Letters to the editor

Re: Freedom Center advertisement

Dear Editor,

I am writing to protest the refusal of The Temple News to print an ad based on our “Palestinian Wall of Lies,” which enumerates and refutes the 10 most audacious falsehoods directed at the state of Israel by its enemies.

All across America this spring, campuses are hosting events under the heading of “Israeli Apartheid Week.” The pairing of these words is somehow seen as unobjectionable, while our pairing of “Palestinian” with “Lies” is treated as hate speech. But the concept of “Israeli Apartheid” is the true lie.

Far from being an apartheid state, 1.4 million Arabs live in Israel with civil rights that are the envy of the Arab world. Israeli Arabs vote in Israel’s elections, have representatives in the Israeli Parliament, sit on Israeli courts and on the Israeli Supreme Court and serve as tenured professors teaching in Israeli universities. The Arab citizens of Israel have more rights and enjoy more freedom, education and economic opportunity than the inhabitants of any Arab or Muslim state.

The extremist organizations which host Israeli Apartheid Week also make much of the genocidal claim that Israel “occupies” Palestine. But this too is a lie. This claim is genocidal because it obliterates the Jewish state. If Israel is actually “cccupied Palestine,” then there is no legitimate Jewish state in the Middle East.

In fact, there never was an Arab state called “Palestine,” and no one even claimed there was until well after the United Nations created Israel in 1948. The land on which Israel was created by the UN was also used by the colonial powers to create Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan. It was land that had belonged to Turkey for 400 years. The Turks are not “Palestinians” and are not even Arabs.

By allowing political correctness and a fear of controversy to prevent them from printing our ad, the editors of the Hatchet are failing the students of George Washington University by refusing to provide them with the full scope of information to make up their own minds on this important issue.

Sincerely,

Sara Dogan
National Campus Director
Students for Academic Freedom
David Horowitz Freedom Center