Fałszywa równoważność moralna jako narzędzie do demonizowania Izraela

Manfred Gerstenfeld i Jamie Berk

Wśród wielu narzędzi zmobilizowanych do demonizacji Izraela często jest używany szczególny rodzaj argumentu, znany jako fałszywa równoważność moralna. Określenie „równoważność moralna” pochodzi z przemówienia amerykańskiego filozofa Williama Jamesa z 1906 r.[1]. Jest to twierdzenie, że nie ma różnicy między dwoma działaniami o bardzo różniącym się charakterze. Często używa się go dla podkreślania podobieństw między skądinąd niepodobnymi czynami. Fałszywa równoważność moralna podważa normy i wartości w społeczeństwie, zamazując linie między dobrem i złem oraz tym co słuszne i niesłuszne.

Fałszywą równoważność moralną widzimy w porównaniu działań Izraela do działań nazistów, a posługiwali się nią znani socjaldemokraci, włącznie z prezydentem francuskim, François Mitterrandem[2], premierem szwedzkim, Olofem Palme[3] i premierem greckim, Andreasem Papandreou[4].

Kiedy wiąże się dwie niepodobne rzeczywistości, takie jak Izrael i nazizm, użycie jednej strony automatycznie przywodzi na myśl drugą – niezależnie od tego jak zniekształcone jest takie porównanie. Systematyczne powtarzanie takich twierdzeń daje w rezultacie akceptację i brak sprzeciwu lub choćby potrzeby zakwestionowania takiej fałszywej równoważności moralnej.

Nie należy mylić fałszywej równoważności moralnej z relatywizmem moralnym. Relatywizmu moralnego używa się dla usprawiedliwiania jakiegoś zachowania przez twierdzenie, że jest ono akceptowalne według wartości danej kultury lub było powszechną praktyką w pewnych okresach historycznych[5].

Równoważność moralna ucieleśnia porównania, definiowane przez Merriam-Webster Dictionary jako: “Akt lub proces porównywania: przedstawienie jednej rzeczy lub osoby jako podobnej lub przypominającej inną, lub jako stopniowanie przymiotnika lub przysłówka, by zaznaczyć różne poziomy jakości, ilości lub związku”[6]. Tego rodzaju porównania z natury rzeczy powodują częste nadużycia.

KATEGORIE RÓWNOWAŻNOŚCI MORALNEJ

Fałszywą równoważność moralną używaną przeciwko Izraelowi można podzielić na dziewięć głównych grup pokazanych poniżej. Są nimi:

• Fałszywa równoważność moralna między Izraelem i Niemcami nazistowskimi;
• Izraelem i apartheidem południowoafrykańskim;
• syjonizmem i rasizmem i jej podkategoriami, syjonizmem i kolonializmem/imperializmem, jak również syjonizmem i faszyzmem, Holocaustem i Nakbą (po arabski “Katastrofa” 1948 r.)
• Fałszywe porównania moralne morderstwa i przypadkowej śmierci, porównania zabijania terrorystów z zamierzonym mordowaniem cywilów;
• Nadawanie równoważności porywaniu żołnierzy i więzieniu terrorystów;
• Prezentowanie równoważności moralnej między działaniami Izraela jako legalnego, suwerennego państwa, a nielegalnymi akcjami terrorystów.
• Dziewiąta kategoria, “inne”, obejmuje demonizację Izraela w sposób, jaki nie pasuje do powyższych kategorii, jak twierdzenia o równoważności moralnej między antysemityzmem i islamofobią oraz dostrzeganie paraleli między brutalnością nazistów i działaniami ich alianckich przeciwników.

KATEGORIA 1: IZRAEL JAKO PAŃSTWO NAZISTOWSKIE

Rozpowszechnionym przykładem fałszywej równoważności moralnej jest porównanie zachowania Izraela do nazistów i sugerowanie, że działania Izraela są równoznaczne z działaniami sprawców największego ludobójstwa na świecie. W społeczeństwach zachodnich zachowanie nazistów stało się współczesnym odpowiednikiem absolutnego zła.

