Thread by @EBluemountain1

Incredible letter written by a NON - Jewish Scottish professor to his students who voted to boycott Israel
​Dr Denis MacEoin, a non-Jewish professor, to the motion put forward by The Edinburgh Student's Association to boycott all things Israeli

TO: The Committee Edinburgh University Student Association.
May I be permitted to say a few words to members of the EUSA? I am an Edinburgh graduate (MA 1975) who studied Persian, Arabic & Islamic History in Buccleuch Place under William Montgomery Watt & Laurence Elwell Sutton,

2 of Britain 's great Middle East experts in their day. I later went on to do a PhD at Cambridge & to teach Arabic & Islamic Studies at Newcastle University . Naturally, I am the author of several books & 100s of articles in this field.

I say all that to show that I am well informed in Middle Eastern affairs & that, for that reason, I am shocked & disheartened by the EUSA motion & vote.

I am shocked for a simple reason: there is not & has never been a system of apartheid in Israel .

That is not my opinion, that is fact that can be tested against reality by any Edinburgh student, should he or she choose to visit Israel to see for themselves. Let me spell this out, since I have the impression that those members of EUSA who voted for this motion are absolutely

clueless in matters concerning Israel, & that they are, in all likelihood, the victims of extremely biased propaganda coming from the anti-Israel lobby.

Being anti-Israel is not in itself objectionable. But I'm not talking about ordinary criticism of Israel . I'm speaking

of a hatred that permits itself no boundaries in the lies & myths it pours out. Thus, Israel is repeatedly referred to as a "Nazi" state. In what sense is
this true, even as a metaphor? Where are the Israeli concentration camps? The einzatsgruppen? The SS? The Nuremberg Laws?

The Final Solution? None of these things nor anything remotely resembling them exists in Israel, precisely because the Jews, more than anyone on earth, understand what Nazism stood for.

It is claimed that there has been an Israeli Holocaust in Gaza (or elsewhere). Where? When?

No honest historian would treat that claim with anything but the contempt it deserves. But calling Jews Nazis and saying they have committed a Holocaust is as basic a way to subvert historical fact as anything I can think of.

Likewise apartheid. For apartheid to exist, there would have to be a situation that closely resembled how things were in South Africa under the apartheid regime. Unfortunately for those who believe this, a day in any part of Israel would be enough to show how ridiculous this is.

That a body of university students actually fell for this & voted on it is a sad comment on the state of modern education. The most obvious focus for apartheid would be the country's 20% Arab population. Under Israeli law, Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews

or anyone else; Muslims have the same rights as Jews or Christians; Baha'is, severely persecuted in Iran, flourish in Israel, where they have their world center; Ahmadi Muslims, severely persecuted in Pakistan & elsewhere, are kept safe by Israel;

the holy places of all religions are protected under a specific Israeli law. Arabs form 20% of the university population (an exact echo of their percentage in the general population).

In Iran , the Bahai's (the largest religious minority) are forbidden to study in any university

or to run their own universities: why aren't your members boycotting Iran ? Arabs in Israel can go anywhere they want, unlike blacks in apartheid South Africa . They use public transport, they eat in restaurants, they go to swimming pools, they use libraries, they go to cinemas

alongside Jews - something no blacks were able to do in South Africa .

Israeli hospitals not only treat Jews & Arabs, they also treat Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank.
On the same wards, in the same operating theatres.

In Israel , women have the same rights as men: there is no gender apartheid.

Gay men & women face no restrictions, and Palestinian gays often escape into Israel, knowing they may be killed at home.

It seems bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a boycott of Israel

& say nothing about countries like Iran , where gay men are hanged or stoned to death. That illustrates a mindset that beggars belief.

Intelligent students thinking it's better to be silent about regimes that kill gay people, but good to condemn the only country in the

Middle East that rescues and protects gay people. Is that supposed to be a sick joke?

University is supposed to be about learning to use your brain, to think rationally, to examine evidence, to reach conclusions based on solid evidence, to compare sources, to weigh up one view

against one or more others. If the best Edinburgh can now produce are students who have no idea how to do any of these things then the future is bleak.

I do not object to well-documented criticism of Israel . I do object when supposedly intelligent people single the Jewish state

out above states that are horrific in their treatment of their populations. We are going through the biggest upheaval in the ME since the 7th & 8th centuries, & it's clear that Arabs & Iranians are rebelling against terrifying regimes that fight back by killing their own citizens

Israeli citizens, Jews & Arabs alike, do not rebel (though they are free to protest). Yet Edinburgh students mount no demonstrations & call for no boycotts against Libya , Bahrain , Saudi Arabia , Yemen , & Iran . They prefer to make false accusations against one of the world's

freest countries, the only country in the Middle East that has taken in Darfur refugees, the only country in the ME that gives refuge to gay men & women, the only country in the ME that protects the Bahai's.... Need I go on?

The imbalance is perceptible, & it sheds no credit on anyone who voted for this boycott. I ask you to show some common sense. Get information from the Israeli embassy. Ask for some speakers. Listen to more than one side.

Do not make your minds up until you have given a fair hearing to both parties. You have a duty to your students, & that is to protect them from one-sided argument.

They are not at university to be propagandized. & they are certainly not there to be tricked into anti-Semitism

by punishing one country among all the countries of the world, which happens to be the only Jewish state. If there had been a single Jewish state in the 1930's (which, sadly, there was not), don't you think Adolf Hitler would have decided to boycott it?

Your generation has a duty to ensure that the perennial racism of anti-Semitism never sets down roots among you. Today, however, there are clear signs that it has done so and is putting down more.

You have a chance to avert a very great evil, simply by using reason and a sense of fair play. Please tell me that this makes sense. I have given you some of the evidence.

It's up to you to find out more.