By Felix Vikhman
Re: Poster defaced, April 5
Although I am Jewish, I am not necessarily disturbed by the placing of a sticker reading, “Fuck the Israel Defence Forces—Down with the occupation” on a poster advertising Israel Day. The sticker on Rye’s Jewish Student Council’s poster is clearly an act of political protest, not an act of ethnic hatred.
Since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, certain Jewish groups, namely the B’nai Brith, have worked hard to equate any vocal criticisms against the state of Israel with anti-semitism and racism.
It should be said that many human rights groups have condemned Israel for its treatment of Palestinians. Noam Chomsky, himself a very famous Jew, has gone as far as to equate Israeli policy on Palestinians to that of the policy of apartheid in South Africa. If someone were to put a sticker saying “fuck apartheid” on a South African poster, most people would support the sticker.
As a Jew, I hold my culture in the greatest of respect, and I am always on the look-out for anti-semitism, something I find rampant in Toronto. All hatred is ugly and should be stopped.
I also believe that the state of Israel is crucial to the survival of the Jewish people, but I don’t think its government, like any other government, should be placed above criticism. The Israeli Defence forces are not a race; they are a military wing of an often brutal and moral-less government. If we can’t tell them to fuck off, who can we tell to fuck off?
Leave a Reply