Editor,
After a short recess, the Daily Lobo has renewed its tradition of granting free publicity to anti-Israel groups on campus. On Tuesday, a long letter advertising the “Coalition for Peace and Justice in the Middle East” was published; perhaps in order to express solidarity with the Israeli Apartheid week, which was celebrated around the globe, mostly in universities.
It is unfortunate that the Daily Lobo continues to advertise these groups without a serious inquiry of their true agenda. The reason for the abundance of terms such as “justice,” “peace” and “human rights” that appear in the letter is to disguise the real aim of that group. It has nothing to do whatsoever with pursuing human rights or justice; in reality the group’s activities deal solely with the denouncement of Israel. One only needs to be present in their “informational” talks, movies and other propagandistic events to easily realize that. Its aim is to null the legitimacy of the existence of a Jewish state; it has no concern with human rights or peace.
If this group was indeed concerned with the human rights situation in the Middle East, it would have presented frightening facts that most of the world is not even aware of. It would have tried to raise awareness of unbelievable human rights violations. Sadly, examples are almost endless, from brutal oppression of the Kurds in Turkey and Syria to tens of thousands of Arabs or Muslims that were slaughtered only in the last year on Arab lands. According to that “human rights” group, when Arabs kill, torture or oppress people it is natural — in its view of double standards for Jews and Arabs to promote justice.
The shallow comparison of Israel and South African apartheid is fraudulent and primitive. Israel is the only “apartheid” nation where Arabs are in key positions in the high court, parliament and hospitals. It is the only “apartheid” nation where a minority is terrified by the slightest proposal to join its own people to change from an Israeli to Palestinian citizenship. These racist ideas of removing any kind of responsibility from Arabs, and putting the blame only on Jews need to be abandoned. Maybe then some progress will happen.
Yuval Carmi
UNM student
