It’s Racist To Point Out Our Racism

By Saeb Erekat, Chief Palestinian Negotiator

In 2015, one should not have to point out racist behavior that should have disappeared long ago. I should not need to call people’s attention to racism, since they should, by now, have grown sensitive to it on their own. That is why I feel both regret and frustration that I must remind you all that it is racist to point out that Palestinian society is racist.

We take for granted that Israel is a racist Apartheid state; that any and all negative generalizations about Israelis – and, if necessary, Jews – are fair game in the Palestinian struggle for self-determination. That is because we have firmly established our status as victims, who enjoy a certain level of immunity from accusations of discrimination. As such, anyone who documents, publishes, or otherwise produces evidence that Palestinians – especially Palestinian leadership – are racist may be freely labeled a racist.

All enlightened individuals and societies have internalized the fact that we cannot expect individuals or societies to act according to all of the same norms. So much variety in societal mores prevails that selecting one set of norms as universally binding necessarily discriminates against those societies to which such norms are foreign. In other words, applying the same standard, not accounting for local sensibilities, is racist. Therefore, exposing Palestinian society and leadership as racist is itself a racist act, since it feeds the negative stereotype of Palestinians as backward, violent bigots. It is not too far a stretch to say no one wants that characterization to serve as the default for relating to any ethnic group. Do not be racist.

This approach may sound like a double standard, a charge often leveled at critics of Israel. However, those who make that accusation fail to understand what the standard must be. It is not, as the pro-Israel voices would have you believe, whether or not the same yardstick is used to measure different entities. As I have previously demonstrated, that is racist. We have established that racism is the greatest of all crimes; it is made worse when practiced by those bigoted Apartheid-monger Zionists. Calling attention to its existence among Palestinians can only distract from our effort to rid the world of Jewish racism. And that would of course be racist.

We must therefore take utmost care not to assert  – or adduce supporting evidence – that Palestinians are racist. That would cause others to view them negatively, which paves the way for insecurity and further suffering. Only racists would want that to happen.