W sondażu opublikowanym w 2004 r. przez Friedrich Ebert Foundation pytano Niemców, czy zgadzają się ze zdaniem: “To, co państwo Izrael robi dzisiaj Palestyńczykom, jest w zasadzie tym samym, co robili naziści podczas Trzeciej Rzeszy”. Wielu respondentów (23,7%) częściowo zgodziło się z tym zdaniem, a 27,3% zgodziło się całkowicie. Kiedy podobny sondaż wykonany przez te samą fundację opublikowano dziesięć lat później, 16,6% zgodziło się częściowo, a 10,5% zgodziło się całkowicie[7].

Kiedy w sondażu fundacji Bertelsmanna zadano Niemcom to samo pytanie w 2007 r., 30% respondentów zgodziło się. Kiedy jednak to samo pytanie zadano znowu w 2013 r., liczba niemieckich respondentów zgadzających się ze zdaniem wzrosła do 41%, co jest liczbą znacznie wyższą niż w poprzednich sondażach[8]. Wiele sondaży pokazuje, że ta fałszywa równoważność moralna jest dobrze dowiedzionym zjawiskiem, choć liczby mogą się różnić.

Pierwsze kompleksowe badanie postaw Norwegów wobec mniejszości przeprowadził na prośbę rządu norweskiego w 2011 r. i 2012 r. Ośrodek Badań Holocaustu i Mniejszości Religijnych. W badaniu stwierdzono, że 38% Norwegów zgadza się ze zdaniem, że Izrael zachowuje się wobec Palestyńczyków w ten sam sposób, jak Niemcy zachowywali się wobec Żydów[9].

Z tych danych można dowiedzieć się, jak ważne są przekonania i myśli w dodatku do mowy i czynów. Ci ludzie nie wystąpili i nie powiedzieli, że Izrael jest państwem nazistowskim. Nie było nawet wiadome, że tak duża liczba Europejczyków ma ten pogląd zanim nie zostali zapytani. Wielu ludzi, którzy mają skrajnie fałszywe poglądy o Izraelu dostarcza infrastruktury społecznej, która umożliwia powodzenie antyizraelskim podżegaczom.

Na przykład, w 2009 r. Trine Lilleng, pierwsza sekretarz ambasady norweskiej w Arabii Saudyjskiej, wysłała e-mail z konta swojego ministerstwa zestawiając zdjęcia dzieci zabitych w Gazie ze „zdjęciami ofiar Holocaustu w podobnych sytuacjach”[10]. Po informacjach o tych zdjęciach w prasie norweskiej i izraelskiej nie spotkała się z żadną naganą i wręcz awansowała, jak twierdzi reporter „Haaretz”, który skontaktował się z ambasadą kilka miesięcy po tym incydencie[11].

David Harris, dyrektor wykonawczy American Jewish Committee, napisał odpowiedź na e-mail Lilleng: “Przebywa pani w Rijadzie od 2007 r. Jeśli czuje się pani tak udręczona łamaniem praw człowieka, może mogłaby pani zacząć od poświęcenia nieco uwagi – i krytyki w e-mailach – temu, co panią otacza. Czy też ma pani oczy dyplomatycznie zamknięte?[12]

W kwietniu 2002 r. portugalski laureat Nagrody Nobla, José Saramago, używając alegorii Dawida i Goliata, opublikował w gazecie hiszpańskiej “El País” opis swojego poglądu na to, jak Izrael stał się państwem nazistowskim:

“Z punktu widzenia Żydów Izrael nigdy nie będzie postawiony przed sądem, bo był torturowanym gazowany i palony w Auschwitz. Zastanawiam się, czy ci Żydzi, którzy zginęli w nazistowskich obozach koncentracyjnych, którzy byli prześladowani przez całą historię, którzy ginęli w pogromach, którzy byli zapomniani w gettach, zastanawiam się, czy te olbrzymie masy nieszczęśników nie czują wstydu, kiedy widzą potworne czyny popełniane przez ich potomków. Zastanawiam się, czy fakt, że doświadczyliśmy cierpienia nie jest najlepszym powodem, by nie krzywdzić innych”[13].

