Commentary: Some Myths Are Dangerous
By GERALD SCHMAVONIAN

Berkeley Daily Planet
Edition Date: Tuesday, August 16, 2005

As a former resident of Berkeley, I and many of my friends, also Cal
graduates now living in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, enjoy
reading the Daily Planet online. So it was especially disheartening
to read the past several issues of the Planet, and the outrageously
racist, anti-Jewish and anti-Arab comments made by numerous letter
writers.

The comments ranged from the ludicrous to the insidious. Mr. Richey
(Aug. 7) attacked Mr. Gertz’s skullcap as the “Funniest looking
yarmulke I ever saw.” If Mr. Gertz wants to wear a lampshade on his
head, that’s no one’s business but his own.

Mr. Hardesty (Aug. 7) attacked Mr. Spitzer’s loyalty to the United
States. “If you are really such a great Zionist, Spitzer, go live
in Israel.” Americans have the constitutionally inherent right to
verbally attack or verbally defend any nation, including Israel,
without being labeled a traitor or threatened with expulsion.

Joanna Graham (Aug. 2) writes, “1967 is demonstrably the year in which
American Jews en masse converted to Zionism.” In 1967, I was a student
at Cal and most of the people I knew (including Jewish-Americans)
came to regard Israel in that year, not as the land of kibbutzniks
skipping down the furrows hand in hand, but as a militant, racist,
jingoistic state. None of them converted to Zionism “en masse.”

Lawrence White (Aug. 5) attacks Mark Richey for his temerity as
a foreigner (?) from Cotati to attack “the character of a Berkeley
citizen [John Gertz].” I never realized Berkeley issued passports and
had its own citizens. I believe residents of Cotati and residents of
Berkeley can both be citizens of the United States.

But Mr. White is just getting started. He then makes the claim that
the thesis of a Jewish conspiracy “had the logical consequence of
the murder of six million.” Does he mean that if six million were not
murdered that would be an illogical consequence? Or does he mean that
criticism leads to genocide when it is directed at specific groups
which should, thus, be exempt from all criticism?

Mr. White, obviously confused, then poses a number of questions
which I would like to answer. He asks: “If the occupation is the
problem, how come the Arabs launched three wars (1948, 1956, 1967)
before the occupation began?” Mr. White perhaps subscribes to the
notion that people are more apt to believe a big lie than a small
one. This is a prime example of an orchestrated lie, which through
countless mindful repetitions conducted with a complete disregard to
the historical record begins to appear “factual.” According to all
historical sources, all major encyclopedias, including the Jewish
Encyclopedia, all three wars (1948, 1956, and 1967) were launched by
Israel. And, to Israel, each new conquest became a new starting point
for negotiation. Mr. White fails to mention the only Arab-Israeli
war really launched by the Arab side was the Yom Kippur War, launched
by Anwar Sadat in 1973. But Sadat never attacked Israel proper, but
only the Sinai Peninsula, which was Egyptian territory that Israel
had occupied a few years earlier in 1967.

Mr. White continues “And how come the Palestine Liberation Organization
was established before there was an occupation? What were they trying
to liberate?” I refer Mr. White again to any major encyclopedia,
including the Jewish Encyclopedia, all of which show detailed maps
of the United Nations’ division of Palestine into Jewish and Arab
states. In the 1948 war, Israel conquered much of the proposed
Palestinian state and subsequently expelled through intimidation
and murder many of the local Palestinian people who were living
there. That, Mr. White, is the occupation the Palestine Liberation
Organization was trying to liberate.

His next query is equally unintelligible “How come Germans don’t send
suicide bombers into Poland to get back land they lost during World
War II?” To remind Mr. White, Nazi Germany was the aggressor during
WWII. Germany attacked and conquered Poland, not vice versus. The
proper analogy would be if the Nazis had won WWII and consequently
conquered and destroyed Poland, would Poles have the right to send
bombers into Polish-Germany to get their nation back? And should
we support those Poles or “let bygones be bygones” regarding the
Holocaust? In fact, Mr. White, if the Palestinians didn’t fight
against being dispossessed and dehumanized, it would be a travesty
and tragedy for all free peoples.

