Monday, May 30, 2011

Day 263, june 3, 2011

The author of the following letter is Dr. Denis MacEoin who is a novelist and a former lecturer in Islamic studies. His novels are written under the pen names Daniel Easterman and Jonathan Aycliffe. MacEoin studied Persian, Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Edinburgh.


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The Committee

Edinburgh University Student Association

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 boycott 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. As 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 to me. I have given you some of the evidence. It’s up to

you to find out more.



Yours sincerely,





Dr. Denis MacEoin







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