Carnival of hatred

Today begins the official “Israel Apartheid Week,” to be held at universities across the US and Canada. The name of course references South Africa, the country where actual apartheid policies were instituted several decades ago.

“Apartheid Week” has never been more than more than a smokescreen for an antisemitic hate fest, cynically marketed as a human rights campaign. Hundreds of academics, amazingly including Israelis and Jews, will be partners in this hateful annual project.

It will be a carnival including “art exhibits” throughout campuses. It will be a week in which sanctimonious but actually clueless people – people with no idea who they are attacking and who they are protecting – will shout empty slogans and blame Israel for all the evil in the world.

It will be a week where anyone who dares to speak up and anyone who decides to expose these lies will be shouted down, just like what we saw happen last week at the University of Virginia, and the week before that at the University of Georgia.

Let’s be clear: we need to fight for human rights, especially in the human catastrophe known as Syria. And there are countless other atrocities happening all around the world. However, this is not what happens during “Apartheid Week.”

So while, under Muslim rule, members of the LGBT community are thrown from rooftops, women are murdered in honor killings, there will be no protests against these horrific acts, especially during Apartheid Week but all year long, too. This glaring selectivity of concern shows more clearly than anything that the real focus of Apartheid Week is on hatred of Israel, not concern for the human rights of oppressed people.

It is ironic that the coalition of anti-Israelis and antisemites has recruited all the minority groups on campus for their cause. During Apartheid Week, one can meet the resistance groups for blacks, feminist organizations, LGBT groups, human rights organizations and more.

Ironic, because while all of these groups stand shoulder to shoulder with the Muslim organizations, the latter have little concern with human rights, especially women’s rights. The ideology they represent and preach shows little if any resemblance to the moral backbone of justice.

What does stand out in this combined effort is a glaring, almost prideful ignorance. All these organizations have combined their efforts to attack Israel without any knowledge or understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Countering this tidal wave of ignorance and venomous hatred is no small task. Our belief is that the biggest mistake would be to walk away, letting the haters have their moment unquestioned and unchallenged.

We believe that we cannot abandon these campuses and not provide a counterpoint to the hatred. We are concerned about the students who know very little and who could be swayed by the false propaganda. These are students who will be the future leaders of America, filling positions of power and influence in American society. For them to be manipulated by such hatred could have terrible implications for future American support of Israel.

We have and will continue to use various teams of delegates to appear on behalf of pro-Israel campus groups. Among these teams has been a group of non-Jewish emissaries: Muslim, Druse and Christian activists to campuses from both sides of the Green Line, who have clearly presented to the truth about Israel, including their own love and support for the nation.

They have encountered shocked crowds that truly thought that Israel is an apartheid state. They also boldly encountered occasional disruptions that resulted in physical violence. They and our other teams are only energized and inspired by these interactions, and above all, by the opportunity to meet and discuss with those students who actually want to learn the truth about the situation.

Our activists are not affiliated with any political party, nor do we have any political agenda. We are united on one issue: we cannot abandon the campuses around the world to the propaganda, lies and spreading of hatred all aimed to delegitimize the very existence of the State of Israel. We are there and will continue to be there to expose the truth.

The author is the CEO of Reservists on Duty.