Response to Edinburgh Student Association Motion to Boycott Israel

Following is a response by Dr. Denis MacEoin, a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly, in response to a motion to boycott Israel by the Student Association. In their motion, they claim Israel is under an apartheid regime. Dr. Denis Maceoin (a non-Jew) is an expert in Middle Eastern affairs. Here is his letter to those students.

Dr. Denis MacEoin addresses The Committee of the Edinburgh University Student Association.

TO: 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 members 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 how things were 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 center; 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 Bahai’s (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 were able to 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 Bahai’s…. 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 1930’s (which, sadly, there was not), don’t you think Adolf Hitler would have decided to boycott it?

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.

Yours sincerely,
Denis MacEoin

8 Comments

  1. Sorry to say this Mr PHD, just because you are well educated does not disguise the fact that you are lying, lying as best as you can. Israel not an apartheid State?
    Where have you been living? I don’t care how much PHD’s you get or how well versed you are in the studies of the Middle East, you are biased in your article and probably bought by the zionazis.
    I say God bless these students that have seen Israel for what it is.
    Israel does not need to have Auschwitz to be committing a holocaust against Palestinians.Gaza and the West Bank are the biggest concentration camps in the world.
    Go get yourself another PHD (Pretty Hollow Diploma).

  2. Israel is the only country in the Middle East that is NOT an apartheid regime. Israel is the country consistently ranked year after year by respected Freedom House for being the freest society in the Middle East. Not a single one of its neighbors make the list. I believe much of the animus against Israel is driven by anti-Semitism rather than by any objective acquaintance with the truth. If people were really interested in human rights, they would hold Arab countries to a higher standard than Israel. That is precisely what they aren’t doing.

    Boycotting Israel is not going to get Israelis to commit national suicide. And it will only ensure peace is never going to happen in the Middle East.

  3. All these people are nothing more than Jew haters looking for a socially acceptable outlet for their hatred. Who are they kidding, using Naziism as a pejorative when it obviously has such great appeal to them. More than twenty years ago, my husband and I took our then 5 year old on a trip to Great Britain. When we got off BritRail in Edinborough, we waited in line with the other passengers for a taxi. When it was our turn, the taxi driver refused to take us. To their credit, the other passengers in line refused to go in front of us and no one would get in this anti-Semite’s taxi and eventually a train station employee came and told the driver he had to go to the back of the taxi line again without taking a fare. That was our introduction to Scotland. So don’t tell me, Professor MacEoin, that these are clueless kids who are being victimized and brainwashed by some recent anti-Israel propaganda. And guess what–that little five year old grew up to become an Israeli combat soldier! Take that you Scots bastards!

    Otherwise, a great letter. Thank you, Professor MacEoin, for writing it and you, Paula, for putting it on your blog.

  4. The world is large enough to house many religions. One does not glorify his/her own religion or secular life style by castigating another’s. Just as criminals detest the presence of police, Arabia resents the presence of the State of Israel as it reminds them of their own shortcomings and lack of freedom. The autocrats ruling Arabia (bogus royalty anointed by the U.K. and France) and their oil facilitators resent the presence of the State of Israel as it opposes every aspect of enslavement they foster. Why don’t Arab countries and Iran offer shelter to their brethren occupiers of Judea and Samaria. They have room and wealth enough..Jordan’s population is over 50% Palestinian.

  5. I agree with Jim. Well said and right to the point. Do you think it will help, though? I’m not sure it matters where one puts an empty head.

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