2011-04-15

Irritation at Biased Political Criticisms of Israel

It is true that especially since I received Israeli citizenship, I have come to fulfill the obligation of kvetching as a "good citizen" about Israeli society and its culture. ;-) But on the other hand, I do get really irritated every time I encounter biased political criticisms against Israel, especially in Japan. This is not because I have a blind faith in the country politically, but many of these critics apply a different, often higher, standard to it, distorting facts, thus demonizing it. Israel may not be a perfect country politically (and socioculturally), but it fares far better than many of the countries in the world, even among developed countries, and definitely in the region.

I know some anti-Israeli political groups in Japan; I have just found that recently one of them waged a nationwide campain to boycott Israel (and were even successful in harvesting some "crop"). There seems to be a clear correlation between these critics of Israel and their political propensity - they are ultraleftist "peaceniks". I have also read some online articles by some of the "ideologues" of these groups. They must be scholars, but some of their criticisms are based on distorted or fabricated "facts", which often are utter nonsenses at best. Sometimes they also sound very emotional and full of hatred and malice against Israel, though it cannot be a manifestation of antisemitism.

My sincere questions to them are why they feel no self-contradiction between their political criticisms of and activities against Israel and failure to apply the same standard to those rogue nations they fervently (and blindly) support, if they are really motivated by conscience as they seem to be claiming tacitly, and why they ignore and fail to condemn, whether intentionally or not, those crimes targeted at Israel. I do not know what their real motive is, but I do know that it is not (and cannot be) pure conscience.

PS: My political views about Israel are very close or identical to those of, e.g., Alan Dershowitz and Caroline Glick.