Dla Saramago, Izrael, rzekomo używając Holocaustu i pogromów jako usprawiedliwienia, zachowuje się jak Goliat wobec Palestyńczyków.

Według historyka belgijskiego, Joela Koteka:

“istnieją dowody, że przez całe spectrum, od skrajnej prawicy do skrajnej lewicy, są ludzie, którzy korzystają z ‘okazji’ oferowanej przez konflikt izraelsko-palestyński, by dać upust antysemityzmowi, tak długo tłumionemu właśnie z powodu ludobójstwa. Tak więc, wydaje nam się, że antysyjonizm stał się środkiem pozbywania się niewyraźnego poczucia winy Zachodu wobec Żydów, porzuconych nie tak dawno temu na pastwę barbarzyństwa, wygodnym sposobem kompensowania za własne tchórzostwo i opuszczenie ich przez zajęcie jednoznacznego i cnotliwego stanowiska na rzecz ofiar wielkiej niesprawiedliwości współczesnej” [14].

KATEGORIA 2: IZRAEL JAKO PAŃSTWO APARTHEIDU

Czytaj dalej tu: Fałszywa równoważność moralna…

Obama owes Israel an apology

Jennifer Rubin

Israeli helicopter lands to evacuate soldiers, wounded during an offensive in Gaza, near the border with the Gaza Strip in 2014. (Baz Ratner/Reuters)

USA Today reported this week: “The Pentagon has approved airstrikes that risk more civilian casualties in order to destroy Islamic State targets as part of its increasingly aggressive fight against the militant group in Iraq and Syria, according to interviews with military officials and data.” Considering the enemy we face, the level of control and restraint that will continue is remarkable and admirable:

Six Defense Department officials, all speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to describe how Islamic State targets are selected and attacked, described a sliding scale of probable civilian casualties based on the value of the target and the location. For example, a strike with the potential to wound or kill several civilians would be permitted if it prevented ISIL fighters from causing greater harm.

Before the change, there were some limited cases in which civilian casualties were allowed, the officials said. Now, however, there are several targeting areas in which the probability of 10 civilian casualties are permitted. Those areas shift depending on the time, location of the targets and the value of destroying them, the officials said.

The riskiest missions require White House approval, said one official, who is closely involved with current targeting plans.

This is entirely appropriate and embodies the concept of “proportional force,” a mainstay of international law too often conveniently ignored or misinterpreted when it comes to Israel. And that brings us back to the Gaza war.

The Israelis faced a much more imminent threat against an enemy deliberately using civilian shields. A U.S. review after the war confirmed the extraordinary lengths to which Israel went to avoid civilian causalities. That, however, was not how the Obama administration and, in particular Ben Rhodes, certainly the least expert and most partisan person to hold a senior foreign policy position in recent memory, saw things. (Recall that before the bodies from Libya were shipped home, Rhodes was the one drafting talking points to spin the incident so as to avoid the impression that the administration’s anti-terrorism policy was unraveling.) Rhodes, with no factual basis, insisted that Israel “can always do more” to avoid civilian deaths. (He offered no suggestions.) The administration announced itself “appalled” by Israel’s self-defense, which regrettably killed innocents (precisely as Hamas intended, by hiding weapons and terrorists in civilian areas).

Don’t expect the administration to “self-reflect” on its criticisms of Israel now that it is in the same boat — balancing innocent life against the threat from aggressors. As for Israel, you will not hear any public “I told you so’s.” The Israeli government, unlike the current administration, understands that the United States and Israel share many things, among which is the dedication to the rule of law, the preservation of innocent life and a transparent democracy that is willing to examine its own conduct, debate and correct course when appropriate. Until the Obama administration came along, U.S. presidents generally understood this as well, defending Israel from efforts to delegitimize it and constrain its right to self-defense under the phony, distorted banner of “international law.”

