‘The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing’ — Edmund Burke
Vice President Kamala Harris listened to a student ask a question at George Mason University on Sept. 28.
The student cited “ethnic genocide and the displacement of people in Palestine.”
Ethnic genocide is the murder of people with the intent to exterminate a people.
In 1967, before Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza in the defensive 1967 war, there were about 955,000 Arabs in those areas.
In 2021, there are about 5,000,000 Arabs in those areas.
That’s more than a fivefold growth in a population that in 1967 was called Arab and in 2021 is called Palestinian.
This great growth in the Palestinian population under Israeli control did not begin in 1967. During the British Mandate, 1922-1948, when Jews began to build up the desolate area of Palestine, Arabs flocked to the area.
This period was the beginning of the massive growth in the Arab population in modern Palestine.
It took place under Zionist Jewish settlement, Zionist Jewish investment, Zionist Jewish founding of farms and industry, Zionist Jewish improvement in health care.
Whatever one’s view of current Israeli settlements on the West Bank, not only has there been no ethnic cleansing in Palestine, but the Arab population there has burgeoned in the modern period of Zionist Jewish settlement in Palestine.
Zionism has not decreased (let alone exterminated) the Arab population in Palestine. It has increased it, drastically increased it.
The Vice President of the United States is silent on all thiswhen she hears these words from a student on Sept. 28:
“You brought up how the power of the people and demonstrations and organizing is very valuable in America, but I see that over the summer there have been protests and demonstrations in astronomical numbers standing with Palestine. But then just a few days ago there were funds allocated to continue backing Israel [$1 billion for Iron Dome], which hurts my heart because it’s ethnic genocide and displacement of people, the same that happened in America, and I’m sure you’re aware of this.”
Harris did not correct, object to or rebuke the student.
What the student said was false. It was not a “narrative” or a “perspective.” It was an utter reversal of the facts.
This is how the Vice President responded to the student:
“Your voice, our perspective, your experience, your truth should not be suppressed.
“The point that you are making about policy that relates to Middle East foreign policy, we still still have healthy debates in our country about what is the right path, and nobody’s voice should be suppressed on that.”
“Your truth,” says Harris.
As if truth need not be factual. As if when a student says, “it’s ethnic genocide,” the Palestinian people whose population has flourished was actually murdered en masse.
As if the hard numbers of people who are killed and the hard numbers of people who are born in or immigrate to Palestine — i.e., hard demography — constitute a “perspective.”
Harris went on to say to the student:
“Our goal should be unity, but not uniformity, right? Unity should never be at the expense of telling anyone personally that, for the sake of unity, ‘Oh, you be quiet about that thing. You suppress that thing. Let’s not deal with that thing.’ That’s not unity. True unity is everyone in that room has a voice.”
“‘You be quiet’” is, says Harris, the wrong way to go. Silence is the wrong way to go. Yet, Harris herself is completely silent on the untruths stated to her.
She equates “suppressing” someone’s voice with correcting radically incorrect information.
Then, the word got out.
What the student said, and what the Vice President said, were no longer confined to a classroom. People began to take notice. Media began to take notice. Supporters of Israel began to take notice. In fact, supporters of Harris herself began to take notice.
Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, said on Twitter:
“Madame Vice President, the idea that Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinians is not someone’s truth, it is someone’s lie, whether they know it or not. And it is pernicious, destructive and should not be elided or ignored by the highest officials in the land.”
Whereupon, Harris’ office issued a statement saying that the Vice President “strongly disagrees” with the student and reached out to Jewish organizations.
This is good, and this is consistent with Harris’ general record on Israel, but it is also telling.
In real time, Harris could not stand up to the student.
In real time, the current vice-president might one day be the president and will be faced with the need to stand up to the defamers of Israel, to correct the twisters of the truth, to part ways with the “voices” and “perspectives” and “truths” that would consign Israel to the trash heap of evil, the lowest regions of hell.
In real time, falsehoods about Israel take root — as the student’s words make perfectly clear — when the correction for the record comes well after the falsehood has gotten out there. In these days of electronic communication, “gotten out there” means: virtually instantaneously.
No doubt, it is good to hear that Kamala Harris is at pains to reaffirm her pro-Israel record.
But in real time, Harris could not summon the facts, could not distinguish between “your truth” and the objective truth, could not articulate the distinction between a citizen’s right to speak, however inaccurately, and a politician’s responsibility to accuracy.
Copyright © 2021 by the Intermountain Jewish News
