INN According to the “Vision and Goals” of the conference, as outlined by its website:

“To date, the only Israel/Palestine solution that has received a fair rehearsal in mainstream forums has been the two-state solution. Our conference will help to expand the range of academic debate on this issue. Thus, our main goal is to educate ourselves and others about the possible contours of a one-state solution and the challenges that stand in the way of its realization.”

The conference was organized by a number of student groups including, Students for Justice in Palestine, the Palestine Caucus, the Arab Caucus, the Progressive Caucus, and the Association for Justice in the Middle East, all of which perpetrate an ideology based on the belief that Israel is an “apartheid state,” responsible for the “ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population.”

Speakers include, Ali Abunimah, the Executive Director of the Electronic Intifada; Dalit Baum, of the BDS organization Coalition of Women for Peace; Ilan Pappe, radical left Israeli academic and fervent supporter of the BDS movement; Marc Ellis, Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Baylor University, who compares Zionism to colonialism and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazi treatment of Jews; as well as a number of other academics and scholars who advocate similar beliefs. 

“Most of the speakers are heavily involved in anti-Israel advocacy. The conference program features an activist workshop, in contrast to an academic or research framework in which different perspectives are presented… Such events represent the antithesis of constructive academic dialogue and peaceful coexistence,” the NGO Monitor claimed.

“Those who promote a one-state ‘solution’ advocate creating an entity which would, through its merger with the Palestinian Arab population of the West Bank and Gaza and an influx of Palestinians from neighboring states, lose its Jewish majority and its Jewish character. In effect, Jewish self-determination would be nullified,” the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) reported. The forum is clearly focused, therefore, on “dismantling the Jewish State of Israel.”

“According to the working definition of anti-Semitism developed by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), and recognized by the United States Department of State, the One State Conference, in implicitly ‘denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination,’ is an exercise in anti-Semitism,” CAMERA explained.

Anti-Semitism and Sham Scholarship

CAMERA Another element in the State Department-recognized working definition of anti-Semitism is “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” That is also likely to occur at the conference. Scheduled speaker Ali Abunimah has previously compared Israel to Nazis, and similar statements have been made by others. Conference organizer Ahmed Moor also accuses Jews of racism asserting, “Many Israelis and Jewish people are weaned on the idea of Jewish exceptionalism.” Marc Ellis likens Jews to Nazis and to the Egyptians of the Passover tale.

This sort of anti-Israel, anti-Semitic invective, masquerading as education, has become commonplace at these conferences. Far from being scholarly, however, many of the scheduled speakers are of dubious academic integrity and frequently disseminate misinformation and false narratives about Israel and Jews. For example:

• Ali Abunimah has intentionally understated Hamas violence and disseminated false quotations to make Israeli leaders appear cruel.
• Diana Buttu has repeatedly and falsely understated the extent of Palestinian terrorist violence and mischaracterized international law. She has even gone so far as to claim that Hamas rockets have no explosive head. This is an obvious falsehood.
• Marc Ellis wrote a column describing how a Palestinian friend of his was murdered because Jewish settlers coveted her family’s land, falsely implying she was killed by Jews when, in fact, her murderer was an Arab. Ellis is currently defending himself against charges by Baylor University that could lead to his dismissal.
• Leila Farsakh falsely asserted in a French newspaper that the PLO had agreed to share land with Israel in 1974. The truth is that in 1974, the PLO reaffirmed its rejection of a land-for-peace deal in what is known as the “Phased Plan” for the destruction of Israel.
• Ilan Pappé repeatedly published a fabricated quotation to make David Ben-Gurion appear to endorse ethnic cleansing. Pappé has so little regard for historical facts, he freely admits “I am not as interested in what happened as in how people see what’s happened.”
• Nadim Rouhana was denied tenure at Boston College due to the insufficient quality of his scholarship.
• Stephen Walt is best known for his book, written with John Mearsheimer, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. The book, which claims American Jews are a fifth column that controls American policy for the benefit of Israel, is little more than a rehash of classic anti-Semitic tropes which is also rife with falsehoods.

