OPINION & EDITORIAL
Case for divesting from Israeli interests
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Also by Mohammed Abed:
- Israeli plan actually hurts Palestinians (September 8, 2005)
- Conservative ideology failed victims (September 15, 2005)
- Local front of war on women's rights (September 22, 2005)
- Case for divesting from Israeli interests (September 30, 2005)
- Columbus anything but a national hero (October 13, 2005)
Related Stories:
- Regents hear from divestment group (November 17, 2005)
- Board of Regents must support divestment (March 3, 2005)
- Board should divest from Sudan (February 23, 2007)
- We need a second opinion (February 13, 2007)
- J.B. Van Holistic (August 31, 2007)
by Mohammed Abed
Friday, September 30, 2005
UW System Investment Policy 78-1 states that all investments "made in any company, corporation, subsidiary or affiliate which practices or condones through its actions discrimination on the basis of race religion, color, creed or sex … shall be divested in as prudent but rapid a manner as possible."
It was on the basis of 78-1 that the UW System divested from apartheid-era South Africa, a state that practiced systematic discrimination on the basis of race.
Similarly, Israel applies a wide range of harmful policies to its non-Jewish inhabitants without any good reason for doing so. The standard objection to this is that Israel does have good reasons for discriminating against non-Jews in Palestine since it is only non-Jews who engage in terrorism. What this objection fails to account for is the obvious fact that, whereas it is only a tiny minority of Palestinians who engage in suicide bombing of civilians, Israel's discriminatory policies apply to all Palestinians. The objection also fails to recognize that the vast bulk of Israel's policies have little to do with security, and are often implemented using systematic state terrorism against Palestinian civilians.
For example, Israel's immigration policy consists of a set of racist practices reminiscent of the "White Australia Policy" that was phased out by the mid-1970s. The aim of this was to increase the proportion of whites in the Australian population by using a variety of methods to encourage immigration, including expedited citizenship and settlement subsidies. Non-whites were excluded from these benefits, just as Israel's "law of return" asserts that any person of Jewish descent can immediately gain citizenship and settle on lands expropriated from Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in 1948 and are prevented from realizing their basic human right of return to this very day. The return of refugees to the homes they were displaced from is rightly accepted as a basic and uncontroversial moral imperative in almost every case that doesn't involve the Palestinians.
Israel's immigration policy is but one example of its discriminatory practices. People would rightly complain of racism in any other context in which a state defines 93 percent of its land area as "state lands" and then proceeds to make those lands and the resources they afford available to the members of one ethnic group rather than to the citizens of the state. Although they constitute 20 percent of Israel's citizenry, Palestinian Arabs cannot buy, lease, or work in these areas. Meanwhile, the State utilizes a broad range of bureaucratic and violent measures to expropriate the lands that remain in the hands of its Palestinian population. The result is that Israel's Palestinian population lives on the equivalent of the territorially disconnected "homelands" that blacks lived on during apartheid in South Africa.
Unless someone can show that Israel does not engage in racist practices of this sort (there are many other examples one could cite), then divestment from any company that does business with or in Israel is justified on the basis of Regent Policy 78-1. Through their involvement with Israel, corporations are both condoning and providing economic and material support to a state that discriminates on the basis of ethnic origin, and should therefore "be divested in as prudent but rapid a manner as possible."
An oft-cited argument for the refusal to divest is that divestment is a last resort and there are currently other means available to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In recent days, we have been told that by removing its colonists and army from six percent of the territory under its control, Israel has made a historical concession on the road to peace. The idea here is that if we give Israel a chance, it will voluntarily end the human rights violations that justified divestment in the first place. This argument is faulty for many reasons, the most important of which is that it is contradicted by events on the ground in historical Palestine.
Israel still controls Gaza's borders, airspace, and territorial waters. That it has full control of the area was amply demonstrated recently when its air force bombed a number of densely populated civilian areas for the sake of extra-judicially assassinating Hamas and Islamic Jihad members. In the West Bank, Israeli forces rounded up 269 Palestinian civilians, including nominees for the third round of Palestinian municipal elections, scheduled for Sept. 29, 2005. The wall that was ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice continues to be built deep inside West Bank territory using bulldozers and other equipment supplied by the Caterpillar Corporation — a company in which UW is invested.
