Israel Matzav

What does "pro-Palestinian" really mean?

JPost reporter Khaled Abu Toameh has a message for those American and Canadian college students about what being "pro-Palestinian" really means.

Instead of investing money and efforts in organizing Israel Apartheid Week, for example, the self-described “pro-Palestinians” could dispatch a delegation of teachers to Palestinian villages and refugee camps to teach young Palestinians English. Or they could send another delegation to the Gaza Strip to monitor human rights violations by the Hamas authorities and help Palestinian women confront Muslim fundamentalists who are trying to limit their role to cooking, raising children and looking after the needs of their husbands.

Here is an idea: Let’s substitute Israel Apartheid Week with Palestine Democracy Week, where Palestinians would be urged and encouraged to demand an end to financial corruption and bad government.

The “pro-Palestinian” activists in the West clearly do not care about reforms and good government in the Palestinian territories. As far as these activists are concerned, delegitimizing Israel and inciting against “Zionists” are much more important that pushing for an end to financial corruption and violence in Palestinian society.

Telling the world how bad and evil Israel and the Jews are does not help the Palestinians as much as demanding good government and encouraging the emergence of young and “clean” leadership in the Palestinian territories.

If the “pro-Palestinian” camp in the West were investing a similar amount of its anti-Israel efforts in promoting moderation and civil society among Palestinians, it would be doing them a great service.

Shouting anti-Israel slogans or organizing Israel Apartheid Week in the US and Canada does not necessarily make a person “pro-Palestinian.”

Read the whole thing.

Unfortunately, Abu Toameh's words are likely to have little impact. You see, like most of his fellow 'Palestinians,' the 'pro-Palestinians' on North American college campuses aren't really interested in a democratic 'Palestinian state.' They are interested in destroying the Jewish state.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:45 PM