Sent to The Times : letters to the editor. : Dear Sir Netenyahu’s presence at last week’s “Je suis Charley” protest for freedom of speech in Paris was hypocritical in my view . For one thing he was clearly there not for freedom of speech but to link Islamic fundamentalism to Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians . The two are not the same thing because both Mahmoud Abbas (Palestinian Authority) and Khaled Mershall (Hamas spokesman) have clearly said that the matter is about land and illegal Israeli settlements not at all about Islamic fundamentalism. For another thing, in a concerted campaign to stifle free speech on this matter, Israel has over the years tried to persuade people that protesting against Israel is the same thing as antisemitism amounting to the new antisemitism , which of course it is not. Not every jew for example is an Israeli supporter . A significant and growing number like me feel a great deal of disquiet about Israel’s activities in Gaza and the W Bank and when they say so they are ironically accused of being anti-Semitic in an attempt to get them to shut up. Finally, there are the moral and free speech implications of Israel’s so-called “Right of Return” in the encouragement of jews scared by the attack on the supermarket to emigrate to Israel. A small minority of modern jews’ antecedants actually originated from there, whereas Palestinians whom the Israelis ethnically cleansed in 1948 and 1967 are not at all allowed their right of return to what was and is their country. In Oct , the Israeli Government agreed to enact an “Oath of Allegiance” amendment to their Law of Citizenship whereby the expression of such sentiments will stop one being an Israeli “citizen”. Netenyahu est Charley ? Je ne le crois pas. Jim Cohen (Redbridge, London)
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 02:29:51 +0000
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