Denis MacEoin sent this letter to Southampton University Professor, Malcolm Levitt who has weighed in on Stephen Hawking’s boycott of Israel.
Subject: Israel’s explicit policies
11th May 2013
Prof. Malcolm Levitt
Dept. of Chemistry
Southampton UniversityDear Professor Levitt,
I am not a chemist nor, indeed, a scientist of any kind. My academic background exists in a very different field, but one, I hope, that is of particular relevance to the subject of this e-mail. I am a former lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies and a former editor of The Middle East Quarterly, an international journal. My PhD was in an adjunct area of Persian Studies. I have a particular interest in the Middle East (where I have lived, first in Iran, later in Morocco) and my several visits to Israel have created in me a particular interest in matters relating to that country, both religious and political.
I was alerted today to a statement you made recently relating to the decision by Professor Stephen Hawking to boycott a conference due to be held in Israel, when you said ‘Israel has a totally explicit policy of making life impossible for the non-Jewish population and I find it totally unacceptable.’ Assuming I have quoted you correctly, I feel impelled to ask you where on earth you obtained such a manifestly nonsensical view. Like anyone, I feel free to criticize Israel when its government policies stray from the straight and narrow. Like any country, Israel makes mistakes. But when critics level accusations that are simply divorced from reality – that Israel practises apartheid, for example, or that it is ‘a Nazi state’ – then I cannot let such remarks pass by.Israel is the one country in the Middle East (and often far beyond) of which it plainly and categorically cannot be said that it ‘has a totally explicit policy of making life impossible’ for adherents of any but the dominant faith. In Iran, for example, members of the indigenous Baha’i religion (about which I have written extensively) are hanged, imprisoned, denied employment in all professions, refused entry to the universities, and are threatened with genocide. Christians, Zoroastrians and Jews there are treated harshly. For many, life is impossible. Jews have been driven out of all the Arabs countries. In most Arab countries (notably Egypt), Christians are persecuted, churches are destroyed, and whole communities have been leaving over the past ten years and more. Those are all countries you would do better to condemn.
Israel is the only country in the Middle East whose Christian population has risen steadily since 1948. And Israel’s treatment of the Baha’is is exemplary: they have their international centre in Haifa, where they have built gardens, terraces, and white marble buildings facing the Mediterranean, half of a UNESCO World Heritage Site that puts the Iranian regime to shame. The other half of the UNESCO site is situated outside Acre and contains the holiest of the Baha’i shrines. In Iran, every single one of the Baha’i holy places has been bulldozed, never to be rebuilt. Every Baha’i cemetery has met the same fate.
In Israel, the 1967 Protection of Holy Places Law guarantees the safety of all Jewish and non-Jewish sacred sites:
1. The Holy Places shall be protected from desecration and any other violation and from anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings with regard to those places.
A. Whosoever desecrates or otherwise violates a Holy Place shall be liable to imprisonment for a term of seven years.
B.Whosoever does anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings with regard to those places shall be liable to imprisonment for a term of five years.
2. This Law shall add to, and not derogate from, any other law.
3. The Minister of Religious Affairs is charged with the implementation of this Law, and he may, after consultation with, or upon the proposal of, representatives of the religions concerned and with the consent of the Minister of Justice make regulations as to any matter relating to such implementation.
4. This Law shall come into force on the date of its adoption by the Knesset.
This Law is rigorously applied to Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Baha’i and other holy places. There is nothing remotely like it in any Islamic country. In Saudi Arabia it is expressly forbidden to build churches, synagogues, temples, and it is illegal for Christians and others even to meet in their own homes to worship.
The Israeli law of citizenship and other related laws confer on all citizens the same rights and responsibilities. This applies to non-Jews as fully as to Jews. Arabs are full citizens of the state, they may vote in all elections, they may form political parties (and there are quite a few of them), they may stand for parliament (and a great many serve in it), they serve as members of the Supreme Court, as judges in other courts, as university teachers and professors, 20% of all students in all universities are Arabs (with Arabs forming 18% of the population), and so on. There is, quite flatly, no law or regulation calling for any form of apartheid. Go to Israel (and it may help you a lot to do so) and watch: no restaurants barred to Arabs, no shops barred to Arabs (Christian or Muslim), no buses for Jews only, no trains, no university campuses, no hotels, no beaches. All Israelis have the same rights.
