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Peace, Security & Human Rights / Op-Ed/Article

Is criticism of Israel anti-semitic? Shooting the messengers

14/09/2007 By Mariano Aguirre Ernst

The New York Post editorial on 5 January 2007 read: “How did this man ever become president of the United States?”

Readers might have thought this was a crack about President George Bush in a paper owned by Rupert Murdoch.

But the editorial went on: “He’s gone from failed president to friend of leftwing tyrants and global scold of anything that represents America’s legitimate interests”; he wanted to “demonise Israel” and had secretly given “PR and political advice to Yasser Arafat”.

The Post was damning not Bush, but Jimmy Carter, and it said Democrats should “cut all their ties” to him for “when he flatly condones mass murder, he goes beyond the pale”.

Carter was president from 1977 to 1981, but the editorial was reacting violently to his recent publication of Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.

In it he wrote that if the Israelis continued their repressive policies in Gaza and the West Bank, blocking any possibility of a Palestinian state, the region could move towards South African-style apartheid: “Two peoples occupying the same land but completely separated from each other, with Israelis totally dominant and suppressing violence by depriving Palestinians of their basic human rights”.

The [Jewish] Anti-Defamation League responded in the media by accusing Carter of anti-semitic views.

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Keywords

Conflict resolution Gaza Strip and West Bank Israel Middle East Peace process Terrorism

Bio author: Mariano Aguirre Ernst

Mariano Aguirre has been Director of the Centro de Investigación para la Paz, in Madrid, and Coordinator of programmes on peace and conflicts at the Ford Foundation, in New York. Mariano Aguirre publishes articles in various media in Spain and internationally such as OpenDemocracy, Le monde diplomatique, El Correo, La Vanguardia, Maniere de voir, AlertNet, Enjeux Internationaux, Temas, El País, Política Exterior, Debate, BBC World Service, Radio Netherland, Radio Nacional de España, Radio France International, Mediterranean Politics and CNN Spain.