From the BBC:
Europe’s top human rights organisation has pulled posters from a campaign that promoted respect for Muslim women who choose to wear headscarves after provoking opposition in France.The Council of Europe released the images last week for a campaign against anti-Muslim discrimination.A slogan on one advert read: “Beauty is in diversity as freedom is in hijab”.Several prominent French politicians condemned the message and argued the hijab did not represent freedom.But some Muslim women who wear headscarves said the reaction showed a lack of respect for diversity and the right to choose what to wear in France.France’s youth minister, Sarah El Haïry, … suggested the poster had encouraged women to wear headscarves. She said this message jarred with the secular values of France, which had expressed its disapproval of the campaign.
It would be obvious to say that Israel is more tolerant than France, since France bans women wearing the hijab in many circumstances and Israel never does.
However, this is a story about Europe altogether.
One cannot even imagine such a campaign in Israel – because Jews don’t discriminate against women in hijabs to begin with! Married religious Jewish women cover their hair, too. Muslim women with hijabs walk freely in Israel alongside Jews in restaurants, malls and cafes.
Israel is truly diverse. A tolerance campaign like this one would be met with puzzlement.
Europe, on the other hand, needs diversity campaigns because Europeans are bigoted. While I disagree with the messaging that hijab means freedom – it emphatically does not – any campaign to accept Muslims as normal members of society implies that many Europeans do not think that way today.
Which is why when the international community accuses Israelis of racism or ethnic discrimination, they are just falsely applying the hate in their own societies to Israel.
Israeli Jews hate terrorists. They hate those who want to kill them or throw them into the sea. But they don’t hate Muslims or Christians or Baha’i.
The people who accuse them of such are far more bigoted than the Jews they label as racist.
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