LETTER

When Nonie Darwish spoke about human rights in the Middle East at the Boston University Hillel House, she conflated the long-standing political issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with Islamic legal and religious reform. BU Students for Israel and the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America’s invitation to Darwish was counter-productive to any sort of peace building initiative. Although fashioned as a push for human rights, Darwish blurred the lines between political and religious issues. Her inability to separate the struggle for Israel’s right to exist and the aspirations of Palestinian statehood from Islamic law, largely undermined Hillel’s goal of promoting ‘mutual respect’ between the two religions of (Judaism and Islam).

Instead of recognizing the shared morality and common Abrahamic tradition of the Jewish and Muslim faiths that will ultimately bring these historically connected peoples together, Darwish’s hate, and perhaps commercially inspired speech, was filled with religious inaccuracies and wide-scale generalizations. Darwish’s statements that ‘finger pointing is a problem of the Arab culture,’ and that ‘a lot of what Arabs understand is really fabrication,’ are unlikely to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Such simplistic racist generalizations do not speak to the core of the problem. Instead of inviting hate-fueled Islamophobes, Hillel would have been much better off if they had someone discuss the human rights problems associated with the Wall in Palestine, the Israeli state terror which is imposed on civilians, the constant annexation of Palestinian land, the restriction of the Palestinian’s right to travel, work, obtain clean water, as well as Israel’s right to exist and their concurrent right to be free from violence.

Darwish’s push for women’s rights in the Middle East was noble.’ It’s often stated that Islam has no problem with women but many Muslims do. However, when Darwish, at the behest of Hillel, provided inaccurate accounts of Islamic law by stating that women are not entitled to divorces and that Islam permits men to beat their wives for disobedience, she likely fomented more enmity then amity. This is a problem because even the most religiously uninformed members of Hillel understand that Islam unequivocally allows for women to obtain divorces and prohibits men from beating women. The reality is that millions of women find liberation in Islam, in a similar way that Jewish women to do in their faith. It is these types of dialectical exchange that will bring the Palestinians and Israelis together.

I was very disappointed in the BUSI and CAMERA’s selection of Darwish. I wholeheartedly urge for more productive dialogue that addresses the core issues in a more accurate fashion that is geared toward bridging Muslims and Jews together.

Tarek Abdel-aleem

BU Law

Member, BU Islamic Society