Next his inventive mind leaps again. This time he claims “a million
Jews were forcibly expelled from Egypt, Libya, Iraq and other Arab
countries.” Actually, those countries at the time, were ruled by
Western-installed, pro-Western monarchies, none of which expelled
any Jews to Israel. In fact, it was Israel’s policy to conduct
“Magic Carpet” flights to bring Jews from all over the Middle East to
Israel to populate it with Jews. The emigration was totally voluntary.
British and American planes airlifted the Jews to Israel. And according
to Alaska Airlines (one of the main carriers involved), the mission
was accomplished without a single loss of life.

Since Mr. White feels no imperative to cite any sources, his
hare-brained fables continue unabated: “not one (Palestinian) votes
in any Arab country.” In fact, Jordanian citizens of Palestinian
descent do vote, as do Lebanese citizens of Palestinian descent,
etc., etc. (just as American citizens of Palestinian descent may
vote.) In fact, only “Israeli-citizen” Palestinians can vote in
Israel, none of the four million Palestinians living in Gaza and
the West Bank have any voting rights in Israel despite having lived
under Israeli rule for two generations (38 years). Israel emulates
formerly apartheid South Africa’s policy of excluding blacks from
voting by saying they were “citizens” of Bantustans (tribal homelands)
and legally not citizens of South Africa proper and consequently had
no right to vote. This allowed apartheid South Africa to claim that
it was “the only democracy on the entire continent of Africa.” Mr.
White, rather than offer smug, insincere, and misleading assertions
regarding the suffering of an oppressed people, do some research. To
demonize the victim and portray the oppressor as the oppressed, not
only requires a manipulation and distortion of history, it also takes
a cruel person to perpetrate and perpetuate such a hoax.

Rabbi Sara Shendelman (Aug. 12) encourages readers to “see both sides,”
then proceeds to praise Lawrence White’s commentary “for its attempt to
educate” the opposition. Posturing and exhorting “in a community that
is 25 percent Jewish,” is she trying to intimidate the Daily Planet
by numbers? It shouldn’t matter what percent of what the community
is comprised of. True is true and untrue is untrue. Politics is a
numbers game, but education should not be. The Rabbi must be leading
a very insular life when she makes a blanket statement such as “We
[Berkeley] are probably the most intolerant place in the U.S. when
faced with a differing view.”

John Gertz (Aug.7) demonstrates his total lack of historic knowledge
by making so many ignorant and false statements that they almost defy
comment. But in the interest of fairness, I will include him. He
writes that Islam is the only religion spread by an army. If Mr.
Gertz thinks only Islam has a bloody history of conquest, I refer
him to the Old Testament. If he is unacquainted as to where to
look: Check out Joshua. Also, anyone with a smattering of knowledge
regarding the spread of Christianity knows that Christianity barely
made any headway in its first few hundred years (only the Armenian
nation had converted to the new faith). But then along came “By This
Sign You Shall Conquer” Constantine. Gertz continues that Islam “is
a religion that teaches that it has superseded all others.” Duh! So
does Judaism, Christianity, and all other religions. It is, in fact,
the very definition of any religion that it supersede all others.
Otherwise, why would anyone convert?

David Altschul (Aug. 8) asks “What governments in the Middle East
allow women to drive cars, go to school, hold jobs, etc., etc….well,
there’s Israel.” This duplicitous phrasing is obviously meant to
mislead and deceive uninformed readers to think only Israel allows
women any rights. In fact, the majority of Middle Eastern governments
allow women these rights. And, interestingly, most of the ones that
don’t allow women these rights are Americas’s closest friends and
military allies in the region. He continues: “What government has
used the schools and TV stations it controls to teach its children
that the best thing they can grow up to be is a suicide bomber? The
Palestinian Authority.” I challenge Mr. Altschul to prove this claim.
When on the defensive, these same tired lies are always trotted out
in hopes they’ll go unchallenged and through countless repetitions
dupe some uninformed people. People, such as Mr. Altschul, who
rely on lies to support occupation and suppression, must perpetuate
stereotypes. If one oppresses people with violence, they will react
with violence. That is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Lastly, people who love to bandy about terms such as Islamofacists,
but are appalled at the Zionazi moniker because of the historical
oppression of Jews by

Nazis should take into account that the first peoples attacked by
fascists (Mussolini) were Islamic peoples (Somalis, Eritreans, and
Libyans). And just as in the case of the Jews, the world did nothing.

Gerald Schmavonian live in Fresno.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress