However, there is an international social justice cause, popular albeit dormant on the left, that has genuine parallels with the southwest Levant. That would be Tibet. Specifically, China's occupation of Tibet and transfer of Han population into the province parallels the Arabs' conquest of Palestine back in the 7th-8th centuries and subsequent migration of Arab populations into the southwest Levant. Furthermore, today's Palestinians parallel, if current trends continue, the descendants of today's Han settlers of Tibet.
Following the Palestinianist logic, if the Han squat long enough in Tibet, they will become the native people there. By that point, if the Tibetans were to somehow reclaim any of their ancestral land, they would be thieves of Han Chinese land. If you were to ask any social justice warrior whether Tibet belongs to the Chinese, it would be like claiming that the earth is flat. Following up with a question of how long the Chinese would have to squat to become rightful owners would be similarly received. Yet these same social justice warriors argue that the results of the Arabs' conquest of the Levant in the 7th and 8th centuries and settlement since then give the Palestinians title to the southwest Levant, many of them unaware of the prior history.
However, people will not automatically draw a connection between the Palestinians' claims based on the Arabs' 13 centuries old conquest and the situation in Tibet. This connection will require an alliance between us as the advocates for Tibet, like the execrable Linda Sarsour made with advocates for racial and gender equality. To do this, identifiable members of the pro-Israel community will need to take up the cause of Tibetan freedom. In turn, the Tibetans could take up the cause of countering the Palestinianist narrative either in reciprocation as the blacks have reciprocated to Sarsour and her ilk or to shore up support in the American Jewish and Evangelical communities.
Liberals only purport to fight for the rights of people living in places that liberals plan to visit or vacation in some day. No one's going to Tibet, it's cold, it's hard to get to. No one's going to Congo - disease, dangerous animals and the like. No one's going to North Korea because....South Korea. No one's going to Sudan because it's a nasty awful place. But Israel is on the Mediterranean. It's sunny and warm and the beaches are nice and it's a fairly quick plane trip to get to and you don't fight off vagrants at the airport.
ReplyDeleteWhat are you basing your claims on? As to accessibility, Dharamsala is as easily accessible as any place else in northern India and has no safety issues.
DeleteAs for the connection between travel and adopting a cause, travel might be a means of executing one's activism, such as for ISM. It might even make it possible to feel morally narcissistic in actually feeling, as opposed to being, able to make a difference in a cause. But it's a large leap to go from that to saying that there's is no interest in a cause where people won't travel.
Millions slaughtered in every other place, but. And not a peep from HRW or AI or anyone else. Anyone boycotting Burma? Anyone actually worried about the cartel wars in Mexico that have claimed the lives of at least a hundred thousand? Can any progressive even point to Sri Lanka on a map?
DeleteNope.
Of course Sarsour is sophistic in drawing her analogies, as I described, while we have an actually valid comparison to that of the Tibetans. That is all the more reason we should make sure this becomes known.
ReplyDeleteThere actually is a parallel between the history of Jim Crow and the Arabs. As I have explained previously on this blog, the Arabs had been the equivalent of the master race from Jim Crow for 13 centuries and are now lashing out because they are no longer given the master's deference, the way the master race in Jim Crow lashed out for the decade that they were denied the master's deference.
Another clue. "Muslim activist Linda Sarsour called President Donald Trump’s new travel ban a “Muslim ban” — despite the fact that the new proclamation now features North Korea and Venezuela, two countries where very few practice Islam."
ReplyDeleteSee how these charlatans operate?
Well....the Iranians and the PLO and Hamas have a noticeable presence in Venezuela. Their vice-president or whatever is seemingly or claims to be a 'palestinian refugee'. Drug smuggling, arms smuggling and counterfeiting are a big part of the Venezuelan government and it gushes forth from the font that is Middle East Islamic states and state-lets.
DeleteAgreed. And the Jim Crow stuff is well worth pointing out as well.
ReplyDelete"Palestinian terrorist hijacker to speak about women’s rights in EU parliament
ReplyDeleteLeila Khaled invited to Brussels to address event on 'The Role of Women in the Palestinian Popular Resistance'
https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinian-terrorist-hijacker-to-speak-about-womens-rights-in-eu-parliament/
www.algemeiner.com/2017/09/26/do-advocates-for-palestinians-ever-listen-to-palestinians/
ReplyDeleteShades of Ryan Bellerose, here, I think. Good piece and you are absolutely correct. In fact, I would suggest that this line of argumentation represents the cutting edge of pro-Israel / pro-Jewish advocacy.
ReplyDeleteThe Jewish people are the only extant people on the planet with a claim to indigeneity to the Land of Israel. Any conversation that we have with anyone who leans in an anti-Zionist direction should begin with that fact.
They will begin by reciting whatever crimes they wish to assign to the Jews of the Middle East, but we should always begin our end of the discussion by stressing Jewish indigeneity.
The Elder put it in concise terms:
Jews are from Judea. Arabs are from Arabia.
Simple.
That's what I'm sayin'.
Delete