Responding to hatred with IsrAction

I was telling a friend this week that of all the topics I write about, the global campaign against Israel’s very existence is the one that just won’t go away, no matter how much I might wish otherwise, and itt’s consumed a good deal of my attention for more than a decade. Anyone who writes about a particular subject for that length of time faces the prospect of becoming inured to it, not to mention bored. (Take it from me; anti-Zionists are, on top of everything else, deeply boring folks who repeat the same discredited tropes over and over again.)

But give credit where it’s due. There are some anti-Zionists appalling enough in their statements and actions to persuade me that I haven’t seen everything quite yet.

Here are two egregious examples of what I mean, both of which I encountered within a few days of each other. 

The first concerned Dr. Marsha Levine, a former Cambridge University (U.K.) academic whose discipline is archaeology and whose area of expertise concerns the breeding and use of horses by human beings in antiquity. Dr. Levine received an email from a 13-year-old girl in Israel, Shachar Rabinovitch, asking for advice with a school project. “I know you are a very important person and I’ve read your article about horses (Domestication, Breed Diversification and Early History of the Horse) and I love horses very much,” wrote Shachar endearingly. “It will be an honor if you will answer my question.”

Dr. Levine’s answer was shocking. “I’ll answer your questions when there is peace and justice for Palestinians in Palestine,” she wrote back. “I am a member of Jews for Justice for Palestinians. I support Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions. You might be a child, but if you are old enough to write to me, you are old enough to learn about Israeli history and how it has impacted on the lives of Palestinian people. Maybe your family has the same views as I do, but I doubt it.”