The Israeli government has already established a police station and plans to build more "Jewish-only" colonies in an area called "E1" that lies between East Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma'ale Adumim. When the expansion is complete, the West Bank — the supposed territory of the ever-elusive Palestinian state — will be cut in half and East Jerusalem will be totally isolated from other Palestinian communities. House demolitions and other atrocious policies continue unchecked. Earlier this month The Guardian reported that a group of Israeli soldiers calling itself "Breaking the Silence" has publicly testified they were ordered to shoot Palestinian civilians, including children, for no reason.
This is the reality of Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people, and a state that acts in this way needs to be pressured into change. As long as the U.S. government continues along its current path of unconditional political and economic support for policies of this sort, and as long as other nation-states and transnational institutions like the U.N. acquiesce to this state of affairs, it becomes the responsibility of international civil society to use whatever non-violent means it has at its disposal to realize a just peace in Palestine. Divestment and boycott are perhaps the most effective means available to institutions like UW, and their use is justified not only by UW's own code of socially responsible investment but also by the idea that UW should be an agent of positive social change in the U.S. and around the world.
Mohammed Abed (mabed@badgerherald.com) is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Anonymous (September 30, 2005 @ 3:06am):
No such place as Palestine you Racist bastard. Look on a map. It says Israel. Until you start to acknowledge Israel's existence there will never be any peace.
By the way, its great how you throw around ad hominem attacks constantly. You throw around the words, "racist" and "aparthide" like how the Palestinians threw candy to their children to celebrate the 9/11 attacks on the U.S.
The facts are as follows in regards to "historic Palestine" as refered to by Mohammad based on UN records:
Palestine was a British invention after WWI and never existed as an independent state. Most of this "Palestine" is called Jordan today.
The small number of people (700,000) occupied the entire Palestine Mandate which included Israel, the West Bank, Golon Heights, Gaza and Jordan today. Most of the Arab populations lived East of the Jordan River.
The common usage of the word "Palestinian" refers people who live in Palestine: Arabs, Bedouins, Christians, Druze, and Jews.
Under Muslim rule the region had been reduced to a barren wasteland. Jews were the only people that produced anything causing resentment from the masses of illiterate and poverty-ridden Arabs. Jews never held any political power until 1948.
The British didn't want a Jewish majority in the region. This led in later years to a policy of systematically reduced immigration quotas, and indirectly to the death of millions of Jewish refugees in Europe twenty some years later. The British would illegally partition the region into Jordan, (forbidding Jews from living there) then stripped off the Golon Heights giving that to France and Syria. Calling the remainder "Palestine" then flooding the it with outside Arabs.
Constant agitation by outside Arabs and others leading to riots and murders of Jews. The British did nothing to stop this. Immigration and travel restrictions were almost universally applied only to Jews, no restriction was placed on Arab immigration to help flood the region with Arabs the British favored. Jews were the only economic success even with all of this going on.
Whenever there were Arab riots, Jewish immigration was restricted. This was the beginning of the British Policy of Appeasement, and the success of terrorism. The success of terrorism goes on today and appeasement still fails today. When will they ever learn?
All lands acquired by Jews were purchased, not taken according to Arafat's Nazi Uncle in 1937 and the British. Haj Amin al-Husseini was a Nazi war criminal wanted in Yugoslavia and mixed Nazi ideology into Islam. Arafat in fact isn't even a Palestinian, but was born, raised, and educated in Egypt. According to Forbes, he is worth over $300 million while he locks his own people into concentration camps.
Between 1950 and 1967 when Jordan and Egypt annexed the West Bank and Gaza, they flooded the area with more Arabs. Even today most Arabs in the West Bank, etc. hold Jordanian passports and Jordanian citizenship. After 1967 Jordan/Egypt relinquished claims to the area then started to scream for a second Palestinian state in addition to the first Palestinian State of Jordan. Before that, they claimed Palestine meant land of the Jews.
