On Jan. 28, The Post published a political ad from the group Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME). The President of FLAME, Gerardo Joffe, is a virulent racist and Islamophobe who has said that “All Arab Muslims may not be a bunch of fanatics, but I’ve never met one who isn’t” (The Village Voice, Feb. 27, 2001). The Jewish news outlet Mondoweiss has condemned FLAME’s white supremacist description of Ethiopian Jews as “backward” (Mondoweiss, June 24, 2010).
Here are some of the facts the ad left out. During the Israeli ethnic cleansing operations of 1947–49 that Palestinians would come to call the Nakba, “Catastrophe,” over 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homeland and made refugees. The status of these Palestinians as refugees is recognized in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194, as is their right to return or compensation, which Israel has — in flagrant defiance of international law — denied them. The International Court of Justice and the United Nations have also denounced Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights.
Numerous legal and governmental authorities have charged Israel with the crime of apartheid, and academics such as the Israeli professor Oren Yiftachel have demonstrated that Israel is an ethnocracy, an undemocratic regime that advances and protects the dominance of a certain ethnic group. According to poll results published in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Oct. 23, 58 percent of Israeli Jews believe there is apartheid in Israel, 49 percent “want the state to treat Jewish civilians better than Arab ones,” and 42 percent want their children to attend separate classes from Arab children. Echoing FLAME’s racism, on Jan. 28, Haaretz reported that Ethiopian Jewish women in Israel were being “coaxed” (in other words, coerced) into receiving birth control injections, a form of eugenics.
If you are interested in working to end these gross violations of human rights and achieve a just situation for all of Israel’s civilians and the Palestinians, please consider joining the student group Students for Justice in Palestine and Israel. Our meetings are Wednesdays at 5 p.m. in Baker 341, and we can be contacted at ohiou.sjp@gmail.com.
Stephen Pearson is a graduate student studying teacher education at Ohio University.
