1. The Simon Weisenthal Centre (Jewish) has published a list of people who are classified as anti-Semitic in 2010.
2. This classification is based on the “slurs” uttered by these people against the Jews or Israel in that year.
3. I am listed among the top 10. I suppose what I had said in 2010 are regarded by the Jewish Centre as slurs but I was merely exercising my right to free speech to speak up against what I considered as injustice.
4. I condemned Israel for breaking international laws, carrying out an illegal siege of Gaza, attacking and seizing the Mavi Marmara and the Rachel Corrie in international waters, killing nine Turkish aid workers, and continuing to deprive the suffering people of Gaza of medical supplies, construction material and food.
5. Israel together with the US are the only countries to use depleted uranium in their bombs and shells which have resulted in all kinds of radiation diseases, among the Palestinians, especially the new-born babies.
6. If for any or all these I am considered to be anti-Semitic then so be it. But Jews clearly cannot be condemned for anything because 60 years ago the Nazis of Germany committed atrocities against them.
7. Apparently their sufferings of 60 years ago entitle them to inflicting sufferings on the Palestinians whose land they had stolen. No matter how cruel or unjust they may be no one may criticise them.
8. It is not being Semitic that is wrong. What is wrong and what draws condemnation is the arrogance, the lack of respect for the lives and rights of others, the blatant seizure of other people’s land, the arbitrary imprisonment of people, the misinformation spread by the media they control etc – which are the subject of condemnation. Whoever commits them must be condemned. And it is obvious that it is the Israelis who commit them most. Israeli oppression and injustice towards the Palestinians cannot be disputed even by those who back Israel.
9. Yes, there were acts by those deprived of their land by the Zionists, which are no less wrong and worthy of condemnation.
10. But these people have no other means to fight back against the military weapons of their attackers. If they have the tanks, the war planes, the missiles etc they would fight “legitimate” wars. But they don’t and there is a sanction on weapons being supplied to them. They have therefore to resort to whatever means they have to retaliate.
11. Admittedly the victims of their attacks include innocent civilians. But when bombs are dropped or missiles fired from afar the victims are also mostly innocent civilians, the old, the sick, the women and the children.
12. Are unexpected deaths and woundings by suicide bombers any different from the deaths and woundings by bombs, missiles, guns, tanks and bull-dozers used by the militarily well-equipped and powerful? I don’t think they are.
13. Are the people waiting to be killed by bombs and missiles free from feelings of fear and terror at the prospect of sudden violent deaths and having their bodies painfully torn apart, as are those killed by suicide bombers or primitive rockets.
14. There is no difference in terms of violence between the acts of a suicide bomber and the killings by bombs dropped from the sky or missiles fired from a distance. Both cause fear and terror. Both acts are therefore acts of terror. Both qualify to be called terrorists. State terrorists are no different from irregular terrorists.
15. Historically the Jews may have lived in the land that is Palestine. But historically the original people of America were the misnamed Red Indians, as were the Aborigines and Maoris of Australia and New Zealand. If all lands must be returned to the first people to live there, then return the United States, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand to the indigenous natives. But you won’t would you?
16. I am not anti-Semitic bcause I am not against the Arabs and other Semitic people, or for that matter those Jews who reject Zionism.
17. I am simply against injustice, against oppression and unmitigated and illegal violence.
18. If that makes me anti-Semitic then I am proud to be anti-Semitic, even though the term anti-Semitic is wrong.