Even with immigration from Russia in the 1990's, the majority of Israelis are descended from Arab, Asian, and African Jews including two-thirds of the 870,000 Arab Jews expelled from surrounding Arab Nazi states. Druze, Bedouins, Christians, and some Arabs sided with the Jews in 1948 and serve in the Israeli Army today. The Israeli military has three Arab generals.
Why did the British do this? It's about oil, stupid! Britian didn't give a crap about Arabs or Jews. Just like America today ignores Saudi terrorism it's still about oil.
Anonymous (September 30, 2005 @ 3:56am):
Mohammad, using buzz words like "aparthide" without proper context only fools the uneducated, which is exactly what you hope to do. Lets all take a look at Mohammad's childish aparthide analogy, and see how he has been misleading you all. Come along for a magical journey where Mohammad's Nazi-style of propagandizing does not exist.
Definition of APARTHEID: "An official policy of racial segregation formerly practiced in the Republic of South Africa, involving political, legal, and economic discrimination against non-whites by the white minority."
Israel's policy toward the so-called "Palestinians" is also being called "apartheid," a crime against humanity and a form of genocide. Let's take a look at this so-called" apartheid" within Israel. Within Israel today, Jews are a majority, but the large Arab minority (23% of Israel's total population) are full citizens with voting rights and representation in the government. Under the former South African apartheid system, black South Africans could not vote and were not citizens of the country in which they were the overwhelming majority of the population. Although Jews are an 80% majority, Israel's Arab citizens have more political rights than any Arabs in the entire Middle East. Whatever grievances the Israeli-Arab citizens may have, they are still economically better off than the majority of their fellows in virtually every other Arab country. If they still face inequality it is because of the mutual hostility and mistrust between both communities, not because of any apartheid type racial policy.
The situation for Arab "Palestinians" in the disputed [West Bank and Gaza] territories, won by Israel in the 1967 defensive war won against three surrounding Arab armies, is different. Israel has very real security concerns. successive violent insurrections [Intifadas] in these territories, have forced Israel to impose restrictions on the Arab residents. The Arab "Palestinians" in the territories dispute Israel's right to exist whereas South Africa's blacks never sought the destruction of South Africa.
Up until September 2000, when the Arab Palestinians from the [West Bank and Gaza] territories began their second violent "Intifada" and unleashed their non-stop Jew-killing, suicide bombing spree, they had been allowed to work inside Israel Proper and receive similar pay and benefits as did their Jewish counterparts. They were also allowed to attend schools and universities (which Israel built for them!). "Palestinians" were also given opportunities to run many of their own affairs. None of this was true for South African blacks.
Israeli Muslims, Christians, Druse and many other minority ethnic groups enjoy exactly the same civil and political rights as Jews. They have proportional Knesset representation, say what they like, go where they like, pray where they like, go into business, be elected to office and serve in the Cabinet. The first Middle East country to grant Arab women the right to vote was Israel! And nowhere else in the Middle East is there a democracy where the word "vote" has any real meaning! The only exception is that Israeli Muslim Arabs do not serve in the army, mostly out of their own choice not to. Other Arabs serve in the army recieving high promotions and high regards.
There is nothing more hypercritical than a single one of the 64 Arab/Islamic/Muslim theocracies and brutal dictatorships pronouncing judgment on issues relating to "discrimination" since not a single one among them treats their minorities in the same tolerant way as does Israel. In fact, Jews and Christians are not even allowed into most of these countries! Compared to all Arab/Islamic/Muslim countries, Israel sets the gold standard!
As for Israel's "racially based" Law of Return," this policy has nothing to do with race and is based solely on religious affiliation. If it were racist, why did Israel airlift 42,000 BLACK Ethiopian Jews between 1984 and 1991? In anything, that airlift marked the only time in history when blacks were systematically moved from one country to another while NOT in chains! Jordan (the first Arab "Palestinian" state) introduced its own law of return in 1954 for all former non-Jewish residents of Palestine. Yet when Israel did precisely the same thing for Jews, it suddenly becomes "racism!" We call this a "double standard!"