The next president should avoid mimicking the administration’s unwarranted criticism, as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has done. We’ve repeatedly credited Hillary Clinton for rebutting Sanders’s libel, and thereby by implication, the administration’s Gaza war rhetoric.

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Leon Rozenbaum
But neither should Obama’s successor follow the monstrous suggestion from Donald Trump that we should target noncombatant women and children and should engage not merely in enhanced interrogation but out-and-out torture. America is not “great” because it can outdo its enemies in mendacity; it is great — as Israel and other Western democracies are — because it is a force for good in the world and abides by Judeo-Christian values that do not revere power above all else.

Sanders would make us weak by undermining our — and Israel’s — right to self-defense and allowing evil actors to flourish, thereby imperiling thousands of innocents. Trump would make us weak by undermining our values and our image as a defender of free peoples, thereby impeding our fight against evil actors. Surely the United States can do better than that.

And by the way, don’t hold your breath waiting for an apology from the morally myopic, thin-skinned administration. This president’s animus toward Israel would not permit that.

Jennifer Rubin writes the Right Turn blog for The Post, offering reported opinion from a conservative perspective.  Follow @JRubinBlogger

The Planned Palestinian Invasion of the University

David Collier

The university campus is becoming increasingly hostile to both Jews and Israel. From what I have witnessed and experienced, it is no side effect, but rather part of a deliberate and well-planned strategy. We are witnessing an entry operation.

In March, in the period around “Israeli Apartheid week,” I attended an impressive one-day conference at the London School of Economics. It was jointly organized by “Olive,” “FOSIS,” and “Friends of Al-Aqsa.” The event was titled “From Johannesburg to Jerusalem.” One of the speakers was Max Blumenthal, who got on stage to present various conspiracy theories, compare Israel to ISIS and to praise Hamas.

The university pull factor

During the event, there were two workshops held. One that was of particular interest went about explaining how to create and promote Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns on campus. The strategy was broken down into seven parts. The most important was persuading your university to create a scholarship for Palestinians. This is what was said:

The best people to lead a group or society on campus are Palestinians. There is no one who can articulate better to you the realities of occupation and who can make that argument better. To get Palestinians on campus, from the Gaza Strip, from the West Bank and from Israel, what you need is to convince your university to set up scholarships. That requires lobbying, and that requires organizing and that can also come in the form of fundraising every year.

At Sheffield, we get a fee waiver ever year for a Palestinian student. Then we have to fundraise for accommodation and living. Although actually now the university pays for that as well, originally we had to do so. But what that actually meant was that you could build up long relationships with academics who pay standing orders and you build up a network of individuals to contribute towards your scholarship.

So that is the “pull” factor. I am sure that when they lobby the university for the scholarship, they plead humanitarian concern. They stress the necessity of saving the student from the “oppressive and brutal occupation.” In reality, they are lobbying to persuade the university to finance their political cause. Whichever way you consider this, people on this side are actively seeking new recruits from “Palestine” to promote BDS. Then they ask the university to pay for it.

The university push factor

But I wondered at the time about the “push.” Who are these students? Are they Palestinians from Gaza lucky to be given a life-changing opportunity? Or is there a deliberate “push” factor, where Palestinian movements have created a network carefully selecting potential candidates, assisting them in their application and training them prior to their departure?

It would be an astonishing miss if this is not the reality. The Palestinian cause on this side is desperate to lobby for the scholarship. They have a specific goal in mind. Are they going to do all this work, go to all this trouble, only to find they end up with a Palestinian who isn’t capable of presenting their case? Consider Gaza, given that Hamas has control over the propaganda there. Is Hamas selecting or filtering the applicants? Are our university funds being used to further the Hamas cause?

Meet Hazem Al-zatma. Hazem wants to study at Swansea University. Hazem is from Rafah in Gaza and has apparently applied for a scholarship at Swansea. On his Twitter feed is a Tweet saying, “I am still waiting for an official reply and I think it is ‘Yes’ according to my friend who phoned them. I hope I can join you all [at] the nice family of Swansea University.”