Denying the Jewish People Their Right to Self-Determination

The “One State Conference” seeks to promote the destruction of Israel’s Jewish character. Conference organizer Ahmed Moor says as much in a piece he wrote for the Huffington Post entitled, “Israel’s Jewish Character Is Subject for Debate.”

The conference will feature a number of panels. Panel 7 deals with cultural identity, asking “What role should the state play in the maintenance of the national groups’ identities? Will it be necessary to forge a new, shared identity in the new state?” It is interesting that this question should be addressed without a single pro-Israel panelist participating.

Many people with an intimate understanding of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict insist that the one-state solution is wholly impossible to implement. Worse, it is a recipe for protracted ethnic bloodshed. Could that be true?

Could it? Let’s examine this issue. With a Jewish minority in Israel, Jews would face the same fate as ethnic and religious minorities in other Arab countries. For example:

• According to human rights activist and former Dutch parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali, The Sudanese government’s sustained persecution of religious minorities culminated in the genocide in Darfur that began in 2003. Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, has been indicted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which charged him with three counts of genocide, and still the violence rages on.
• Saudi Arabia bars all public expressions of religion other than Wahhabi Islam and prohibits all non-Muslim houses of worship. Saudi police recently raided a private home and arrested 35 Christians who had gathered simply to pray.
• For decades, Coptic Christians have been second class citizens in Egypt where the building or even routine maintenance of a church was illegal, but since the fall of Hosni Mubarak violence against Christians has surged. Recently thousands of Muslims went on a rampage, attacking Copts, burning and looting Coptic homes and shops.
• In Iraq, church bombings are increasingly common. Since June of 2004, 70 churches have been bombed.Thousands have been killed and nearly one half of Iraqi Christians have fled the country.
• In Tunisia, the dominant political party, Ennahda, plans to institute Shariah law.
• In Libya, the head of the Tripoli Military Council once led an Islamic militia with links to al-Qaida. He intends to run for office in upcoming elections which makes Christians uneasy.
• Christians in Yemen are subject to abuse when they openly embrace their Christianity, with men being beaten and women harassed. They are not allowed even to bury their dead in the capital of Sana’a where all cemeteries are strictly Muslim.
• Since Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, the Christian community has been facing severe persecution, afraid to practice their religion publicly. In November of that year, a Christian bookstore was bombed and the store’s manager tortured and murdered.

In a conversation recorded on February 9, 2012 at Imperial College in London, infamous Judenrat Norman Finkelstein, who describes himself as having devoted his life to the “Palestinian cause” told his interviewer, “You know and I know exactly what we’re talking about because if we end the occupation, and we bring back 6 million Palestinians, and we have equal rights for Arabs and Jews, there’s no Israel. That’s what it’s really about.”

Israel was declared a state on May 14, 1948 and is a full fledged member of the United Nations. Its Declaration of Independence clearly states: “On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable. This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.”

NATIONAL POST  A newly released intelligence report warns that teenagers are being exposed to Islamist extremism in Canadian high schools.

In an Intelligence Assessment, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service says that in two recent cases, suspects charged under the Anti-Terrorism Act “appear to have been radicalized in part while attending Canadian secondary school institutions.” While high school years are a time of “exploration and idealism,” the report says “exposure to violent ideologies at this potentially vulnerable stage can set in motion a series of developments that can lead to actual acts of violence.”

The report focuses on “Islamist extremism,” a conspiracy-driven narrative that claims the West is trying to destroy Islam and that Muslims are required to respond with violence. The appeal of this ideology among youths is a key concern to Canadian counterterrorism officials, particularly since the 2006 arrests of the Toronto 18, whose members plotted truck bombings in Toronto and an assault on the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa. Since then, a handful of youths have left — or tried to leave — Canada for Pakistan and Somalia to join terrorist groups.

The report says while Muslim high school students have a right to hold prayer services, CSIS is concerned “that individuals with extreme violent views could gain access to, or lead, these groups and thus help to radicalize others.” The report, “The 4th ‘R’: Radicalization and Islamist Extremism in Canadian Secondary Schools,” was released under the Access to Information Act.

Say it isn’t so!

Read this