Accusations such those made by Mohammad are baseless and reckless. And who could ever believe that Israel's willingness to even DISCUSS handing over land (won in a war the Arabs started) to form a second independent Arab "Palestinian" state. Most "normal" people would have long ago concluded that Arafat, the various "Palestinian Authority" sub-groups, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad were never really interested in peace. Yet Israel's decades-long quest for peace, compromise and accommodation with these very same "Palestinians" goes unnoticed and unacknowledged! If anything, it is the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizbollah and all the other Arab "Palestinian" terrorist groups themselves that brought about the Israeli crackdown in the "occupied territories" which led to the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians.
Mohammad, I hope you like a dose of reality. Try not to be a sore loser. When a people, the Arabs/ "Palestinians" declare a genocidal war on another people, the Arab, Iranian, and European Jews and lose, I guess they have themselves to blame for their predicament. And blowing up innocent Jewish/Israeli civilians is not the answer, even though Palestinians cheer such acts and name buildings, streets, and kindergartens after such horrific monsters.
Anonymous (September 30, 2005 @ 8:12am):
"Similarly, Israel applies a wide range of harmful policies to its non-Jewish inhabitants without any good reason for doing so."
Absolutely right. Terrorism with a goal of genocide against Jews is no reason to apply harmful policies to anyone -- in Fantasy Land!
"What this objection fails to account for is the obvious fact that, whereas it is only a tiny minority of Palestinians who engage in suicide bombing of civilians, Israel's discriminatory policies apply to all Palestinians."
What Mohammed's objection fails to account for is the obvious fact that, whereas it is only a tiny minority of Palestinians who engage in terrorism, the terrorists' targets are every Jew they can find.
"...lands expropriated from Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in 1948 and are prevented from realizing their basic human right of return to this very day."
Again, I call bullshit. First of all the Palestinians have no greater claim to the land than the Israelis -- they both have history there. Secondly, the Palestinians fled with the encouragement of the five Arab armies that invaded Israel in 1948 with the expressed purpose of killing every Jew. Finally, doesn't basic fairness require that if Palestinians get to return to their homes, should Jews who were kicked out of Arab countries be allowed to reclaim their homes as well? The numbers are about equal, but you'll never see Mohammed suggest that the Jews who were victimized deserve any compensation at all, other than to be fodder for Palestinian terrorists.
I could go on about the inaccuracies, half-truths, and outright lies in this article, but I think I need to vomit. I must be allergic to the kind of racism Mohammed has returned to displaying so prominently.
Anonymous (September 30, 2005 @ 10:32am):
Mohammed, we have heard about the doings in Israel earlier this week. The Hamas fired rockets into Israel without provocation. Palestinian leader Abbas has been dragging his feet on dealing with them. What other choice do the Israelis have but to retaliate? Everyone knows the attack by Hamas was unprovoked. I can tell you right now, Mohammed, that not many people who cared about Palestinians before this would care about them now.
Gosh, I thought you were doing so well when you wrote that last opinion piece (Local front of war on women's rights, Sept. 22). Now you're back to bashing Jews again. My mother would never approve of you.
Anonymous (September 30, 2005 @ 11:24am):
Try this crap at some other school. Its not gonna work any better than last year's weak ass attempt.
Anonymous (September 30, 2005 @ 11:56am):
Abed:
You seem to only like formats, where people can not respond to your lies.
You are a joke and irrelevant.
Anonymous (September 30, 2005 @ 1:17pm):
Mo,
You have so many great solutions for the fine state of Israel. I think you should move to Jerusalem and run for parliament. I think it might just be the only country in the Middle East where you could get elected, considering the authoritorial regimes surrounding it. Maybe you can help make this great state the true "or le goyim."
Best of luck.
Anonymous (September 30, 2005 @ 2:01pm):
Please Abed, just go away. Maybe you can convince the anti-semites at the Sorbonne to divest from one of the world's most dynamic economies.
Anonymous (September 30, 2005 @ 2:33pm):
So what company makes the explosives the Palis use to kill children?
