Originally Posted by soma_:
“Netanyahu states Israel is a Jewish State.
It would not allow the exclusive acts by Israel to be criticised because they are not levelled at other countries ?”
Indeed.
Considering the UK's role in creating this undemocratic tyranny it's a damned hypocritical and dangerous way to justify it, when it also appears to be a way to silence concern for Palestinians.
This is about the October Commons Report, Antisemitism in the UK
Free Speech on Israel
Jews & friends who say antizionism is NOT antisemitism
Manufacturing consent on ‘antisemitism’ By Tony Greenstein.
http://freespeechonisrael.org.uk/man...-antisemitism/
Quote:
“Four and a half million Palestinians are subject to permanent military rule without any political or civil rights.
To call Israel a ‘liberal democracy’ is to render the term meaningless. By this definition Apartheid South Africa could also have been considered democratic.
The purpose of the Committee’s Report is a transparent as it is shallow. It quotes the ‘International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism which in relation to criticism of Israel:
‘Applying double standards by requiring of it a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.’
The Committee demonstrates its ignorance since Israel is not a nation, nor does it claim to be so. It is a state of the Jewish people, regardless of whether they live in or outside Israel. Nor is Israel a democratic state since it rules over 4.5 million people who have neither civil nor political rights. It is an ethnocracy, in which settlers rule over a people who are considered guests at best. Where no less than 48% of Israeli Jews, a plurality, want to physically expel Arabs from Israel and 79% believe Jews are entitled to preferential treatment in Israel. It is clear that British people are remarkably free of anti-Semitic sentiments
The underlying assumption is that criticism of the State of Israel is somehow anti-Semitic. Because Israeli racism is based on its self-definition as a Jewish state, i.e. a state where Jews have privileges, it is assumed that criticism of its racism is therefore anti-Semitic.
Where the Committee’s Report becomes a threat to freedom of speech and basic civil liberties is in its recommendation (Para. 32) that:
‘For the purposes of criminal or disciplinary investigations, use of the words ‘Zionist’ or ‘Zio’ in an accusatory or abusive context should be considered inflammatory and potentially antisemitic.’ Anti-Zionism it is proposed should be made, in certain circumstances into a hate crime. This is the criminalisation of speech. ‘Zionist’ or its abbreviation is a political not an ethnic or racial category. That although 59% of Jews consider themselves Zionists, 31% do not. There are millions of non-Jews who are also Zionists, especially fundamentalist Christians. Is it anti-Semitic to accuse them of being Zionists?!
.”
