Comrade Bassam Haddad wrote this comment on Facebook (I cite with his permission):
"I rarely use Facebook to comment, but i can't help but be smacked by the new heights that the institutional racism of Israel and the wimpish American mainstream media and academia have reached, almost in unison. I have never been too concerned about extremist views in the United States about Arabs or Palestine. That's their job. It has always been the cowardly and hypocritical lack of outright condemnation of this institutionalized racism by liberal American/European Journalists and Academics in the face of incremental ethnic cleansing conducted by Israel for several decades. This willful or passive racism, packaged as a defensive posture for an uninformed audience ready to demonize arabs, will come back to haunt these same journalists and academics down the line, and will surely lead to the implosion of Israel as it stands now on essentially racist principles equally couched in a defensive discourse that outlived even its cynical utility. No one, but no one knows this imminent contention better than the very same Israelis who are supporting the current assault on Gaza in a spectator sport fashion atop stolen hilltops. Saying "shame on you" to purportedly "liberal" journalists and academics is naive--and in fairness, it could be said about some of the defenders of Palestinian rights in relation to their hypocrisies elsewhere, even if they are different in kind. What is distinctive about Israel's racism, and that of its variety of supporters, is that Israel power is nearly unmatched, locally and/or globally, considering its nuclear/conventional weaponry and allies respectively. Yet, self-styled "democrats" and "liberals" are either silent, or whisper opposition mostly for the sake of Israel's racist self. Because Arabs don't deserve to be defended; only Israel deserves protection from itself for the sake of continuing its racist violations internally and externally in way that is acceptable to liberal journalists and academics, for another few decades. This is not about shaming. It's about who these people really are. And they are everywhere around us. But times are changing, and they will no longer be as comfortable with their couched racist narratives. All in time."
"I rarely use Facebook to comment, but i can't help but be smacked by the new heights that the institutional racism of Israel and the wimpish American mainstream media and academia have reached, almost in unison. I have never been too concerned about extremist views in the United States about Arabs or Palestine. That's their job. It has always been the cowardly and hypocritical lack of outright condemnation of this institutionalized racism by liberal American/European Journalists and Academics in the face of incremental ethnic cleansing conducted by Israel for several decades. This willful or passive racism, packaged as a defensive posture for an uninformed audience ready to demonize arabs, will come back to haunt these same journalists and academics down the line, and will surely lead to the implosion of Israel as it stands now on essentially racist principles equally couched in a defensive discourse that outlived even its cynical utility. No one, but no one knows this imminent contention better than the very same Israelis who are supporting the current assault on Gaza in a spectator sport fashion atop stolen hilltops. Saying "shame on you" to purportedly "liberal" journalists and academics is naive--and in fairness, it could be said about some of the defenders of Palestinian rights in relation to their hypocrisies elsewhere, even if they are different in kind. What is distinctive about Israel's racism, and that of its variety of supporters, is that Israel power is nearly unmatched, locally and/or globally, considering its nuclear/conventional weaponry and allies respectively. Yet, self-styled "democrats" and "liberals" are either silent, or whisper opposition mostly for the sake of Israel's racist self. Because Arabs don't deserve to be defended; only Israel deserves protection from itself for the sake of continuing its racist violations internally and externally in way that is acceptable to liberal journalists and academics, for another few decades. This is not about shaming. It's about who these people really are. And they are everywhere around us. But times are changing, and they will no longer be as comfortable with their couched racist narratives. All in time."
