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Monday March 31, 2008

Jews should protest China’s crackdown in Tibet

With this summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing, China has been looking forward to showcasing itself as an emerging superpower. But its recent crackdown in Tibet, which has resulted in hundreds killed, has spoiled the party.

Since 1951, China has unjustly occupied Tibet, crushing the native culture and exiling the country’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. For the most part, the international community has offered little more than lip service and a red carpet every time the Dalai Lama comes to town.

No more. The violence has pushed the issue to the fore. And the whole world is watching.

Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel enlisted 25 of his fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureates to sign an open letter of protest. As described in this week’s j., the letter also urged dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama, a figure much despised by the Beijing government.

Notably, Weisel’s letter stops short of urging a boycott of the summer Olympics.

In this case, a boycott would likely do more harm than good. Experts such as former State Department official Jeffrey Bader and University of Michigan Tibetan studies professor Donald Lopez, have said a boycott would backfire, with China likely taking out its humiliation on the Tibetan people.

Moreover, the Jewish community should be careful when calling for boycotts in response to occupation. This tactic is a favorite of anti-Zionist zealots, who never rest in their desire to de-legitimize the state of Israel. We wouldn’t want to hand them any additional ammunition.

Still, as it has with the genocide in Darfur, the world Jewish community can help lead the protest when it comes to Chinese human rights abuses in Tibet.

The transcontinental Olympic torch relay quickly is emerging as a magnet for protest. That’s where San Francisco comes in.

On April 9, the city will be the only North American stop on the relay. Along the route, demonstrators will protest China’s oppression of Tibet, as well as Chinese support for Sudan, the African nation perpetrating genocide in Darfur. No doubt, Jews will number among those protesting.

The world is a complex place. Some issues, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, do not lend themselves to facile explanations or pat solutions.

Other issues are crystal clear.

A free and independent Tibet might be a distant dream. But if China truly wants a seat at the table of the world’s democracies, it needs to clean up its dismal human rights and environmental records, and face up to its profound moral failings in Tibet.

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