The other day at a London Underground station, I saw a man who was visibly distressed. A 50-something Asian gentleman in a suit, he’d been waiting for his wife when a man asked him to move out of the way on a narrow path. Except he hadn’t just asked him to move – he’d abused him racially and pushed against him.
I could see that he was upset, so I stopped and he told me what had happened. Imagine, however, if, instead of expressing sympathy, I had told him that he was in the wrong for having been in someone’s way on the path. Imagine, indeed, if I had adopted the other guy’s case as one to champion in the wider cause of keeping paths clear. If I did that, you would think that I had grotesquely lost all sense of proportion and that (however great the need to keep paths clear) this was an utterly bizarre case for me to be championing. You would consider my behaviour to be both shameful and wrong.
Consider, then, the case of Chanan Reitblat, a Jewish American student who left St Andrews University after two inebriated fellow students came into his bedroom in the middle of the night, urinated in his sink and “jumped on” him (I dread to think what the latter actually means). Mr Reitblat (who is not Israeli and has never been to Israel) had on his bedroom wall an Israeli flag. During the incident just described, one of these two men extracted a pubic hair from himself and rubbed it on Mr Reitblat’s flag; the two men were heard to shout, among other things, that Mr Reitblat was “a Nazi, fascist and terrorist”.
One of these two students, Andrew Donnachie, has been found guilty of what the BBC calls “a racist breach of the peace” (he reportedly plans to appeal) and his university has expelled him. After the trial, Mr Reitblat was booed in court – not the person who had been just been found guilty, but the victim. The case against the other student (who has been suspended from the university for a year) was “not proven”. In his defence, Mr Donnachie told the court:
This was a political statement and not about one individual. By displaying a flag of Israel you are making a controversial statement which invites criticism.
So Mr Donnachie’s behaviour was, apparently, nothing more than an act of “criticism” of Israel. As if behaviour of that sort can count as rational criticism of anything. I am angry about China’s occupation of Tibet, but if I acted similarly in the bedroom of a student with a Chinese flag on his wall, would anyone see it as a legitimate act of criticism of China?
It therefore beggars belief that the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) has, shamefully, leapt to the defence of Mr Donnachie, saying:
We call on supporters of Palestinian rights, anti-racists, and supporters of free speech to…support Paul Donnachie.
I am appalled that a major pro-Palestinian organisation imagines that Mr Donnachie’s behaviour deserves to be championed or does anything for the Palestinian cause. I am confident that those Liberal Democrats who most campaign for the rights of the Palestinians will have little truck with the SPSC and its defence of the indefensible. This is another reminder of why the SPSC deserves no support from pro-Palestinian Liberal Democrats.
Matthew Harris was the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate for Hendon at the General Election of 2010. He blogs at http://matthewfharris.blogspot.com/
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21 Comments
Good article.
I couldn’t agree more.
Whatever you think of Israel and Palestine, this is unbelievably dreadful. I am horrified.
Taking some form of positive line is always more valuable.
University seems to have taken fairly robust line.
Is there an evidential problem?
There are two entirely different issues. The first is whether the two students behaved appallingly and deserve to lose their places at university. I would say they did, and do.
The second is whether they have committed a criminal offence and if they did whether it was racist. I can see that Mr Reitblat was offended but there is no reason why offending someone should be a matter for the law.
To use the example you give if supporters of Tibet decide to burn a Chinese flag in a demonstration (doubtless causing great offence) should that be a matter for the criminal law? Once you establish the principle that causing offence is criminal you are on a very slippery slope.
There seems to be some doubt about whether they was a physical assault – if there was then of course a criminal conviction might be appropriate.
I would want to know on what grounds the campaign group is supporting the students. If it is a dispute about the facts, fair enough. If the facts are not in dispute, then the punishment seems fair to me and there are no grounds to dispute that. I am appalled at the description of what happened, it deserves this kind of punishment.
Thanks. I would argue that, however awful things often are in Israel/Palestine, it’s necessary to have a dispassionate debate about it, especially among those of us who live at a distance in Britain. In contrast to such a dispassionate debate, some pro-Palestinian groups have adopted a more emotive tone. I would argue that this is an example of that: so hysterical is the atmosphere surrounding Israel/Palestine that some people think that Mr Donnachie’s pro-Palestinian views make his unacceptable behaviour acceptable. That sort of hysteria is worrying.
I’m not quite sure what you mean by ‘hysterical’ – a loaded term which generally imbues its user with a degree of … hysteria.
