The Arab mainstream

Editorial

We do not usually devote an editorial to rebutting a letter to the editor, but this week a letter allows us to evaluate the hypocrisies of the anti-Israel position in such an idealized form that we would be remiss to let the opportunity pass.

Writer Dr. Rafeh Hulays somehow concluded from last week's comments in this space that our view is "that Palestinians and other Arabs are not capable of handling freedom and are hell-bent on committing genocide against Jews ..." a position he assumes is founded on "racist canards."

Where to begin? Israeli Arabs are the freest Arabs in the Middle East so, clearly, it is not Zionists who think Arabs cannot handle freedom; it is their own leaders. Nor is it a racist canard to point out that three generations of Palestinians and other Arabs have been victimized by Arab leaders whose political interests have been served by maintaining a stateless population seething with anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish rage. The facts speak for themselves, if we'll listen: from Iran to Gaza, we have leaders promising to wipe Israel from the map. Almost everywhere in the Arab world, Israel isn't even on the maps they use to teach children and the word "Israel" is so atrocious to the tongue that it can only be referred to obliquely as the "Zionist entity." Why? For the same reason the Arab world rejected Israel's creation in 1947-'48: because it is a Jewish state. Sixty years of incitement by religious sermonizers, political leaders, TV, radio, Der Sturmer-inspired cartoons and the cultural glorification of homicide bombers all point to the reality of what Hulays seems to dismiss as mere Jewish paranoia: a society "hell-bent on committing genocide against Jews." And yet, by some twist of logic, we're the racists.

Like most Jews and Israelis, we support a two-state solution. But the Gaza disengagement proved that the Palestinian leaders are not willing to work toward peace at this time. Perhaps, if they begin now to teach their children to prepare for coexistence, like Israel has done, arguably since 1948 but unequivocally since 1993, we may have peace in a generation or two.

Hulays implies that he supports a two-state solution, then demands that Israel accede to a so-called "right of return" of refugees from 1948, '56 and '67. This idea – creating a Jew-free Palestine while bringing millions of Palestinian Arabs into Israel – is a de facto "one-state solution." Hulays, like thousands or millions of others, tries to have it both ways: pretending to support a two-state solution when in fact both states would be Palestinian Arab-majority states, ergo no Jewish state. Cute. This was precisely the proposal presented by the Saudis in 1981 to which the writer refers and it raises the one thing that enrages Arab leaders and their overseas mouthpieces above all: Israel's steadfast refusal to swallow the cyanide pill that is a "right of return."

More ridiculously, Hulays somehow equates independence for Palestine with freedom for Palestinians.

He digs back into history for the words of "Chairman Arafat": "The dream we entertained ... was to establish a democratic State of Palestine in which Muslims, Christians, and Jews would live with equal rights and obligations...."

This was a dream indeed. Never for a moment did Arafat or any other leaders, including the current ones, approach or even idealize a pluralist democracy replete with human rights and freedoms. The downtrodden of the Gaza Strip probably look back longingly at the comparative freedoms they enjoyed under Israeli occupation when faced with the Talibanesque nightmare they find themselves enduring under Hamas. G-d help the women of a "free" Palestine.

In a sick irony, Hulays, like so many of Israel's critics, employs the precise tactics of which he accuses Zionists. He claims that Jews stifle criticism by hollering anti-Semitism. Yet, demonstrably, those who are quickest to claim racism are not Zionists, but Israel's enemies, who see "Islamophobia" and anti-Arab racism where only legitimate criticism of hateful indoctrination exists. In one sense, our (legitimate) case is surprisingly analogous to their (disingenuous) claims of innocence: we are not condemning the people, we are condemning their governments' policies. Arabs are not inherently violent; but Arab governments do everything they can to create generations of Jew-hating zealots. It is not nature, it's nurture.

Finally, Hulays tips his hand by unwittingly defining for us his idea of "mainstream." The Canadian Arab Federation (CAF), of which Hulays is a former vice-president and which is presumably one of the "mainstream Arab groups" to which he refers, recently had its federal funding eliminated because of "the CAF's evident support for terrorist organizations and positions on its part which are arguably anti-Semitic."

The position staked out by Hulays' letter is the Arab mainstream position. That's the problem.

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