Monessa Shapiro's selective citations and extraordinary justifications for racism
The argument in my article "Why is Israel singled out?" is that Israel receives special treatment in the form of massive US aid and the propaganda efforts of well organised Zionist organisations.1
In contrast to many other gross human rights abusers, there are no US, EU or UN sanctions against Israel. In her response, Monessa Shapiro did not address this. She does say there are more UN resolutions against Israel than any other country, but while I agree that there are countries deserving of more, this factoid actually strengthens my argument, not hers. Why are there no sanctions against a country in such blatant violation of international law?
In response to my comment that Israel is less democratic than Turkey and comparable to Morocco and Algeria, Shapiro cites Freedom House's indices of political and civil liberties.
The institution gives Israel a status of free, while Turkey and Morocco are partly free and Algeria is not free. Putting aside concerns about the methodology of these kinds of indices 2 and about Freedom House itself 3, Shapiro should have looked up the rankings for the West Bank and Gaza. The organisation ranks them not free, on a par with Algeria, lower than Morocco and considerably lower than Turkey. 4
This is partly due to the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, but it is Israel that must take primary responsibility because it controls the territories, especially the West Bank.