Wednesday, November 22, 2017

The Facts: Why BDS and anti-Israel Arguments are Factually Flawed

(Borrowed from "An Open Letter to the University of Michigan Central Student Government "CSG" from Victor Lieberman, Raoul Wallenberg Distinguished University Professor of History and Professor of Asian and Comparative History")
If you support BDS or are against Israel, you are dead wrong, according to REAL FACTS:
You can’t judge it on the basis of anecdotes.
You have heard, or will hear, stories of Palestinian suffering.

These are genuinely moving, but no more deserving of sympathy than stories about Israeli victims of terrorism, such as:
* The teenage Israeli girl whose feet were blown off by a bomb

* The little Israeli boy who this July saw his father and grandparents stabbed to death.

Likewise, I think it’s wrong — as I’ve heard some students say — that the CSG should support Palestinians because they are “brown” people struggling against “white” oppression.
Not only are Israeli Jews, most of whom come from Arab and African lands, physically indistinguishable from Arabs, but to judge issues on the basis of physical appearance is not a useful mode of analysis.

Who Is Responsible for the Ongoing Conflict?