It is BDS founder Omar Barghouti's right to spout nonsense, but any self-respecting interviewer should challenge him. Ben-Dror Yemini in Ynet News eviscerates the latest display of Useful Idiocy in Le Monde:
This week Le Monde (registration required) published an interview with Omar Barghouti, one of the leaders of BDS. His argument, in essence, was that there is no problem with the Jews living as a minority under Arab rule in the exemplary state he aims to create.
After all, the Jews, he explained, "did not suffer in Arab countries. There were no pogroms. There was no persecution. And in general, the Jews thrive as minorities in Europe and the United States." So what's the problem? Please live as a minority under Arab democracy, which is known for its protection of minorities, especially if they are Jews.
The man suffers from double blindness - both to the past and to the present. It's doubtful whether there is a Jewish community under Muslim rule that did not suffer from persecution, with or without any relation to Zionism. The list is long. And the leader of the British Mandate-era Arab Higher Committee, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, was actually a well-known fan of Jews. That's why he apparently led the pogrom against the Jews of Baghdad in 1941, the "Farhud", and from there traveled to Berlin in order to turn more Muslims into Nazis. He also wrote about his plans to destroy all of the Arab countries' Jews.
Photo: Reuters
It's Barghouti's right to spout nonsense. But when he's given such an important platform, he should be asked: Excuse me, what are you talking about? And did you forget the pogroms against Jews in Libya in 1945 and 1948, and in Aden in 1948, and in Morocco, in Damascus, and in Aleppo? Hundreds were murdered, merely because they were Jewish. And if we turn to the present, where exactly are minorities living in peace and quiet in Arab nations? It's possible that Barghouti means the black Muslims of Darfur in Sudan.
How is it that the interviewer did not push him? Well, it turns out that the interviewer is an Israeli, Nirit Ben-Ari. In the past she supported the Israeli-Arab nationalist party Balad. Towards the last elections she published an article supporting the Joint Arab List. She is also an avid supporter of BDS. She asked to interview Barghouti for Haaretz, but he made it clear that he refused to be interviewed for any Israeli newspaper, because of Zionist hegemony.
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The answer to why he wasn't challenged on the things he said is simple: has anyone ever said anything to you that was so stupid that you just didn't know how to respond?
ReplyDeleteIn this case I think that is attributing a degree of intelligence to the interviewer which she does not have
ReplyDeleteYemini is very good as usual. However, here he errs in not mentioning the mufti husseini's collaboration in the Holocaust against Jews in Europe.
ReplyDeleteHe urged that Jewish children be sent to Poland where they would be under "active supervision." Since Husseini had been given an SS escorted visit to a concentration camp, he well knew what happened to Jewish children in Poland during the Nazi period.
The "halo effect" given to anyone who claims to be speaking on behalf of the Palestinians is at work here. The likes of Norman Finklestein can make absurd statements like the prejudice against fat people is a bigger problem than antisemetism only weeks after the HyperCasher market massacre and the audience laps it up.
ReplyDelete