Bravo to Doctor Denis MacEoin at University of Edinburgh

Dr. Denis MacEoin, a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly, addressed The Edinburgh University Student Association on Saturday, April 9, 2011.  Here are his words.

"May I be permitted to say a few words to members of the EUSA? I am an Edinburgh graduate (MA 1975) who studied Persian, Arabic and Islamic History in Buccleuch Place under William Montgomery Watt and Laurence Elwell Sutton, two of Britain 's great Middle East experts in their day. I later went on to do a PhD at Cambridge and to teach Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University . Naturally, I am the author of several books and hundreds of articles in this field.

I say all that to show that I am well informed in Middle Eastern affairs and that, for that reason, I am shocked and disheartened by the EUSA motion and vote. I am shocked for a simple reason: there is
not and has never been a system of apartheid in Israel . That is not my opinion, that is fact that can be tested against reality by any Edinburgh student, should he or she choose to visit Israel to see for
themselves.

Let me spell this out, since I have the impression that those member of EUSA who voted for this motion are absolutely clueless in matters concerning Israel , and that they are, in all likelihood, the victims of extremely biased propaganda coming from the anti-Israel lobby. Being anti-Israel is not in itself objectionable. But I'm not talking about ordinary criticism of Israel . I'm speaking of a hatred that permits itself no boundaries in the lies and myths it pours out. Thus, Israel is repeatedly referred to as a "Nazi" state. In what sense is this true, even as a metaphor? Where are the Israeli concentration camps? The einzatsgruppen? The SS? The Nuremberg Laws? The Final Solution?  None of these things nor anything remotely resembling them exists in Israel , precisely because the Jews, more than anyone on earth, understand what Nazism stood for. It is claimed that there has
been an Israeli Holocaust in Gaza (or elsewhere). Where? When? No honest historian would treat that claim with anything but the contempt it deserves. But calling Jews Nazis and saying they have committed a Holocaust is as basic a way to subvert historical fact as anything I can think of.

Likewise apartheid. For apartheid to exist, there would have to be a situation that closely resembled things in South Africa under the apartheid regime. Unfortunately for those who believe this, a weekend in any part of Israel would be enough to show how ridiculous the claim is. That a body of university students actually fell for this and voted on it is a sad comment on the state of modern education. The most obvious focus for apartheid would be the country's 20% Arab population. Under Israeli law, Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews or anyone else; Muslims have the same rights as Jews or Christians; Baha'is, severely persecuted in Iran, flourish in Israel,
where they have their world centre; Ahmadi Muslims, severely persecuted in Pakistan and elsewhere, are kept safe by Israel; the holy places of all religions are protected under a specific Israeli law. Arabs form 20% of the university population (an exact echo of their percentage in the general population). In Iran , the Baha'is (the largest religious minority) are forbidden to study in any university or to run their own universities: why aren't your members boycotting Iran ?

Arabs in Israel can go anywhere they want, unlike blacks in apartheid South Africa . They use public transport, they eat in restaurants, they go to swimming pools, they use libraries, they go to cinemas alongside Jews = something no blacks could do in South Africa . Israeli hospitals not only treat Jews and Arabs, they also treat Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank . On the same wards, in the same operating theatres.

In Israel , women have the same rights as men: there is no gender apartheid. Gay men and women face no restrictions, and Palestinian gays often escape into Israel , knowing they may be killed at home. It seems bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a b oycott of Israel and say nothing about countries like Iran , where gay men are hanged or stoned to death. That illustrates a mindset that beggars belief.  Intelligent students thinking it's better to be silent about regimes that kill gay people, but good to condemn the only country in the Middle East that rescues and protects gay people. Is that supposed to be a sick joke?

University is supposed to be about learning to use your brain, to think rationally, to examine evidence, to reach conclusions based on solid evidence, to compare sources, to weigh up one view against one or more others. If the best Edinburgh can now produce are students who have no idea how to do any of these things, then the future is bleak. I do not object to well documented criticism of Israel . I do object when supposedly intelligent people single the Jewish state out above states that are horrific in their treatment of their populations. We are going through the biggest upheaval in the Middle East since the 7th and 8th centuries, and it's clear that Arabs and Iranians are rebelling against terrifying regimes that fight back by killing their own citizens. Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs alike, do not rebel (though they are free to protest). Yet Edinburgh students mount no demonstrations and call for no boycotts against Libya , Bahrain , Saudi Arabia , Yemen , and Iran . They prefer to make false accusations against one of the world's freest countries, the only country in the Middle East that has taken in Darfur refugees, the only country in the Middle East that gives refuge to gay men and women, the only country in the Middle East that protects the Baha'is.... Need I
go on? The imbalance is perceptible, and it sheds no credit on anyone who voted for this boycott.

I ask you to show some common sense. Get information from the Israeli embassy. Ask for some speakers. Listen to more than one side. Do not make your minds up until you have given a fair hearing to both parties. You have a duty to your students, and that is to protect them from one-sided argument. They are not at university to be propagandized. And they are certainly not there to be tricked into anti-Semitism by punishing one country among all the countries of the world, which happens to be the only Jewish state. If there had been a single Jewish state in the 1930s (which, sadly, there was not), don't you think Adolf Hitler would have decided to boycott it? Of course he would, and he would not have stopped there. Your generation has a duty to ensure that the perennial racism of anti-Semitism never sets down roots among you. Today, however, there are clear signs that it has done so and is putting down more. You have a chance to avert a very great evil, simply by using reason and a sense of fair play. Please tell me that this makes sense. I have given you some of the evidence.  It's up to you to find out more.

Bravo Dr. MacEoin, and yasher koach.  It begs the the question why do so many seemingly informed and intelligent people close their eyes to the simplicity of the the facts as Dr. MacEoin lays them out.   