Anonymous (September 30, 2005 @ 3:12pm):
Mohammed, if you really think you have exceptional talent as a bullshitter, then I suggest you major in Marketing. Would you belive they actually pay you to write crap like this? Oh yeah, you can actually make money!
Just think, you could design and implement a huge marketing campaign to sell millions of copies of Intifada Uprising 1.0 to the masses of the Arab world. What Arab kid with a black market XBox and a pirated version of Windows XP isn't gonna plunk down a handful of riyals to grab a copy? Accomplish that and you'll have more bucks than all the "money-grubbing Jews" in the world. You could retire in a year! Go for it! Unleash the jihad from within and make it work for you!
Anonymous (September 30, 2005 @ 4:45pm):
As a Christian American I think both the Israeli government as well as Palestinian Authority need to be smacked. The fact is until both sides stop using the wrongs done to them from the past as excuses to do wrongs to others today there will never be peace.
There was a B.C. comic a few years ago when one of the cave men climbs the mountain to reach the wise man. Once there he asks if there will ever be peace in the Middle East. In response the wise man says, "Only when there are no more rocks to throw."
Sadly it seems as if he may be right.
Anonymous (October 1, 2005 @ 10:33am):
"As a Christian American I think both the Israeli government as well as Palestinian Authority need to be smacked."
Yeah, well since Christians were the ones who got the anti-Semitism train rolling in the first place, and since most of the major religious wars in the Middle-East and Europe have been between Christians and Muslims themselves, with Jews consistently persecuted by both, it would seem to me that Christians and Muslims are the two groups of bozos who need smacking. Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and other religions who've suffered similar marginalization would readily agree.
Christians and Muslims are the two most bloodthirsty groups of fanatics. It's a wonder they're even tolerated anymore!
Anonymous (October 1, 2005 @ 2:46pm):
"Christians and Muslims are the two most bloodthirsty groups of fanatics. It's a wonder they're even tolerated anymore!"
Agreed. If you can't practice a religion without encroaching upon someone else's dignity, then maybe you should take it somewhere else. The last thing I want to listen to nowadays is some poor Muslim or Christian complaining about religious persecution while they openly advocate persecuting somone else just because they don't worship the same god.
Anonymous (October 1, 2005 @ 5:08pm):
I think the Badger Herald needs to start forcing people to show who they really are, because most of the comments here are pathetic and aim at nothing but attacking Mr. Abed as a person.
Israel is persecuting the Palestinians in a manner very similar to the persecution of Jews during the WWII era. They would use gas chambers to exterminate the Palestinians once and for all, but of course nowadays that's not possible. So Sharon is finding a different way to do that slowly. He will never succeed.
Anonymous (October 2, 2005 @ 1:45am):
"I think the Badger Herald needs to start forcing people to show who they really are, because most of the comments here are pathetic and aim at nothing but attacking Mr. Abed as a person."
Why doesn't Mr. Abed show who HE really is? And what would you or Mr. Abed do to the Jews if you thought you could pull it off? Muslims like Mohammed Abed have already proven what their reall intentions are: to exterminate as many Jews as possible. They've been trying to do it for centuries. They will never succeed.
Anonymous (October 2, 2005 @ 9:48am):
"Israel is persecuting the Palestinians in a manner very similar to the persecution of Jews during the WWII era."
Bullshit. Israel is by no means systematically killing Palestinians. By contrast, Palestinians are actively engaging in attempts to commit genocide against the Israelis.
Who are we kidding here? Sharon finds a way to remove all Israeli settlers from Gaza, and you accuse him of genocide? You're obviously either too biased against Jews for your opinion to have any worth in this discussion or you're too stupid to have gotten into UW in the first place.
Anonymous (October 2, 2005 @ 1:46pm):
Is UW even that hard to get into anymore? And it is even hard to hold a good GPA in almost any non math/science/engineering major?
Mona Baker (October 2, 2005 @ 2:15pm):
An excellent article, notwithstanding the usual Zionist attacks on the author and their attempts to justify ethnic cleansing.