If you hyphenate his surname and replace the “A” with an “E,” you find out Hazem is also a freelance translator. You also find he is an online activist. Sometimes he just drops the “Al” and the hyphen altogether. This is Hazem Zatma”s Google page. Hazem raised £170 using online crowdfunding towards his Swansea University education under the captivating title: “Send Refugee to University For Masters.” According to a site called “translator scammers,” Hazem tends to change his name quite frequently.

The problem, however, is far larger than one name-changing translator from Rafah.

Rawan Yaghi was a student at Gaza’s Islamic University, and she won a scholarship to Oxford University to study linguistics and Italian. The BBC ran a story about how “students at Oxford’s Jesus College will pay some of the cost of Rawan’s studies.” The anti-Israel site Mondoweiss published a story about how Rawan was a Mondoweiss contributor. Rawan also ran a blog called weresist. You can also see her in a video promoting #BDS. No surprise, then, that in a recent interview, Rawan suggested “she is planning to be involved in the BDS campaign.” The person who organized the campaign to assist in Rawan’s scholarship-funding was activist Emily Dreyfus. Both Daphne Anson and BBC Watch picked up this story at the time.

We clearly have an example here of an activist in the UK, bringing over an activist Palestinian, who then furthers the “Palestinian cause” once her position here was secured. This was described as a deliberate strategy in the workshop at LSE.

Now, is it systemic?

Full circle

Meet Malaka Mohammed. In 2013, Malaka was given a scholarship by Sheffield University. Malaka raised almost £5,000 towards additional expenses. While still at university in Gaza, Malaka successfully implemented the first BDS campaign. Clearly an activist, she is now on her way to Sheffield — the same university that was specifically mentioned in the workshop I participated in; the one that was persuaded to provide a scholarship to Palestinians to promote BDS.

Now meet Malaka in 2014, just one year later. There was a workshop called “Confronting Israeli Apartheid: Building the Student Movement for Palestine” taking place at Sheffield. Like the one I attended, this was about spreading BDS on campus. Malaka, who was now “Education Officer at Sheffield University Students’ Union,” was one of the speakers. Her topic included “Palestine scholarship campaigns.”

Malaka has come full circle.

Standing next to Malaka on the platform was Goldsmiths University’s then-education officer Sarah El-alfy, best remembered for leading the campaign to reject a Holocaust memorial day. Another on the platform was Juman Asmail, a Palestinian student activist from the university of Southampton. Juman co-founded Southampton Students for Palestine. She was also instrumental in breeding discomfort across the UK Jewish community as one of the driving forces behind the failed anti-Israel conference at Southampton.

Not just Sheffield

The University of Durham has a page dedicated to the “Durham Palestine Educational Trust.” It lists those students granted scholarships in recent years. Diana Alzeer was there until 2013. Prior to her arrival, Diana was already an activist and co-produced a video diary called Sleepless in Gaza and Jerusalem. In 2013 she appeared at a Palestine Solidarity Campaign event at SOAS. Nada Nabris is from the same year group, and along with Alzeer promoted Palestinian activism on campus and raised money to pay for further scholarships. Others, such as Tahani Abu Shaban, also raised money for the same cause. Tahani’s Twitter page leaves no doubt about her sentiments, with a Tweet stating that “Israel surpassed Hitler in barbarism.”

Tahani worked with Hamas-infested UNRWA in Gaza, but what is suspicious is that her Twitter feed became active on the subject of the conflict, in English, just a few months before she arrived in the UK. This provides some indication that some of the students may be being primed in Gaza before they leave. And just so Durham’s class of 2014 isn’t left out, the entire group — Basma Al Hadad, Saba Fadda and Reem Jodeh — can be seen here protesting the conflict and pushing BDS on their local high street.