Interestingly, a student responded to this letter stating the EUSA did not really speak for the student body.  The students were either unable to attend (due to the regular publicizing of meetings too late to make plans) or uninterested (either they feel the EUSA has no real relevance or they are simply apathetic). 

A New Job

While we were still in Hawaii the Navy Times published a story about military spouses and careers.  The study looked at how easily are military spouses able to maintain jobs and careers.  According to this study, for each year of post-high school education the likelihood of the military spouse being able to find and/or maintain a job drops 10%.

For me, with 10 years of education (4 at Brandeis, 6 in seminary), I have no hope.  Still, there are positives.

I needed to leave my position at United Synagogue to support Sean's deployment.  The job required travel and long hours, often in the evening.  It was not a possibility while acting as the single parent on site.  While difficult to leave, it left me open to take a position that was opening just now.

I am now the Executive Director of MERCAZ-Canada and the Canadian Foundation for Masorti Judaism.  The positions offers me an opportunity to remain connected to the movement.  I believe in Conservative/Masorti Judaism.  I believe in the message that Masorti has to offer, that there is no one, absolute way to do Judaism.  We must maintain our ties to Israel, but also to work to keep Israel a place for all.  This is now my job, and an opportunity opened, perhaps, through the difficulty of a deployment.

Parashat B'har

Parashat B'Har

"And the Lord spoke to Moshe on Mount Sinai saying...  "When you come the land that I give to you, and you settle the land..." 

Parashat B'har follows this with the laws of the shmitta and jubilee years.  The shmitta and jubilee are called a Shabbat as a rest for the land and a release for properties and for people.  B'har also includes a guide to attitudes and behaviours as to how we treat each other.  It ends with a reminder that we are not to make idols or images to exalt, but to keep all God's shabbatot, and worship in God's legitimate sanctuary.

We do this because the Lord brought us out of Egypt.  Multiple times we are reminded of our experiences with slavery and with redemption.  It is the reason for our existence as a people, and the reason for our required actions.  Forever we are to remember as a people our collective experience of oppression.  We are to learn from it, and then strive to be better.  Through this endeavour we aim to be Ohr Hagoyim, a light among the nations.  

To be Ohr Hagoyim has seemingly come naturally to Jews and the Jewish people throughout history.  The influence of Jews in history has been noted by historians, novelists, philosophers, and others.  Mark Twain, in 1897, wrote the following words, which still ring true today.

"If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one quarter of one percent of the human race.  It suggests a nebulous puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way.  Properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of.  He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk.

His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine and abstruse learning are also very out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers.  He has made a marvellous fight in this world in all ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself and be excused for it.  The Egyptians, the Babylonians and the Persians rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greeks and Romans followed and made a vast noise, and they were gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, and have vanished.

The Jew saw them all, survived them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities, of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert but aggressive mind.  All things are mortal but the Jews; all other forces pass, but he remains.  What is the secret of his immortality?"
 
This week we celebrated Israel's 63rd birthday.  We mourned those who died for our existence, and then, partied hard with the knowledge that Israel continues to be Ohr Hagoyim.  At the Israeli Consulate Yom HaAtzmaut celebration Amir Gissim, Israel's Consul to Canada, Peter Kent, Minister of the Environment, and a representative from Hebrew University announced even more cooperation between Israel and Canada in the areas of medicine, of environmental science, and in the path of peace.  In the next year a fleet of fully electric cars will roll across Israel to be followed up in the following year here in Ontario. 
As we count the days to Shavuot and our opportunity to once again stand upon the mountain looking out, we again have the opportunity to "be the change we want to see in the world."*  Let us embrace it.
 


Shabbat shalom


*Mahatma Ghandi

You can take the girl out of the military...

Strange thing tonight...

At the Israeli Consulate Yom HaAtzmaut celebration Sean and I met Brigadier General Hilton, Commandant, and Major Wiesenfeld of the Canadian Forces College in Toronto.  Although there were many people we knew at the event (some I haven't seen in a while, and was very happy to be with them), I felt most comfortable with Major Wiesfeld.  Somehow being with another military person just feels right.  While I do not wear a uniform myself, over the past (almost) 17 years, I have discovered that I have a definite place in the military community.

Raised by a socialist, Zionist father, a child born in the late 60's and in the shadow of Vietnam, the military, while appreciated, felt foreign in concept, and was far from my mind and heart.  Now, after 17 (almost) years as a military spouse, that same military feels comfortable, eliciting pride.

It was immense pride and gratefulness that I felt upon hearing that an elite Naval Seal team had killed Osama Bin Laden.  Immediately after I felt sorry for Sean, that he could not be in Afghanistan for this, one more thing taken from him in the aftermath of the series of mistakes that changed his deployment.  I feel pride when I see a US uniform, or one of our allies.  I was the one that wanted to introduce ourselves to Major Wiesenfeld.  There is an instant camaraderie among most of the military and the military families.  It should be taken advantage of; old connections maintained, and new ones formed.

Happy birthday to our ally, Israel.

Yom HaAtzmaut

Just spent a lovely evening at the Science Centre for a Yom HaAtzmaut celebration given by the Israeli Consulate.

Highlights of the evening:

• Delicious food prepared by an Israeli celebrity chef including kebab (there should have been a washing station) and a halvah mousse.
• The new fully electric car by Greenpower to be rolled out across Israel in the next year and in Ontario, California, and Hawaii a year later.
• Meeting Brigadier-General Hilton, Commandant of Canadian Forces College, and Major Mike Wiesfeld.  (Glad to connect with other Jews in the military, and Sean's been invited to the mess).

It's a nice night to be out and a good way to celebrate the day.