Anonymous (October 2, 2005 @ 2:15pm):
"...use gas chambers to exterminate..."
That would be more humane than the Pali method of nail-bombs on buses. At least the bodies would all be in one piece for disposal.
Anonymous (October 2, 2005 @ 3:24pm):
"They would use gas chambers to exterminate the Palestinians once and for all..."
If that were the Jew's real intention, they would've done it a long time ago. But they haven't. Muslims, Nazis and Christians had tried to do just that to Jews down through the centuries, though.
All you morons who keep writing all this B.S. about Jews-this-Jews-that, when are you gonna learn?! people in this country just aren't as stupid as you think they are. Why look for a following on a college campus? Go out into the boondocks and look for some dumb beer-guzzling rednecks to recruit for your hate campaigns. Those idiots out there are the only ones dumb enough to believe anything you tell them.
Anonymous (October 2, 2005 @ 5:06pm):
It is often said the the Arabs have "never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity," which means that whenever they were given an opportunity to improve their situation, they always managed to screw up. And what steps do responsible people take to remedy their stupid choices? Just what we'd expect from them... BLAME SOMEONE ELSE. That in itself would almost be expected from such a sorry lot! But we are learning that there is apparently no limit to the depths of depravity to which these losers will go...even if it means comparing the brave defenders of Israel to the German Nazis! If anything, the Arabs themselves are the the REAL Nazi Jew-killing lunatics on the loose throughout the "Holy Land!" Look at their death cult, in which they cheer on suicide bombers and are proud when their children murder innocent Jews on busses, in restaurants, and in clubs.
What is the Arab fascination with Hitler and Nazism? Maybe it's more deeply rooted that we had realized. On November 25, 1941 the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, went to visit Hitler in Germany. This in and of itself was not so unusual for, during much of World War II, leading Muslims including Haji Amin al-Husseini (Arafat's uncle!) collaborated with the Nazis. The Arab leader was assured by Hitler that once he [Hitler] ridded Europe of its Jews, he would do the same throughout Palestine. Although Heir Hitler is no longer with us, the Arab world is still bent on finishing his work! The Mufti commented, ""Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world."
Further, today's Arab propagandist uses a technique called "Turnspeak," whereby the aggressor becomes the "victim" and the true victim becomes the "aggressor!" The term was first used by journalists to describe German Nazi propaganda after it invaded Czechoslovakia in March of 1939. Because the truth is the exact opposite of the information being disseminated, it is psychologically difficult to counter and leads to confusion. And THIS is their ultimate goal! A classic example of "Turnspeak" is the Arab claim that Jews are like the Nazis and they (the poor, poor Arabs) are the victims of a "Holocaust!" By doing so, the Arabs try covering up THEIR OWN close connection with the Nazis while turning the Truth on its head!
Anonymous (October 2, 2005 @ 5:16pm):
When Islamic Fundamentalist organizations and even individual Arab Nations call for the total destruction of Israel, they are serious... DEAD serious. These people are not deterred nor will they ever put off their holy mission of killing Jews for fear of their own death. We are talking about a people all too willing to give their own lives (and as we have already witnessed, the lives of their own children!) as a holy sacrifice, a Jihad, for the total extermination of Israel and its Jewish population. They feel (and rightly so) that time is on their side. Minimizing their threat as just some sort of rhetoric for local consumption ALSO minimizes the very real threat itself. The radicalized leaders and followers of Islam are planning another Holocaust upon the Jewish people... first within Israel and then ANYWHERE Jews can be found! Make NO mistake about that!
Islamic Fundamentalism is a fanatical movement which is nearly as insidious and dangerous as Hitler's Nazism. The German Nazi movement began within the confines of Germany. When it became time for a worldwide effort to extinguish this curse upon mankind, the Nazi leaders, soldiers, armaments and cities could be easily identified and dealt with accordingly. Contrast this to the threat of Islam, Arabism and the various Palestinian terror networks which have already spread far and wide from the borders of Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus, Riyadh, Southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip! In practical terms there is really NO effective way to deal with THIS enemy.
