Israeli Apartheid Week- Howling Barbarism with a Thin Veneer of Education

Canadian universities will soon be hosting Israeli Apartheid week.  This truly is a revolting display of hypocrisy and ignorance.  You see, it's mostly leftist groups that organize this, including gay and lesbian rights groups.  As an article in the Ottawa Citizen pointed out, this defies the most basic of logical constructs.

How far our universities have fallen from their mandates.
You see, universities are supposed to promote logical though.  But there is no logic to declaring Israel an Apartheid state.  Are they racist? If so, how do you explain the million or so Arabs who are ethnically identical to the Palestinians holding passports, owning businesses, voting, and otherwise participating in the Israeli state?  Are they responding disproportionately to a non-existent threat?  If so, how would YOU suggest responding to hundreds of rocket attacks a year on innocent populations?  Are they cruelly starving the innocent?  If so, how do you explain the fact that Israel provides more humanitarian aid to Gaza and the West Bank than Saudi, Syria, and Egypt combined?  Are they committing war crimes with the intent to exterminate their foes?  If so, how do you explain the fact that the IDF has done more to limit collateral damage than any army in the history of humanity?

I could go on and on.  You see, the problem is not that Israel is doing something wrong.  The problem is that Israel exists.  It expanded its territory in the time-honoured method of military conquest, which is considered (arbitrarily) illegitimate in this day and age.  It has the temerity of outperforming all of its neighbours on every measure of success imaginable (unless public executions, illiteracy and general squalor are your idea of success).  In a part of the world where homosexuality is illegal, and the separation of church and state considered heresy, Israel has Muslim and Christian members of parliament, and hosts a gay pride parade in Tel Aviv.  Despite suffering rocket and mortar attacks every day, Israelis are better off than the citizens of any of the neighbouring countries.  So much so that Israel outperforms even Canada in technological innovation.

But none of this matters to the students who will decry Israel's supposed evils.  They see no cognitive dissonance in marching alongside HAMAS banners, so long as everyone is on the same "anti-Zionist" page.  Do they not know that the very same Palestinians being supported by Gay rights groups in Ottawa lynch (or worse) their neighbours for even suspected homosexuality?

No matter. It isn't about facts, it's about narrative.  The Israelis believe that some cultures are objectively better than others- Israel may not be perfect, but it is objectively better than the alternative offered by HAMAS.  You see, Israel's existence directly refutes the Multicultural narrative.  Israel proves western democracy, no matter how imperfectly implemented, is better than middle-eastern autocracy.  The anti-Israel coalition wants to paint moral equivalence between HAMAS goals and Israeli goals.  They try to tell a story of a poor people who just want a normal life.  Odd, last time I checked, Yassir Arafat turned down everything you could ask for and more in Oslo.  If anyone wants normalcy, it's the Israelis.  When is the last time you heard Tzipi Livni suggesting that we drive the Palestinians into the Jordan?  The Israelis repeatedly offer massive concessions in exchange for just a few months without rocket attacks.  In a perverse parallel to the old Peanuts gag, the Israeli Charlie Brown is always ready to believe that Palestinian Lucy won't pull away the football.


Arguments for moral equivalence are always couched in the idea that no culture is better than another.  Israel rather inconveniently proves this idea wrong.  It's no surprise that this infuriates people, but one expects better of institutions of "higher learning".