Unable to relate to anything that
associates naturally with human beings, Bradley Martin has completely missed
the point of the subject matter he is talking about.
He wrote: “Spain's Anti-Israel
Hypocrisy Boils Down to Antisemitism,” an article that was published on June
30, 2018 in Algemeiner. In his article, Martin lists the instances in which
anti-Israel stances were taken in Spain, including adherence to the BDS
movement. But the situation in the Middle East is not the reason why the
Spaniards express anti-Israel sentiments, he went on to say. The real reason
they hate Israel, he explained, is that they are fundamentally antisemitic. And
he claimed to have the proof of that.
Here are Bradley Martin's accusations
against Spain:
“The Spanish state of Navarre
endorsed BDS and slammed the US for moving its embassy to Jerusalem. More than
50 Spanish cities and regions have passed motions condemning Israel. Spanish
newspapers and magazines contain cartoons in which Jewish symbols are linked to
the killing of children. El Jueves displayed caricature of Ariel Sharon with a
pig's face, a Jewish skullcap, and a Nazi Swastika. El Pais has continually
portrayed Palestinians as innocent victims, while dehumanizing Jews”.
Even if all these instances seem
on the surface to relate to the situation in the Middle East, says Martin, this
is not really the case. He explains that there is more hypocrisy than meets the
eye behind the Spanish attitude. In his view, Spain is behaving much the same
way as Israel. And he cites the instances, which he says, prove his point. They
are the following:
“Spain occupies the Portuguese
town of Olivenza despite agreeing to return control to Portugal. It also
refused Basque demands to create an independent homeland, and maintains control
over the plazas de soberania, and the cities of Ceuta and Melillas, claimed by
Morocco as their sovereign land. It refused to respect Catalonia's desire to
secede from Spain”.
Well then, if not the Middle East,
the reason why the Spaniards hate Israel must be that they are antisemitic, he
concludes. And there is more of what proves this reality, according to him. It
is the following:
“58.4% of Spaniards say the Jews
are powerful because they control the economy and the mass media. They are
62.2% among university students and 70.5% among those interested in politics.
More than 60% of university students said that they did not want Jewish
classmates. 30% said their dislike of Jews had to do with the Jewish religion, customs,
and way of life. 20% said they didn't know why they disliked Jews. Only 17% of
respondents attributed their dislike of Jews to the conflict in the Middle
East”.
If an impartial judge looking at
this evidence concludes that this is not convincing argument, what is Bradley
Martin missing? The answer is that Martin is making two monumental mistakes:
First, Bradley Martin is falsely
equating what Spain is doing in Olivenza, de soberania, Ceuta, Melillas and
Catalonia with what Israel is doing to the Palestinians in the occupied
territories. The truth is that the inhabitants of the places where Spain is
sovereign are themselves sovereign citizens. They enjoy Spanish citizenship,
have the same rights and obligations as the other citizens, and they enjoy equal
protection under the law. Spain has set-up no checkpoints restricting the
movement of some people but not others, and has built no wall separating them
from each other. It does not have settlers living on occupied lands illegally,
where they enjoy privileges enforced by the military and denied to the
indigenous population who live under the harsh rules of occupation. And the
sordid, criminal list of Israel goes on.
Second, it is human nature ––
which means it is both human and natural –– that when someone consistently
behaves in an odd way as compared to the norm, even impartial observers tend to
look for intrinsic reasons why this is the case. Thus, when Jews who are not
naturalized or born Israelis, refuse to concede if only by a hair that Israel
is doing something wrong occupying the territory of others and treating the
people with that kind of savagery, it is natural for the observers to suspect
that religion or custom or the way of life could be the culprit. If not, then
it must be the status of these people as it relates to the economy or the
media, among other things.
This is what the Spaniards have
done. Theirs is a healthy and natural human attitude. It is what the entire
human race feels. If this is antisemitism, the Jews better get used to it
because it is universal, and will be around for as long as there will be human
beings.