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Dr. Nir Eisikovits is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Graduate Program in Ethics and Public Policy at Suffolk University near Boston, Massachusetts. He earned his PhD at Boston University with a dissertation whose very title says a lot about how this Israeli expatriate professor thinks: “Sympathizing With The Enemy: A Theory of Political Reconciliation.”

Sympathizing with Israel’s enemies is exactly what Eisikovits does from the safety of the US and Boston. But, instead of reconciliation, his “sympathy” grants aid and comfort to Israel’s enemies and to radical anti-Zionists. He has written in an article he wrote in the Christian Science Monitor: “Our (Israel’s) basic constitutional documents speak of a ‘Jewish democratic state’ while about 20 percent of our citizens are non-Jews. We have no separation of synagogue and state. We have, for over 40 years, maintained illegal settlements and a harsh military occupation in most of the Palestinian territories captured in 1967.”

The dictionary defines “Ethics” as “That branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions.” In other words, the end results of one’s actions should always be the focus of consideration. “Philosophy” is defined as “the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct.” When it comes to Israel, Eisikovits does neither.

Eisikovits does acknowledge that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. However, he continues, “But being the most democratic nation in a region marked by despotism is not the same as being democratic. And recently, indications have accumulated that Israel is becoming more rather than less like its neighbors. Earlier this summer, Israel's parliament, the Knesset, passed two troubling pieces of legislation: the first (which still awaits final ratification) exempts the state from compensating Palestinians harmed during Israel Defense Force (IDF) operations in the territories.” How troubling: Israel does not want to pay money to Palestinians injured as a direct result of Palestinian terrorism!

He continues, “The second, aimed at curtailing the travel of Arab members of the Knesset (MK), states that any Israeli who has visited an ‘enemy country’ shall be considered a supporter of armed struggle against the Jewish state (unless proven otherwise), and will be prevented from running for parliament in the seven years following the visit.” Almost like American laws prohibiting the same thing!

He then adds, “One does not need to be a constitutional scholar to worry about a democracy that eliminates access to its courts, curtails the right to be elected, and chooses to protect its police rather than detainees. Since all these measures were widely popular with Israelis, it is worthwhile reiterating an obvious point: Democracy is not only about the rule of the majority. Rather, its essence lies in empowering the majority without allowing it to tyrannize the minority. Such a balancing act is possible only if a robust set of political rights is in place. A state that jettisons these in favor of national security will probably stay safe, but it will rarely stay democratic.”

Palestinian Arabs in the PA sue in Israeli courts for “compensation” for the injuries they sustain when Israeli troops shoot back, and they sometimes win. This is a constitutional absurdity, like paying compensation to German civilians injured by Allied bombing runs in World War II.

As for the law against junketing off in enemy states, the prohibition came about in part because of Israeli Arab pro-terror extremist Knesset Member Ahmed Tibi, who traveled abroad to promote the cause for Hamas, the Arab MK Azmi Beshara who spied for the Hizballah. Preventing such behavior is a human rights atrocity, opines the learned professor.

In the Christian Science Monitor article Eisikovits then quotes the late foreign diplomat George Kennan and adds:

“The Knesset's new laws pass none of these tests. The sponsors of the new legislation remind us that we are engaged in an epic battle against the rising tide of political Islam. Perhaps so. But if this characterization is true, the key to victory lies in becoming the best rather than worst example of ourselves. The US diplomat George Kennan saw this clearly in the early days of the Cold War. Winning, he insisted, required that America ‘measure up to its own best tradition and prove itself worthy of preservation...’”

“Though no one listened at the time, Kennan's lesson is well worth learning,” concludes Eisikovits, “Unless Israel does everything it can to preserve its political decency, it will not win because it will not be right. Failing to measure up to its best democratic traditions, failing to prove worthy of preservation, it might just not persevere.” Well, America won the Cold War and, Eisikovits’ desires not withstanding, Israel has won its wars.

Eisikovits hostility to Israel and Zionism is evident in an article he penned for the leftist US Jewish newspaper, The Forward , equating Israel with the former apartheid South Africa. There he compares the African National Congress (ANC) with the PLO.

According to those who responded to his article:

“After its establishment, the ANC had a philosophy of non-violence for close to 50 years and even when it did turn to violence it was done more sporadically and reluctantly than the PLO, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad. Eisikovits points out that the reason the ANC espoused non-violence is that they felt armed struggle would alienate whites--I suppose that since Palestinian terrorists want to destroy Israel, alienation is really not a consideration.”
“The ANC first tried negotiation. Only after that failed did they turned to armed resistance during the early 1960s. They progressed from sabotaging property to attacking security forces and eventually even civilians. On the other hand, the Palestinian groups have demonstrated no real interest in using non-violent means and the terrorist groups plainly refuse to draw any distinction between the military and innocent civilians. Eisikovits writes, "They have targeted women and children, for much longer, much more consistently and with far more devastating results than the ANC."
“When the opportunity for peace presented itself in the 1990's, the ANC pursued comprise with the whites. In contrast, the Palestinians refused to take advantage of the peace proposals of President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Ehud Barak during the summer of 2000. The Palestinians voted Hamas into power--a group that refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist, has called for Israel's destruction and has aligned itself with the Holocaust-denying Iran and its client Hezbollah.”

The Palestinian terrorists are not interested in resolving a dispute--they are interested in destroying Israel and it is unethical to make such odious comparison between Israel and apartheid South Africa. Such false comparisons are frequently made by leftists who would not mind seeing the end to the Jewish state.

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