One thing is however certain, “dispassionate debate” has so far proved to be a particularly useless instrument in this debate so is it any wonder that frustrations tend to rise to the top?
In any event, we have no idea whether Reitblat had provoked Donnachie in some way or whatever the backstory might have been, so who are we to judge?
@Kirsten: There is no suggestion of any provocation by Mr Reitblat, and surely it would have come up in the court case if there had been. and even if there were, I cannot see any justification for such a puerile, spiteful, immature attack on a person in his private quarters. I find it shocking that anyone would seek to defend it as a legitimate political act.
SMcG: In this case, the Israeli flag was the victim’s personal property. Also the incident also took place in his bedroom. Both these facts mean there is no way the act could be construed as a legitimate political protest, like burning a national flag (which presumably you have bought yourself for the purpose) in a public place would be. (And nor could Mr Donnachie’s lewd behaviour towards an individual ever be considered legitimate political protest.)
@Kirsten: By ‘hysterical’ I meant ‘driven by emotion rather than by reason’.
Many people who are eminently reasonable on most questions of foreign policy are eminently unreasonable on issues relating to Israel/Palestine.
There are groups like OneVoice (http://www.onevoicemovement.org/) that seek to end the conflict justly and approach it calmly and reasonably. Then there are some other groups who seek not to talk but to shout; some of those groups are dominated by activists from the SWP who are seeking, quite deliberately, to raise the temperature rather than to lower it.
I can perhaps understand why people who live in the region and are directly affected by the conflict might feel the need to shout. But those of us who live in Britain have an opportunity and a responsibility to approach it more dispassionately, given our greater distance from it; our doing that is the most important contribution that we can make.
“We call on supporters of Palestinian rights, anti-racists, and supporters of free speech to…support Paul Donnachie.”
Let us not be so partisan; regardless of whether the weight of your sympathy falls on Israel of Palestine Mr Donnachie’s actions were a unwarranted and gross abuse of another individuals personal liberty, and the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign appear to have no understanding of justice and equity as evidenced by their tolerance of such cretinous actions.
Unfortunately it is often the case that people who live in the region and are directly affected by the conflict get shot at, if they start shouting.
Hence the need for supporters who live in Britain and other territories to keep up the shouting.
Good piece, Matthew. More info on the unpleasant activities of the PSC at the Centre Left here.
It reminds me of the Anti Apartheid movement in the UK.
Liberals all agreed with the AAM, but unfortunately it was a snakepit of Trots and prone to extremism in localities where they had the upper hand.
‘Liberals all agreed with the AAM, but unfortunately it was a snake-pit of Trots and prone to extremism’ – hmm never thought of Peter Hain as a Trot – your comment is somewhat of an exaggeration – there might have been a few ‘Trots’ in the AAM but you can find a few extremists in all organisations.
funny that, I never thought of Ethel de Keyser as a Trot either…
As former president of the St. Andrew’s Jewish Society (circa 1986), I am surprised and concerned. During my time of attendance there was benign curiosity among those who came to our Friday night dinners. I am hoping that the school will assert a position statement on treatment of Jews, Israelis and all individuals and that this statement makes a distinction between collegient debate and outright harassment.
Apologies if I caused offence for AAM members and supporters. But I was also a member and I found in my local branch and in other places there were a lot of SWP and similar members. I am certainly not accusing Peter Hain or Ethel de Keyser as being Trots, there were many good people in AAM as well.
@Adam Sohnen I hear what you say, and we must not overlook the fact that St Andrews University has expelled one student and suspended another student for a year, so there has been tough action by the university.
@Kirsten de Keyser I still think that shouting in any debate just means that nobody can hear what others are saying. Here is another example of some people who are talking, not shouting: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/world/middleeast/05israel.html
Isn’t breaking into someone else’s room a criminal offence, let alone damaging or destroying his property? Wasn’t that criminal damage? The two defendants must also have caused considerable distress to Mr Reitblat. Did the second student who broke into Mr Reitblat’s room do so under duress? I doubt it.
When will Israel pull down their dreadful racist wall of segregation – for years the Israelis have treated the Palestinians as third class, not even citizens, of a country that they stole from them in 1947. The parallel is with the Communist Berlin Wall and and the Nazi treatment of the Jews by keeping them walled up in a ghetto; this is what Israel is doing to the Palestinians.
@davidorr http://matthewfharris.blogspot.com/2011/08/here-we-go-again-peace-process-revs-up.html