Yesterday evening, David Olesker spoke to us about delegitimization of Israel. He introduced Natan Sharansky's 3-D heuristic for assessing when anti-Israel arguments become anti-Semitic. Legitimate criticism of Israel is fine, but it crosses a line if it holds Israel to double standards, demonizes Israel, or delegitimizes the Jewish state.
Like every country, Israel has political, social, and economic issues which its citizens struggle with. They debate the wisdom and morality of actions taken by the government. But no matter what that Israel does, it does not undermine the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their homeland.
Here in Berkeley, we frequently hear arguments which deny the historical Jewish connection to the land of Israel and the right of the Jewish people to a sovereign state, deliberately take facts about Israel out of context to make Israelis out to be monsters, or hold Israel to a different standard than any other country. And all too often, they are defended in the name of dialogue. These arguments are bigoted and fail the 3-D test. Tikvah strives to educate the campus community that this type of discourse about Israel is not acceptable criticism, it is antisemitism.
1 comment:
Anti-Zionism is the politically correct term for modern day Antisemitism.
This modern-day antisemitism comes out most of the time from far-leftist political groups.Antisemitism is part of the left now.
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