A lone voice is heard

Editorial

For a decade now, advocating for Israel in a world increasingly unsympathetic to the Jewish people and our self-determination has been a leading occupation for Jewish groups and individuals.

On the whole, Canadian Jews have always been overwhelmingly Zionistic, but since the beginning of the Second Intifada in September 2000, the imperative for advocacy has taken on new importance. While Israel has been vilified at times in the past, anti-Israel attitudes and actions have taken on eerie forms and a near-universal reach during the past decade.

Critics, of course, see this global swarming as proof that Israel is everything they say it is, lack of evidence notwithstanding. After all, millions of Israel-haters can’t all be wrong, can they? In this atmosphere, utter fabrications find particularly fertile ground, growing out of control – and very difficult, if not impossible, to uproot.

We were reminded of this by a detailed article in Front Page magazine this month about the fabricated death of Mohammad al-Dura. Al-Dura, the Palestinian boy whose videotaped “death” the day after the Second Intifada began, became emblematic of the purported depravity of the Israeli military. In fact, the entire scenario – from the “death” by sniper to the world’s reporting of it – was pure fiction, the best of the so-called Pallywood productions, which are staged propaganda events tarted up as news.

Not only has the artificiality of the case gone unchallenged in most media, those who have stood up and demanded that the truth be told have become pariahs. Case-in-point: Philippe Karsenty, deputy mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, whose determination to expose the al-Dura lie perpetrated by France 2 TV led to him being persecuted and prosecuted. For stating the truth, Karsenty was found guilty of libeling the reporter who helped perpetrate the hoax of the dead al-Dura. The judgment was overturned, though few journalists in France even bothered to cover the trial, its outcome or the overturning.

As Karsenty is targeted as a Zionist enabler by those still purveying the hoax as fact, no one of importance has come to his aid: “I am completely alone in France,” Karsenty has said.

The lesson might at first seem to be that it is in one’s self-interest to accept as fact whatever the Israel-bashers say, however obvious the fallacy, because they will target you next if you dare to call their emperor unclothed. However, there is a deeper lesson.

When Mahathir Mohammad, then the prime minister of Malaysia, delivered a rant to the Organization of the Islamic Conference that his country was hosting in 2003, incorporating every permutation of antisemitism yet discovered, from medieval conspiracies to their 21st-century descendants, the reaction should have told the world all they needed to know. There was no arguing about the content of Mahathir’s speech. It was, from beginning to end, a litany of Jews-control-the-world mythology, of scheming Jews usurping what is not rightfully theirs, and concluded in Mahathir’s calling for a “final victory” over the Jews. The prime minister received a standing ovation from the assembly, made up of the kings, emirs, princes, presidents and prime ministers of every Muslim country on earth. Those leaders who were confronted by media said that Mahathir was merely expressing outright what all of those in the room believed quietly.

The response outside the Muslim world was quite different. One had to read the entire speech, not the de-contextualized antisemitic bits, said European and North American “progressives.” (A full reading confirms the baseness of the entire text.) The standing ovation was not for the content, but for the prime minister himself, who was hosting the conference and who was to retire shortly thereafter, they said. (This contradicts every reported quote from delegates, who to a person affirmed enthusiastic support for the content.) Mahathir was simply playing to the home team, preaching to the choir, we were told. (This same apologia for Mahathir’s plea for a “final victory” echoes apologias decades earlier for Hitler’s promise of a “final solution.”)

If we have learned anything from these cases and a million more like them, it is that there are people in the world who will see white and call it black, and there are millions prepared to believe them. For all the effort we put into making the case for Israel, there is a portion of the world that is not looking for honest answers or truth. Yet we must continue to make that case.

Despite the inevitable backlash, it is in our best interest – individually and collectively – to keep speaking out, not just for Israel, but for the right of all human beings to live freely and without discrimination anywhere in the world. As disheartening as the struggle may be, people like Karsenty offer hope that truth and justice can win the day, that even a lone voice can be heard above the din of hate.

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