Ignorant Zionist academic Denis MacEoin attacks Edinburgh students

"MacEoin's special claim to unique ignorance of Israel and Palestine, however, is clinched by his insistence that "Under Israeli law, Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews or anyone else; Muslims have the same rights as Jews or Christians." He seems not be aware of the startling fact that the para-statal JNF (Jewish National Fund) controls 94% of all Israel land, on behalf of the state, and openly practices racist discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel."

Note to campaigners for Palestinian rights: whenever you feel a little tired, I suggest a moment's reflection on the calibre of your opponents. It never fails as a tonic.

Dr. Denis MacEoin is a case in point. This author of trash fiction on themes of black magic is being paraded by supporters of Israel's crimes as an expert on the Middle East, an assessment MacEoin shares. He claims authority: "I am the author of several books and hundreds of articles in this field. I say all this to show that I am well informed in Middle Eastern affairs." 'Never mind the quality, feel the width' was an old British TV sitcom; MacEoin is the modern academic equivalent.

MacEoin damns Edinburgh University students for supporting the Palestinian appeal for boycott of Israel. He accuses the students of anti-Semitism, being "absolutely clueless", and their ethical stance "a sad comment on the state of modern education", since they have accepted" false accusations against one of the world's freest countries." Not only is Israel "free", but it "embodies the best in democracy, anti-racism, religious freedom."

The article making these claims by a "former academic in Islamic studies...has now been forwarded around the world by Israel supporters." Mike Wade has praised the letter on behalf of the Murdoch press.

MacEoin not only asserts "There is not and has never been a system of apartheid in Israel", he ridicules the very idea since Israel "embodies the best in democracy, anti-racism, religious freedom." Heady stuff, but facts are stubborn things. State-enforced residential segregation of Jews and non-Jews in Israel, for example, extends to 93% of Israeli lands. This land is under the effective control of the para-statal JNF (Jewish National Fund) via the ILA, is explicitly reserved for exclusively Jewish benefit, and may not be leased or sold to non-Jewish citizens of Israel.

He may wish to claim, bizarrely, that "Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews" under Israeli law. MacEoin's indifference towards the facts, however, is accompanied by a deeper methodological ignorance. MacEoin commits a schoolboy howler in confusing an example of something with its definition, evidenced in his ignorant claim that "For apartheid to exist, there would have to be a situation that closely resembled things in South Africa under the apartheid regime."

That is nonsense: apartheid is defined in international law as a type of state-enforced racism, where the state functions openly to maintain domination by one racial group over another or others. Apartheid is a crime under international law and any state or society can be investigated to decide whether it fits the template. One can examine Israel, Saudi Arabia, or elsewhere to see whether the crime of apartheid has been committed. This has been done. In 2007, UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine John Dugard noted that that "elements of the Israeli occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid, which are contrary to international law".

Similarly, South Africa's Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) found in its 2009 report that "the State of Israel exercises control in the [Occupied Palestinian Territories] with the purpose of maintaining a system of domination by Jews over Palestinians and that this system constitutes a breach of the prohibition of apartheid."

As anyone can easily discover with a modicum of effort, inside the entire area controlled by the Israel State, Jews are superior to non-Jews from the day they are born to the day they die. Jews enjoy political benefits since, for example, no Israeli parliamentary majority will ever rely on Arab Knesset votes. Israeli Jews enjoy legal benefits in being able to live anywhere in Israel while one million Palestinian Arabs with Israeli citizenship are barred from living in kibbutzim and most of the the rest of the land surface of the country. Israeli Jews can live and commute from illegal settlements where they live under a separate legal code to non-Jews.

Jews enjoy economic benefits, ranging from privileged patterns of investments in municipal services to priority access to jobs in most sectors of the economy. Jewish settlers enjoy the right to bear arms denied to Palestinians, and roam the country, including the occupied territories under Army protection; armed Palestinians would be killed on sight.

Israel fits the template of apartheid as developed in international law : it is a state openly committed to Jewish political, economic and military supremacy, codified partly in a racist legal system. The May 2009 South African study found that Israeli state-enforced residential segregation in favour of Jews, assassinations, administrative detention, systematic torture, supports the conclusion that "Israel has become a colonial enterprise which implements a system of apartheid."

We leave aside the testimony of the entire Palestinian civil society, or Desmond Tutu, the Nobel laureate who was "very deeply distressed" by a visit to Israel, since "it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa".

MacEoin points out that Israeli practice is way short of Nazi extermination as practiced after 1942. Quite so. I know of no one who would make such a claim. Parallels are perfectly valid, however, between the systematic segregation and persecution of Jews in 1930s Germany, and the much harsher oppression of Palestinians under Israeli control in Jerusalem, or helicopter gunsights in Gaza today.

More parallels could be drawn, however, perhaps more fruitfully, by comparing Israeli colonial dispossession with Rhodesia, or with MacEoin's native Ireland or Rhodesia, or Tasmania in earlier periods.

MacEoin's special claim to unique ignorance of Israel and Palestine, however, is clinched by his insistence that "Under Israeli law, Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews or anyone else; Muslims have the same rights as Jews or Christians." He seems not be aware of the startling fact that the para-statal JNF (Jewish National Fund) controls 94% of all Israel land, on behalf of the state, and openly practices racist discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Is he unaware that since the foundation of Israel the state has progressively dispossessed Palestinian citizens of their land to transfer this to Jewish control, and that this process is still underway. Surely MacEoin knows that land, once stolen or ethnically cleansed or confiscated by the Jewish state, cannot be sold or even given to non-Jews, even the original owners who are Israeli citizens.

MacEoin should ask how he would feel if laws rigidly enforced in the UK prohibiting Jews from buying or leasing land, or residing outside Jewish areas. Such a nightmare would be a BNP Britain.

MacEoin's ignorance is charmingly complete. Defending the worn out Zionist claim that Israel is a protection for Jews, he is certain that," If there had been a single Jewish state in the 1930s (which, sadly, there was not), don't you think Adolf Hitler would have decided to boycott it? Of course he would." The fact is, however, that Nazi Germany not only didn't boycott the Jewish Yishuv in Palestine, the Zionist state in the making, but set up a special scheme, the Ha'avara, to move German Jewish wealth to Palestine in the form of German manufactured exports. This scheme – A Zionist-Nazi pact - was so significant that "Some 60 per cent of all capital invested in Palestine between August 1933 and September 1939 was channelled through the agreement with the Nazis."

Part of his appeal to Edinburgh University students "to show some common sense" urges they "Get information from the Israeli embassy," presumably to sit through an explanation of how 1,400 Palestinians brought about their own deaths under Israeli white phosphorous in Gaza during New Year 2009.

It is surely significant that supporters of Israel trumpet such an ignoramus as their expert on Islamic studies. If I were a Zionist, I'd be worried. Very worried.
Mick Napier, Edinburgh
01 October 2011