A letter to Aaron Maté

Letters

I write in response to your letter "Concordia and anti-Semitism" written to the Montreal Gazette and republished in the Jewish Bulletin Dec. 6. In many ways, I acknowledge that your concerns about Israeli actions are courageous and driven by high ideals. You see a wrong and you want it corrected. What you don't see, because this is a lesson learned from history and from experience in the real world, is that the ripple you are creating in the interest of supporting a wave of change is being closely followed by a typhoon of destruction. Your style of advocacy for the Palestinian cause helps create an atmosphere where anti-Semitic acts are perpetrated, and the ideal of a Jewish homeland is endangered. I'm not saying you cannot be in favor of a just solution for the Palestinian people; I'm saying that you are going about it the wrong way.

You already know, based on your letter and the interviews you gave to the press, that you cannot control the actions of your fellow students or your fellow pro-Palestinians. You say you didn't intend that the anti-Netanyahu rally would be so violent (and by the way, isn't freedom of speech an ideal worth working for too?) and you didn't agree with the Concordia Students Union disenfranchising Hillel as a university club. In the real world, unfortunately not the idealistic one we hope for, it is a short distance from "Israel mistreats Palestinians" to "Israel is evil" to "Jews are evil" to "Death to the Jews," the latter being the chant taken up by pro-Palestinian groups all over the world, including on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. This leads directly to synagogue bombings, aircraft hijackings and Jews being beaten or murdered in the streets of Tel-Aviv, Paris, Buenos Aires and yes, Montreal. It's not supposed to happen that way but it does.

Jews have throughout history been at the forefront of causes they believed in, only to have those who would pervert the cause prevail. Leon Trotsky and untold thousands of other Jews idealistically worked for communism. It earned Trotsky an ice pick in the back, and many other Jews were murdered by Joseph Stalin. It wasn't supposed to be like that, but this is the real world. In the real world, you and others like you are, without intending to, paving the way for those who have no regard for Jewish sovereignty, Jewish lives or Jewish rights.

I happened to notice that there are a few other injustices going on in the world. Can you tell me: Why aren't there university petitions springing up all over the world to protest Chinese occupation of Tibet? Or female genital mutilation in Africa? Or the Sudanese civil war, where more than two million have died in the last three years? Why aren't Finnish unions boycotting Egyptian goods to protest lack of women's rights there? Why isn't Canadian labor protesting child working conditions in Asia? What about Arab countries, where there is no vote and the only freedom of expression is that to hate Jews and Israel? Where are the UN resolutions for all those? I'll tell you what history and experience have told me: In the real world, Israel gets the focus, including yours, because it is a Jewish state. The world is much more interested in Jewish wrongs than those of anyone else.

I strongly believe that the vast majority of Israelis don't want to rule over Palestinians, and don't want Arab lands. They do want a safe and secure place to live, in a Jewish homeland as approved by a vote of the UN. As long as Arabs and Palestinians try to deny Jews a homeland, Israel is in a war of survival.

People who feel safe and secure, like those of us living in Canada, will be intolerant of injustice and generous toward others. Israelis want to feel that way too. If you and your friends really want to see Mideast peace, concentrate your efforts on having Palestinians condemn the demonization of Jews and start promoting Israelis as good neighbors within recognized and secure boundaries. Peace will follow in an historical heartbeat.

Bernard Pinsky
Vancouver

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