The leaders of the Arab Palestinian and the propagandists who assist them may accuse the Israelis of behaving like Nazis or that they are perpetrating a Holocaust against the poor Palestinians when in fact quite the opposite is occurring! What we have here is a veritable Holy War or "Jihad," upon the non-believers of Islam. Jews first... then Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Catholics, other more moderate Moslems and then YOU!
It's simple, it started in Israel and Lebanon against Jews and U.S. Marines, CIA, and State Department officials. It then moved to Argentia, Turkey, Spain, England, Indonesia, the Philippeans, Thailand, India, Russia, Saudia Arabia, Morocco, and in one of the worst single acts of genocidal terrorism, on the U.S. in New York, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania. Islamic fundamentalists, particularly the Palestian terrorists, glory in their genocidal attempt to kill as many innocent people as possible.
Anonymous (October 2, 2005 @ 10:08pm):
Mona Baker, a professor at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), admitted yesterday that she had dismissed Dr Miriam Shlesinger and Prof Gideon Toury because of their nationality (Israeli).
Despite a storm of complaints raised by her action, Prof Baker stood by her decision, telling The Telegraph: "I deplore the Israeli state. Miriam knew that was how I felt and that they would have to go because of the current situation."
And Baker isn't just unrepentant; she's belligerent.
Prof Baker said: "I am not against Israeli nationals per se; it is Israeli institutions as part of the Israeli state which I absolutely deplore."
She said that her actions were "my interpretation of what a boycott of Israel means".
Like all true anti-Semites, Baker is utterly blind to the possibility that she may be wrong.
Had this happened in the US, regarding an African American, Asian, or Hispanic professor, the most racist mouthbreathing clod would have scrambled to find a plausible cover for the action. In Britain, the racist bigots (Mona, this is you) proudly wear their stupidity as a badge.
Yes, all you liberal Badger Herald readers, I would like you all to know that the person encouraging Abed to write his filth, Mona Baker, is a woman who fired two Professors soley for their nationality, and their refusal to subscribe to her racist views.
These professors did nothing wrong, unless you consider being born in a specific country a crime. Badger Herald staff take note at the people who support Abed and agree with his twisted views. Again, imagine a professor in the U.S. firing a colleague on the sole basis of their nationality. These are the types in the same camp with mohammad.
Anonymous (October 3, 2005 @ 12:27am):
Mona Baker....
Its clear you have an agenda from your crap webpage. Its not the zionist menace opposed to Abed, its a sickened student body tired of morons spewing this junk at us.
You and Abed can go to Plattville or other junk UW schools who will go along with your lies. Get laid and leave our school the hell alone.
Anonymous (October 3, 2005 @ 5:52am):
"Non-whites were excluded from these benefits, just as Israel's "law of return" asserts that any person of Jewish descent can immediately gain citizenship and settle on lands expropriated from Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in 1948 and are prevented from realizing their basic human right of return to this very day"
This is a record attempt to put as many buzz words in a sentence as possible. No article containing such a sentence could ever be taken seriously. It DOESN'T matter where you stand and what your "arguments" are.
Anonymous (October 3, 2005 @ 11:42am):
As a Jew, I'm a ashamed to see people putting "Muslims," "Christians," AND "Nazis" in the same sentence. You sit around accusiing others of hating Jews, yet you don't realize the hate that is expressed against others of different faiths. The article talks about "Israelis." Not every Jew is an Israeli. I'm NOT and Israeli, so I don't feel attacked as a Jew if one is criticizing Israel. So stop playing the anti-semetic card. And before you call me a self-hating Jew, why don't all of you bashers set a good example for our people and engage in a clean discussion instead of behaving like illiterate, insulting rednecks?
Anonymous (October 3, 2005 @ 7:20pm):
What a bunch of racist, rightwing cowards. I think it's time for progressive Jews at Madison to start calling them out. And it's time for real debate among Madison Jews about what it means to speak as a Jew - especially on the question of Israel.
5766 years, and still too many of us are stuck in the age of the Patriarchs. Time for Prophets, people.
