It happens at times that a dignitary is invited to one place
and not an adjacent place because he was listed as persona non grata all along,
or because he was disinvited after being invited upon the recent discovery of
something that required he be put on the non grata list.
This sort of thing happens in Palestine/Israel more often
than any other place because the sensitivities of the people in that region run
high and deep. In fact, keeping someone out of the country or disinviting him
or her after being invited, happens more often in Israel
than Palestine .
That's because the Jews have turned sensitivity into a card which they tied to
the subject of survival and often used to put their guests on the defensive so
as to better exploit them emotionally, and ultimately financially.
Although exaggerated by the Israelis – who often push the
envelop to the limit – this behavior is considered the normal state of affairs
in the world of diplomacy. This being the case, when it happens anywhere,
including the Palestine/Israel region, hardly anyone takes notice.
However, there has been an exception lately when many of the
world's dignitaries and organizations – some friendly to the Jewish causes –
became fed up with Israel 's conduct
in Gaza , and wished to do their own
investigation in both Gaza and Israel . What
happened was that the Israelis banned those dignitaries and organizations from
entering the country, or disinvited them when they said something that
displeased the Jews. This done, the Israelis made sure the world noticed what
just happened.
What is abnormal in all of this is that the Jews of Israel
have managed to turn normalcy into something that is abnormally disfigured. It
would have the Jewish fingerprint all over it as can be seen in the example
that is discussed in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) editorial. That would be the
piece that came under the title “Boris Johnson in Israel ”
and the subtitle: “The London mayor is a little
too honest for the West Bank .” It was
published on November 13, 2015 in the Journal.
The editors tell the story of the mayor of London who was disinvited from a number of
Palestinian places, apparently because he said the things that displeased those
who had invited him. As noted above, this is a normal occurrence ... something
that happens all the time in the Middle East and elsewhere. But that was also
the moment when the Jewish abnormal response played itself out.
To see this, we set aside the arguments put forward by the
two parties in the region as to the merit of their respective causes. We also
set aside the observations made by the mayor of London to concentrate instead on the way that
the editors of the Wall Street Journal presented the case.
Two things can be said about that. First, for every one time
that the Palestinians disinvited someone, the Israelis did so at least a dozen
times. Thus, whatever the editors of the Journal think of the Palestinians for
behaving the way they did, the editors must be inclined to have similar thoughts
about the Israelis – except a dozen times more intensely. And the question to
ask is this: What do they think of the Palestinians?
The answer is that the editors attribute the Palestinian
disinvitation of the London mayor to what they
say is the likelihood that the Palestinians are “infected with the kind of
mindless hatred for Israel
and its supporters.” This automatically says that the editors of the Journal
think of the Jews as being infected a dozen times more intensely with the kind
of mindless hatred for Palestine
and its supporters. The symmetry is unavoidable.
Second, the editors do not stop here, but go on to posit:
“This explains their economic backwardness.” The fact is that the Palestinians
do not pop up in Washington
every few months to ask for charity as do the Israelis. And neither do they run
television commercials asking for Christian charity to feed the hungry, as do
the Israelis. This automatically says that absent the yoke of occupation, the
Palestinian economy would improve markedly. It also says that absent American
charity, the Jews of Israel would end up looking as did their forefathers when held
in the concentration camps of an earlier era … skin on bones.