Under The Hill

I had just read a National Post article written by the Israeli ambassador to Canada, Alan Baker, describing the “poisonous myth of Israeli apartheid”. I know for a fact that Israel is one of the two major liberal democratic states in the Middle East (the other is Turkey, although with a mixture of secular and Islamic aspects) and yet this Ambassador to Canada from Saudi Arabia decided to respond with a scathing letter denouncing Baker’s article about Israel. The suggestion that Israel is an “apartheid” state came from ex-president Jimmy Carter’s much-criticized book, “Palestine Peace Not Apartheid”, which had aroused furors and disappointments from the American Jews, Democrats, and even Bill Clinton himself disagreeing with Carter’s hyperbolic, unsubstantiated premise about Israel as an apartheid state. Carter used the issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the peace process to highlight the problems the Palestinians had with Israel but he did not bother to check out what life is really like in Israel daily so far, like what Alan Baker had pointed out.

That is why I am calling out an open invitation to deaf Jews and deaf Palestinians and Arabs living in Israel, asking them to really educate us deaf Americans (and deaf Canadians, too! ) about what life is really like for the deaf Jews, Arabs and Palestinians, as well as other deaf Christians and Druzes, in Israel. We would like to understand the nature and circumstances from the Israel-Palestinian conflict that have such impacts on the deaf life and culture in Israel.

Does any of Alan Baker’s article confirm that there is no such thing as “apartheid” in Israel in any way or is there any credibility to what the Saudi Ambassador was saying about Israel as an apartheid state?

I’m not taking any side. I am all for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, just as long as neither side have to concede or expend themselves to the very bitter end and destruction. There’s no point perpetuating the conflict but there’s no point in perpetuating myths, wild theories and propaganda as well. Each side have legitimate grievances and concerns that needed to be addressed frankly and peacefully on the tables or in the moderated public forum, not with guns, checkpoints, bombs and martyrs, with all the emotions running high. I would not wanted to see Israel “wiped out” from the world’s map in my lifetime.

Granted, I may expect some kind of biased, prejudiced or hostile opinions from anyone who have follow the conflict for as long as they remember or have pay attention to the issues behind it, although with a degree of uninformed or propaganda standard. I should remind you all such hostile attitudes or sentiments about the Jews and the Palestinians (and to the originator of this blog) are not welcome here, so that I ask you to refrain from it and try to look at the other side’s perspective and see how that make you feel, like if the shoe is in the other foot, so to speak.

If you think that I have no reason to blog about this invitation to deaf Jews, deaf Palestinians or Arabs living in Israel, asking them to offer their own personal insights of life in Israel and in the disputed territories of Palestine so I hope to be educated truly as it is, please feel free to tell me like it is at robsund9 “at” yahoo.com, I welcome your feedback or thought!

Addendum: for those who agreed with the Saudi Ambassador about what happened to Rachel Corrie, the story about her “protecting a Palestinian house” have been thoroughly debunked here and here. Rachel Corrie was a member of the far-left radical organization, the International Solidarity Movement, and died trying to protect an Islamic weapon-smuggling operation under the house’s ground.