The Hypocrisy of the anti-Trump protestors

Critics of President Trump are loud in voicing their anger at his suspension of immigration from six predominantly Muslim nations, but are deafly silent in standing up against the same kind of oppression because it is sponsored by Israel

By Ray Hanania

The hypocrisy of the anti-Trump protestors is amazing and more than anything angers me.

If the protestors really cared about the civil rights of Muslims, as they assert, then they would stand up for civil rights whenever it is challenged. But they don’t.

For example, this week, Israel’s racist government approved a law that permanently suspends the immigration rights of Muslims, and mainly Arabs and Palestinians who oppose Israel’s oppressive military policies, their illegal expansion of Jewish-only racist settlements, and their exploitation of Palestinian resources in the occupied territories to produce products mislabeled as being from “Israel” when they are not.

No one will be allowed to enter Israel under a new law and immigration ban that is more pernicious than the 90-day suspension imposed by President Donald Trump. So why aren’t the anti-Trump protestors complaining about that law?

In fact, why are the anti-Trump protestors supporting the same kind of anti-immigration law that targets “predominantly Muslim” immigrants and travelers adopted not just in Israel but by 19 American states.

Senator Dick Durbin. Sen. John McCain, the denier of the massacre of 33 American soldiers on the USS Liberty. Sen. Lindsey Graham, whose state, South Carolina, was the first state to adopt a law that denies fundamental civil rights to predominantly Muslim protestors who criticize Israel by boycotting its violence and atrocities?

Why is it that all of the anti-Trump critics can deny Muslims, and Christian Arabs, the right to criticize Israel and support a law in Israel that shuts the door to immigration and travel to Israel if they dare to boycott Israel’s oppressive policies?

Boycotts have been used legally and effectively in America in the past and agains oppression in foreign countries. Boycotts were the foundation of the American Civil Rights movement.

But, boycotts are not allowed in America and banned by American law if the target of the boycott is a foreign country that kills Christians and Muslims and steals their lands, Israel!

In 1955, Rosa Parks and other African Americans in the South launched a boycott of the Montgomery public buses and brought national attention to the racism and discrimination there.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., used boycotts as a peaceful form of protest against injustice, and it worked. The same kind of boycott being embraced by Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims who believe that Israel is violating international law by confiscating lands from Christians and Muslims to build Jewish-only settlements. The same kind of boycott embraced against Israel’s policy of exploiting resources in the Occupied West Bank and Occupied Jerusalem to sell those resources to international markets under the false label of being “Made in Israel.”

And Americans joined the world wide boycott of South Africa when it embraced Apartheid as a form of discrimination against Blacks there.

Ah, but those boycotts were “acceptable” boycotts. Criticizing Israel is considered illegal in America by the very same people who claim that suspending immigration of Muslims, even for only 90-days” is a horrendous violation of international human rights. They are silent on Israel’s immigration and travel ban and that is hypocrisy at its worse.

It shows that many of the anti-Trump protestors really don’t care about Muslims or Muslim rights. They don’t care about refugees or the civil rights of immigrants who come from “predominantly Muslim” countries.

What they only care about is the politics of using the victims to achieve their political goals. And if the racism doesn’t benefit their goals, as it doesn’t in their blind support of Israel’s racist discriminatory policies, they gladly embrace hypocrisy.

Read my column on the topic at the Arab News by clicking here.

If you oppose Trump’s immigration suspension, then you MUST oppose Israel’s racist policies. Otherwise you are a hypocrite exploiting civil rights for your selfish political agenda.

(Ray Hanania is an award winning Palestinian American columnist and author, and former Chicago City Hall political reporter. Email him at rghanania@gmail.com.)

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rayhanania

Op-Ed writer, author, radio host, podcaster at The Arab Daily News

RAY HANANIA — Op-Ed writer, author, radio host, podcaster

Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.

Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).

Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.

Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.

His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.

Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.

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