Not only that, but consider the situation of women in Muslim countries, especially now that Salafi and other radical Muslim groups are taking over across the region. In Israel, women have full rights with men.
I have hinted at religious freedom and its denial in all Muslim states. The Israeli position has been set out thus:
“Every person in Israel enjoys freedom of conscience, of belief, of religion, and of worship. This freedom is guaranteed to every person in every enlightened, democratic regime, and therefore it is guaranteed to every person in Israel. It is one of the fundamental principles upon which the State of Israel is based… This freedom is partly based on Article 83 of the Palestine Order in Council of 1922, and partly it is one of those fundamental rights that “are not written in the book” but derive directly from the nature of our state as a peace-loving, democratic state’… On the basis of the rules – and in accordance with the Declaration of Independence – every law and every power will be interpreted as recognizing freedom of conscience, of belief, of religion, and of worship.“
I find it remiss of you, as someone endowed with considerable intellect, to have been so grossly misled about the reality of life in Israel. Your statement goes beyond the limits of reasonable and fair discourse. I can only consider you to have been misled by unprincipled persons who wish to disseminate falsehoods about Israel for base motives. In the face of the facts I have given and your freedom to board a plane to Israel in order to see all of this for yourself, I have to ask you to apologize to the citizens of a moral, ethical and democratic people, both Jews and Arabs, who have endured almost daily attacks from enemies determined to wipe them from the face of the planet. That Jewish Israelis have had the patience and moral strength to hold out the hand of friendship to so many Arab citizens while experiencing suicide attacks and rocket fire from their brethren across the border should inspire you to think again. As a university teacher you have a responsibility to dissociate yourself from such a totally explicit lie as the one you have uttered. Please reassure me that you understand the points I have tried to make.
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Denis MacEoin
Bernard Ross Said:
Give me a break, a Mel Brooks you ain’t!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe it is about time that universities such as Southampton University faced the consequences of their clearly displayed ineptitude,disregard for facts and their biases. Given their lecturers and “professors” are as dumb as this Levitt cretin has proven himself to be, it is unlikely technical graduates from this place have developed the competence to distinguish between facts and fantasy. I wonder if UK recruiters have the guts to simply advise applicants from this university there is no position for them as their education, as exposed by Levitt, is decidedly inferior.
Cheers
Alex
raymondf Said:
I was wondering when someone would catch that. My weird sense of humor 🙂
the Jews in hebron would be Israeli citizens living outside of sovereign Israel(like US citizens living in mexico can vote in US Elections). My understanding is that the sovereignty of the west bank is still undetermined and in dispute.
@ Bernard Ross:
You say, “PA Arabs or Jews do not vote in Israeli elections.” Are there any PA Jews? I thought that the PA was completely Jew-free, like Gaza (they’re all so intolerant).
I know there are some Jews in the Hebron suburbs–aren’t they able to vote in Israeli elections? It’s all so confusing to me in the Western US–just can’t understand the balkanization.
@CuriousAmerican
Your problem in “logic” arises from using assumptions that are too simple to bring a reasonable solution to the problem at hand. Enfranchising the Arabs with a vote will undermine the Jewish State. How do you deal with the problem of undermining the only truly safe place in the world for Jews? Should all Jews return to where they or their parents came from? We left those places because of people like you, who want to know why we are so illogical as to want to survive. The vote for the “Palestinians” will have to wait until they come to or return to their Jewish roots for a couple of generations.
@ Laura:
Puerto Ricans Living in any of the 50 States have the same rights and privileges as any American citizen including the right to vote in elections.
Puerto Ricans living in Peurto Rico have many rights but not the right to vote in national elections. Majority of Puerto Ricans have rejected movement for Statehood as they now have the best of all worlds. Except for the vote in National elections they have more rights than do American citizens.
CA is not ignorant but is a Jew hater looking to attribute relativism of Jews with their most vile of enemies. I think what charges his intestinal bile against Jews is mostly theological. He knows we are right and his beliefs false and above all we are G-d’s Chosen.
I think he is a christian Arab??
