Opinion Editorials, April 2009

THE INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION (EAFORD)

5 route des Morillons, CP 2100.  1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland

Telephone: (022) 788.62.33 Fax: (022) 788.62.45  e-mail: info@eaford.org

www.eaford.org

Anti-Zionism Is Not Anti-Semitism

EAFORD’s Oral Intervention during the Tenth Session of Human Rights Council

EAFORD has sent you a RealPlayer video link:

Item 7. Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories

To expose Israel’s human rights abuses and attacks on Gaza is not anti-Jewish; criticism based on mountains of reports of human rights violations are not directed at Jews anywhere, but at the policies of the State of Israel.  

The international community can and should abhor the slaughter of Palestinian women and children without being labeled anti-Semitic. 

Zionism is a political movement, not a religion; it is a colonialist, racist, ideology of conquest, oppression, subjugation and control.  

Zionism is Israel's official ideology and to oppose the discriminatory policies of this apartheid state is not racist. Israel is one thing, Judaism another: to confront one is not to be in opposition of the other, they are separate. 

Jews can be anti-Zionists, and anti-Semites can be staunch Zionists. Some of the most adamant supporters of Zionist ideology are not Jews, but some fundamentalist Christians. This agenda item does not report on a religion but on a State’s discriminatory policies towards a people who are Semitic too!  

Occupation is not about religion: It is a nation’s policy of aggression; its use of disproportionate force, and collective punishment. 

When the atrocities committed on the people of Palestine are condemned, Zionists call it anti-Semitism, which is a concocted myth. It is simply a ploy to “dismiss all criticism, no matter how legitimate, as rooted in prejudice and therefore without any validity." (Cohen) 

Equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism poisons any resolution; let it not deter us from our pursuit, the real goal which must prevail: truth and justice. 

Thank you Mr. President. 

EAFORD

24 March 2009