Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 8:22 PM
Subject: Unique immunity.
Feb. 4,2002
The Editor,
The Guardian Weekly
Dear Editor:
David Goldberg, in his article: {" Let's have a sense of
proportion" Jan. 31}, quite rightly, disapproves of the common practice of
labelling every criticism of Israeli policies as antisemitism.
Through this practice, Israeli apologists are granting Israel a
unique immunity from criticism, that is not available to any
other state. You can criticise the policies of Canada, Britain , the U.S or
any other country, and you can disagree with the policies of the leaders of
these countries, but if you dare to criticise the policies of the
state of Israel or its leaders, you are an antisemite.
Extraordinarily, this unique immunity appears to extend
further, by allowing Israel's political and religious leaders to describe
Palestinian Arabs as snakes, serpents, two-legged animals and cockroaches.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Spiritual leader of the Shas Party, preaching in a Passover
sermon, stated: " The Lord shall waste their [the Arabs] seed, devastate them
and vanish them from this world...You must send missiles to annhiliate them.
They are evil and damnable." Does this not qualify as antisemitism, for the
Arabs are also semites?
Yours sincerely,
Ismail Zayid, M.D.