Who would operate a Blog dedicated to resettling Arabs in South America and especially Chile? He admits even his Spanish is rudimentary.
One might add that this “Palestinian” analysis is a bit contrived as there is no such people and no such state. The Arabs in question are in fact Jordanian. I don’t see how any recognition needs to be paid to the unlawful and unconscionable unilateral revocation of that status by the purported kind of Jordan. If they are stateless Arabs that’s a Jordan issue exclusively. The Original Mandate was earmarked for one Jewish state. After 80% of it was hived off to create Jordan, I don’t see how the Jews owe anything in the way of statehood to the Arabs who already have 2 states in the Mandate and are baying for the third. If they have a stateless status that is an issue for Jordan and certainly not the Jewish state that generously allows them to stay in their homes, unlike what the Arabs did to their Jews since 1948.
In fact had the Jews done as the Arab states did we wouldn’t be having this discussion right now at all and the world would never have heard of a “Palestinian”.
@ Laura:
@ yamit82:
Go Yamit!
CuriousAmerican Said:
Israel has not extended its sovereignty over YS. Israelis who are outside of Israel have the vote, this includes arab Israelis. Israelis in YS, who are outside of Israel have the vote in Israel but have no vote in the PA and this includes arab Israelis. Arabs east of the green line are not Israelis. I am surprised you ask this question as the same condition exists with US citizens outside of the US. I am suspecting that these statements might be disingenuous, am I correct? If not disingenuous then extremely ignorant and I am loathe to give you that label.
CuriousAmerican Said:
I dont believe this is an honest statement.
CuriousAmerican Said:
Israelis anywhere vote in Israeli elections, arabs or jews. Israeli arabs or jews do not vote in the PA elections and PA arabs or Jews do not vote in Israeli elections. I assume that the question has been answered to your satisfaction, or are you trying to imply something else?
@ CuriousAmerican:
You are not only curious but also ignorat, seems to me that you are more ignorant than you are curious…
The so called “Green Line” has been dead since June 11 1967. It was an armistice line established in 1949, not recognized by the Arabs as a permanent border. It got resurrected by those “peace loving” Goebbels-style concoction – the Fakestinians (or shall I say “the invented people”) and their ignorant fellow travelers. By the way, the Fakestinians remind me of the boy who murders his parents and asks the judge for mercy on the ground of being an orphan, but that’s another story…
Now, back to our issue: Over 99% of the Fakestinians who live in the the West Bank are governed by their own despots. They reside in areas designated as A and B under the Oslo Accord (you know, the one that led to the Oslo War in 2000, some call it “the Second Intifada”). All the Fakestinians who live in the West Bank vote for their own “parliament” and their own “government” (as we all know, led by gansters in Armani suits). It goes without saying also in the Gaza strip (that repugnant hole, courtesy of Egypt in the past, and UNRWA and Hamas at present). They are also behind the “Green Line”…
By the way, The Arabs who live in some areas behind the now-dead “Green Line” (for example, the ones in Jerusalem and the ones on the Golan Height) have voting rights in Israel, by virtue of being Israeli citizens (whether some of them like it or not).
So far History 101 for you. Want some more?
CuriousAmerican Said:
Why can Americans living in Mexico and Canada vote in American elections and Mexicans and Canadians not?
CuriousAmerican Said:
Didn’t Washington and Jefferson promise things never delivered? How many of the original constitutional rights have been abridged or reversed over time?
Ben Gurion was a fool and most of our current internal problems emanate from his mistakes and dictatorial rule.
I would characterize him as a traitor and war criminal.
No we don’t but if a PM with real Jewish values is ever elected in Israel he and we will know how to deal with your pet maggots
You liar and SOB, you ARE SO-!!!! Suggesting we enfranchise them with a vote and equality with we Jews. Trust me that I know how to deal with them where they will trouble us no longer. If pushed I know how to deal with the likes of you as well. It will not resemble enfranchisement either.
Here is a philosophical question:
Why is an Arab on one side of the Green line given the vote; while an Arab on the other side denied the vote?
If Jews on both sides of the Green line have the vote, why don’t Arabs?
Didn’t Ben Gurion promise the vote.
You have to deal with that.
I am not saying you should enfranchise them, but you have to explain why one group of Arabs is favored over the other.