Anonymous (October 4, 2005 @ 6:24pm):
The Nazis were Christians. Also, Nazis used a full SS Death Squad unit composed of Muslims from the Bosnia region, which went around murdering as many innocent people as possible. Haj Amin Al Hussein and all his Palestinian Muslim followers encouraged the Holocaust. Haj Amin al Hussein, the supreme Muslim leader of the British controlled Mid East met with Hitler and Himmler and pleaded with them to continue murdering Jews in the Middle East once they finished turning Europe into a giant grave.
Today, the Palestinians engage in killing as many innocent people as possible, in busses, restaurants, markets, clubs, simply because of their religion/nationality.
Palestinian media is as anti-semitic today as Nazi propaganda was. Here is something from an official Palestianian Authority Sermon:
"With the establishment of the state of Israel, the entire Islamic nation was lost, because Israel is a cancer spreading through the body of the Islamic nation, and because the Jews are a virus resembling AIDS, from which the entire world suffers."
Those who support Mohammad, like Mona Baker, also engage in Nazi-like tactics. The Nazi's boycotted Jewish businesses and fired scores of Jewish professors from German Universities, soley because of who they were.
Today, Mona Baker fired two Israeli professors, soley because of their nationality/religion. It did not matter that these professors were actually leftists. It did not matter their political views or intellectual scholarly ability. All that mattered to Mona was their nationality/religion. Because of this, she fired them. This is the same woman who encourages Mohammad. Those with oversight at the Badger Herald should take note of all this.
Anonymous (October 4, 2005 @ 6:47pm):
During World War II leading Muslims including Haj Amin al-Husseini worked for the Nazis in Germany and called for a intifada against Britain. Haj Amin al-Husseini was the grand mufti of Jerusalem, as well as Yasser Arafat's close relative and mentor
The Arabs sided with Germany during W.W.II. In May 1941, Haj Amin al-Husseini issued a fatwa - 'summons to a holy war against Britain'. The Mufti also requested Arab-Americans not to support FDR.
Yasser Arafat's actual name is Abd al-Rahman abd al-Rauf Arafat al-Qud al-Husseini. He shortened it to obscure his kinship with the notorious Nazi and Mufti of Jerusalem.
Yasser Arafat was greatly influenced by the Mufti during his time in Cairo during the 1950s.
The Mufti mixed Nazi propaganda and Islam. He was wanted for war crimes in Bosnia by Yugoslavia. His mix of militant propagandizing Islam was an inspiration for Yasser Arafat and present day Islamic fundamentalist groups.
There is a deep connection between Nazism and current day Islamic fundamentalism aimed against Jews and the West.
Anonymous (October 4, 2005 @ 7:08pm):
Mohammad uses "turnspeak" to try to convince those uneducated to support him. He blames the conflict on Israelis, when the Israeli leaders actually voted to partition the land into a Jewish and Palestinian state in 1948. The Palestinians along with the armies of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt refused to accept any compromise and actually share the land. Instead they waged a genocidal war of annihilation on the Jews, only 3 years after the Nazi Holocaust. The Arabs were defeated in their campaign of genocide against the Jews. In a way to shift public opinion Mohammad tries to take what the Arabs do and claim the Israelis do it. Because the truth is the exact opposite of the information being disseminated it is psychologically difficult to counter and leads to confusion.
Turnspeak leads to psychological confusion and a feeling of being 'burned-out' or 'overwhelmed' with too much information, effectively creating a blanket of 'white noise' which makes clarity difficult to achieve.
This is a technique that the Arab league worked hard to perfect, as they knew the facts did not make them look good in Western eyes. Today, this writer for the Badger Herald engages in the same tactics, knowing that the facts do not support his side and will not make the Palestinians look good in the West.
Anonymous (October 4, 2005 @ 7:15pm):
Another article by Mohammad repeating the same stale propaganda. How about another birth control article or another race-bating Katrina article. Mohammad, isn't it time you diversify and start to tell lies about more people other than Jews and Conservative Christians? I am sure if you work on it, you can disrespect more people. This could be for a future article.
