDS event in Portland, a
professor from a Seattle university told the assembled crowd that the Jews of
Israel have no national rights and should be forced out of the country. When I
asked, “Where do you want them to go?” she calmly answered, “I don’t care. I don’t
care if they don’t have any place else to go. They should not be there.” When I
responded that she was calling for ethnic cleansing, both she and her
supporters denied it. And during a presentation in Seattle, I spoke about my
longing for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. When I was done, a woman
in her 60’s stood up and yelled at me, “You are worse than the Nazis. You are
just like the Nazi youth!” A number of times I was repeatedly accused of being
a killer, though I have never hurt anyone in my life. On other occasions,
anti-Israel activists called me a rapist. The claims go beyond being absurd –
in one case, a professor asked me if I knew how many Palestinians have been
raped by IDF forces. I answered that as far as I knew, none. She triumphantly
responded that I was right, because, she said, “You IDF soldiers don’t rape
Palestinians because Israelis are so racist and disgusted by them that you
won’t touch them.”
Such
irrational accusations are symptomatic of dangerous anti-Semitism. Yet, alarmingly,
most mainstream American Jews are completely oblivious to this ugly movement
and the threat it poses. They seem to be asleep, unaware that this anti-Jewish
bigotry is peddled on campuses, by speakers in high schools, churches, and
communities, and is often deceptively camouflaged in the rhetoric of human
rights.
