Opinion and Analysis

Week ending 25 June 2014

1. The myth of ethnic inequality in Israel

Steven Plaut, Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2014

Discrimination is a scientifically empirical question subject to testing and not a matter of subjective personal opinion. Stripping away the venomous anti-Israel rhetoric, the legitimate question remains whether and how much discrimination really exists in Israel.

2. Kidnapped Israeli teenagers: A Palestinian view

Mudar Zachran, Gatestone Institute, 25 June 2014

This tragedy should remind the world that the PA — and organizations like it — is a threat to all of us and should not be rewarded with still more funds for terrorist behaviour. For the sake of both Israel and the Palestinians, it is not Israel but the PA that should be boycotted, excluded and even dissolved.

3. Is Hamas coming out ahead?

Jonathan Tobin, Commentary Magazine, 24 June 2015

While Israelis, Jews, and civilized people everywhere have to pray that a breakthrough in the case happens soon, Gantz’s talk of fear is an acknowledgment that the longer this drags on without the kidnappers showing proof of life of their hostages, the less likely it will be that the boys will be rescued.

4. Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism: A Muslim perspective

Salim Mansur, Gatestone Institute, 19 June 2014

Just as a few drops of lemon juice curdle a bowl of milk, so Judeophobia sanctioned by the Quran and the Prophet would mean that Islam as a religion of mercy is a falsehood. Mercy is, in fact, the most important of the many attributes of Allah (God) referred to by Muslims. That Islamists have proven to be most unmerciful illustrates just how far they have strayed from God’s message as revealed in the Quran.

5. French anti-Semitism and the spectre of humanitarian Zionism

Seth Mandel, Commentary Magazine, 18 June 2014

If there is any strength to be had in numbers, then France’s treatment of its Jews shows how easily that strength can be negated. The packed aliyah fairs in Paris and the rate of French aliyah itself raise the spectre of what Jabotinsky once called “humanitarian Zionism.” If such a Zionism is necessary in 2014, Europe has failed its Jews once again.

6. Kidnapping, human rights and hypocrisy

Prof. Gerald Steinberg, Jerusalem Post, 17 June 2014

In the real world, three days after the kidnapping became public knowledge, those who claim to promote moral causes are largely silent.