The Big Pharaoh Speaks II

Commenting on a poll that "62 percent of Israelis support government-backed Arab emigration" - not a current policy of the Israeli govenment - BP simply writes:

It doesn't matter what political reasons there are, a citizen is a citizen. Israel's relation with its Arab citizens is a shame.

My response:

Face it: Israel has nothing to be ashamed about in the way it treats its Arab citizens compared to its neighbors.

BP, I know you know this. However, you’ve fallen for the usual anti-Israel propaganda. That’s the thing about propaganda; even if you don’t believe in the specifics, repeated messages worm their way into your mind eventually and overcome all reason.

prompted his "update" in reply:

It is a known fact that Israel, in spite of the ongoing conflict, treats its Arab minority much better than its neighbours. However, it is not right to compare Israel with the surrounding Arab countries. If Israel wants to call itself the Middle East's only democracy than it should live up to this standard...

My rebuttal:

Of course Israel must be held to the standards of democracies - with allowances made for the security situation it is in, just as Americans have had to modify things after 9-11. The extent of such allowances is the correct issue to debate, not blind vilification of Israeli policies in general.

But all this anti-Israel propaganda has befuddled people’s minds. Why should more attention be paid to Israel’s comparitively minor transgressions than to those of its authoritarian neighbors? The answer is twofold: one, it is easier and safer to report from Israel than elsewhere, and two, it distracts the oppressed populations of neighboring countries from their true oppressors, and those in Western nations from taking action against more severe violators of human rights.

Human rights in Arab and Muslim countries should be the priority. Why complain about an opinion poll when people are getting arrested, shot, or their heads chopped off just so authoritarians or bullies can perpetuate their rule or terror?

This is the propaganda trap liberal Arabs like BP have fallen into: even if they don’t believe it at first, pervasive propaganda controls the agenda of public debate and blanks out other issues from people’s minds.

Luckily, there are people who are both clever and modest enough to recognize this, once it is pointed out to them.