Barbelith Underground > Switchboard > US and Israel in a huff after being accused of racism.

Before everyone jumps in to condemn the Israelis as dreadful racists out of hand, it might be worth looking a little more closely...

quote:Originally posted by PingPangPong:
It is disgraceful that the U.S pulled out of the U.N conference on racism because Israel was labelled a "rascist" state. Sorry, Israel the truth certainly does hurt.

What was the reason? I thought it was the equation of Zionism with racism that was the problem... and in that case we can almost certainly blame the current (very right-wing)Israeli regime rather than the Israeli people... and though the Israelis seem to be feeling very persecuted at the moment, let's not forget that until 1947 they were persecuted - it can be a difficult mindset to drop, and I can quite see how it must feel to some Israeli Jews as though they're facing the whole of the Arab world rather than a few poor and badly equipped Palestinians. That's not to say that the current Israeli position deserves anything like support; just that it might be easier to reach a conclusion in this matter if one side isn't portrayed as being completely evil.

quote:It is also ironic that it was the U.N., who in 1947 set up a plan to establish a Jewish state to the detriment of the Palestinians, who had resided there for hundreds of years.

It was a genuine attempt to provide the Jewish people (who, lest we forget, had been roaming for centuries with no homeland - a way of being which laid them open to all sorts of abuses, much like the Romany peoples). It's unfortunate that since the original settlement was made, Jewish Israeli settlers have encroached on the Palestinian territories (and that deserves nothing but condemnation), but the original settlement provided a reasonable solution for one of the most politically sensitive areas on the planet.

quote:In the year 2001 could the Israeli government attempt to exercise empathy with the suffering of the Palestinians. How can the Israeli's who were once oppressed now turn into the opressors?

Again, it's because the Israelis still see themselves as being the oppressed.

quote:...the Bush administration who has no real electoral backing from American Jews, leaves the U.N conference hand in hand with Israel.

I think it would be very dangerous for any American administration to appear to condemn Israel, whether that administration was Republican or Democrat. I also think that the U.S. was using it as an excuse.

quote:Has the U.S. forgotten it's own treatment of it's minorities, notably the African-American population? Was there any consideration of this minority in the U.S's decision to pull out of the U.N convention.

Of course there was a consideration - it's just that it was a largely negative one. The U.S. government doesn't want to have to apologise to its African-American citizens for their former enslavement, because (given the current success of claims for financial reparations for damages inflicted on Jews by businesses during the Holocaust) it might lead to major payments to the African-American population - and given the Bush tax-cut promise, it's hard to see where that money is going to come from and how it could get support from Republican voters. The U.K. government is similarly reluctant to make an apology for fear of reparation payments.

I think it's shameful that these kind of considerations have more bearing for some governments than the question of whether to apologise for the subjection of human beings on a racial basis, but unfortunately that's how these things happen...

[ 07-09-2001: Message edited by: Macavity ]