All over the country

I spent much of February going to events that demonized Israel and pushed BDS. In all of these events there were Palestinian students, many of them here on scholarships. Many of these students are now doing the job that they were expected to do: furthering the cause, creating a case so that even more Palestinian scholarships can be created. This isn’t about one or two universities anymore. At St Andrews, a scholarship program was created for Palestinians, called STEPS. They welcomed their first student in about 2012, and by 2013 they were cancelling pro-Israel events because of protests. There are scores of universities that receive indirect funding through outlets such as the “Said Foundation” – Birmingham, Cambridge, East Anglia, Essex, Exeter, Glasgow, Goldsmiths, Kings, UCL, Leeds, Leicester, LSE, Loughborough, Nottingham, Oxford, Oxford Brookes, Holloway, SOAS, Southampton, Sussex and Warwick. There are also the HESPAL Scholarships, 22 each year, spread across the UK. The list is almost endless.

Kings, the university now remembered for the violent protest against a meeting about Jewish peace initiatives, has KCL Action Palestine, who, like good BDS activists, “succesfully achieved a scholarship system for a Palestinian student in 2008.“ Or take Amal Nazzal at Exeter. She arrived on a HESPAL scholarship. Now she teaches at Exeter and includes BDS examples in a lecture during a marketing module. This particularly unethical method of subliminal conditioning is widespread. While I was at Birkbeck, the Lecturer in Law, a BDS activist, used Gaza protests as one of the examples we needed to study in the section on police powers. Nazzal also writes on the conflict at outlets such as Middle East Monitor. She writes of “Israeli colonization and apartheid” and is now free to lecture a whole generation of British students.

A clear victory for the BDS strategy

This isn’t an exercise in careful selection. I could have expanded this research from days into weeks, uncovering more and more evidence under almost every single stone. This is a blatant BDS strategy that they openly advertise and propagate. Consider this: almost every NGO contacted in the exercise I reported about safety conditions in “Palestine” instructed the volunteers how to behave when they returned home. There are information booklets given to ex-volunteers about how to become an activist. Does anyone really believe that those Palestinians awarded scholarships do not undergo similar instruction? Or taking it to a level higher, that those best suited for international activism are not actively pushed towards scholarships? These students are highly politicized and many come as soldiers on a mission. They walk into a university campus that is simply not prepared or capable of dealing with them. There is no comparable “opposing army.”

This is a strategic infiltration of our academic space. Why is there so much money being invested in one specific nationality, when clearly there are far more deserving cases worldwide? Worse still, these scholarships, if utilized by activists, contribute to a worsening and deepening of the conflict. Is it a coincidence that so many of these scholarships are being awarded to students who were already activists before they came? These students most certainly contribute to a deteriorating situation within the UK. How many, just how many, of the Palestinian students standing up on campus, pushing propaganda, alienating the British Jewish students and demonizing the only free state in the entire Middle East, are here on scholarships? How many? And this isn’t just in the UK. If this is a BDS strategy, then it is likely happening everywhere.

The government has a duty to act

I have nothing against the students or scholarships set up to further student education and opportunity. However, the government has clearly stated it believes there is a connection between BDS activity and antisemitism on campus and that BDS “undermines good community relations.” We can now see there is a deliberate and intricate network that intends to bring foreign students over to the UK with the intent to create such an atmosphere on campus and strengthen BDS. We also know that they chase university funding under the flag of humanitarian concern. These scholarships are funding antisemitism.

These students are not British, and they are being imported with the specific aim of increasing the strain on community relations. Their actions fuel the rise in antisemitism against UK Jewry. The government has a clear duty to act quickly to protect its own citizens. Therefore, this practice has to be stopped. The government has to intervene to ensure that it does. If humanitarian concern is the primary purpose behind these scholarships, then simply suggest that while they are here they should refrain from political activity that unsettles UK citizens, such as BDS. Make it a condition of their sponsorship.

After all, if education is really the primary goal, why would anyone object to such a proposal?

David Collier has been writing about Israel for 18 years and blogs from ‘Beyond the Great Divide’. He spends much of his time inside the BDS camp, and is researching antizionist forces inside the university campus.