As the IDF continues its brutalities in Gaza, condemnations pour in from all over the world. A lot of the anti-Israel protests are marred by anti-Semitism, which allows the Israeli state to portray any manifestations against its policies or actions as anti-Semitic even though that clearly is not the case. Despite anti-Israel and anti-Semitic ideas being seen hand-in-glove in many protests, equating antagonism against the state of Israel with anti-Semitism constitutes a false equivalence, considering that many harsh critics of Israeli policies are Jews themselves.
Similarly, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict allows vehement critics of Islamism – especially those residing in the Muslim world or coming from a Muslim background – the opportunity to ‘balance out’ their criticism by going equally hard on the Israeli state. This allows them to ward off the allegations of bias or self-hatred. When it is pointed out that the mess in their neck of the woods is prodigiously worse than anything going on in Palestine, they conjure the ‘whataboutery’ card – the fallacy of relative privation, i.e. accusing a person of trying to hush up an issue by pointing out the fact that there exist bigger crises.
Summoning the ‘whataboutery’ card while clamouring for either side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is ironic considering that the issue gets more coverage than any other conflict on the planet. Even so, if a Londoner who was a part of the thousands that protested against Israeli military action last week, points out the fallacy of relative privation when the lack of anti-ISIS or anti-Assad protests is highlighted, it might make some sense, considering that all these issues are foreign for a Brit. But when Liberty chowk in Lahore that brims with anti-Israel protests, is silent when Ahmadis are burnt 50 kilometres away in Gujranwala or when the Shia are being targeted in a barefaced genocide within the city, highlighting the country’s selective outrage over ‘humanitarian’ issues shouldn’t be shot down with allegations of ‘whataboutism’. Especially considering the fact that both the conservative and liberal press in Pakistan are giving more coverage to Gaza than the apartheid of Ahmadis, the Shia genocide or the ethnic cleansing of the Baloch put together.
[quote]Zionism does not dictate how the Jewish state or its military should act[/quote]
There indeed are those that take a stand against issues around the globe without any discrimination, but they are a diminutive fraction of the Pakistanis or Muslims that protest against Israel. When it’s the right-wing conservatives, the believers in Pan-Islamism or the Muslim Ummah, who are selective in their condemnations it is consistent with their ideals. But when the flag-bearers of secularism and liberalism buy the media hype, treat the Palestinian issue as a bigger crisis than Syria or Iraq, and scorn at any attempts to suggest that Pakistan needs to set its priorities straight, it contradicts much of what they claim to stand for.
Any claims that the Palestine issue should be as important as Balochistan, or Parachinar, for a Pakistani taking a stand against human rights abuse, constitutes idealistic false equivalence – one that is made even more absurd by the fact that virtually no one knows about the latter crises. And the Israeli-Palestinian conflict does throw in a plethora of examples of false equivalence on both sides.
Just like the Israeli state falsely equates the condemnation of its policies with anti-Semitism, those trying to factor in Hamas’ role in exacerbating the crisis are shunned as ‘anti-Muslim bigots’ or ‘Islamophobes’ by the other side. The use of the two terms synonymously in turn demonstrates the false equivalence of criticism of an ideology with bigotry against a religious community. And just like those coming from a Jewish background are accused of anti-Semitism for being critical of Israel, many with a Muslim background are accused of being Islamophobes for not laying the entire blame of the Palestinian conflict on Israel.
Even so, what takes the false equivalency cake is the endeavour of anti-Islamism secularists from our neck of the woods to equate Islamism and Zionism, just to purge themselves of the aforementioned allegations of bigotry or phobia. Blaming Zionism for the IDF’s butchery is like blaming Pakistani nationalism for what our military is doing in Balochistan.
Zionism is a nationalistic ideology that envisages a Jewish state in Israel. It does not dictate how said Jewish state or its military acts. Accusing the Israeli state’s massacre on Jewish nationalism, regardless of the merits or demerits of the Israeli state’s inception, can in fact be dubbed bigotry.
Islamism meanwhile is an ideology that sees the world as being divided into two parts – Dar-ul-Harb and Dar-ul-Islam – with the ISIS/ISIL laying the foundation for the latter in Iraq recently. Islamism states clearly that the leaders of Dar-ul-Islam should not rest till they take over Dar-ul-Harb. ISIS might have taken the lead but the likes of al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and the TTP are desperate to follow suit.
Equating Islamism with Zionism is particularly dangerous in Pakistan where every problem is credited to a Zionist conspiracy. This false equivalence also allows the Muslim world to continue to bury its head in the sand and ignore the actual cause behind its downfall. It further fuels the idea that Israel or Zionism is the root of all evil in the Middle East and the Muslim world, when a cursory glance at the shambles that the rest of the Middle East finds itself in, should suggest otherwise.
