Double standard toward Arabs By Jan Willem Van Der Hoeven (April 6) - "When I see a Palestinian intellectual sinking his teeth into the flesh of the Israeli intellectuals in his newspaper column without saying even one word of truth against the murders committed on our side - I sink into depression. Justice is one and cannot be divided. You cannot use the part that serves you and cast off the other part, because in so doing you destroy the very essence of justice, which is supposed to be the intellectual's principle weapon." - Palestinian writer, Zakariya Muhammad When my Christian Arab wife was still alive, she would upbraid Israeli intellectuals for the inconsistency and discrimination they demonstrated towards her own people. She would challenge them for failing to ever address the human rights abuses of which Arabs were often guilty, while never losing an opportunity, when it suited their own political opinions or the party line, to trumpet out aloud those they believed were being committed by their fellow Israelis. My wife, a proud Arab woman, sensed a kind of condescending and inequitable attitude from these Israelis. It was as if they were excusing the Arabs for not living up to the much higher standards these, often arrogant, Israelis demanded of their own. Why the difference? she would ask. Are Arabs not equal human beings to Jews? And if they are truly equal, why do these Israeli intellectuals not require the same standards from our people as they do from their own? Jewish mass murderer Baruch Goldstein gets criticized by many of his own people, yet Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and many of his cronies have perpetrated even greater acts of violence and murder than Goldstein did. Yet these killers are courted, forgiven and excused as if they are a kind of subhuman species who could not be expected to act differently. That is exactly what she sensed and got upset about as an Arab. Why the double standard? Would Shimon Peres have wanted to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo flanked by Baruch Goldstein? It would be unthinkable. And yet he was willing to receive it standing alongside an arch terrorist whom we now know has not changed one iota despite being awarded that prize for peace. As an Israeli leader, Peres was quite ready to receive his award together with this murderer of his people! Why the difference? Is it not a subtle racist practice that tells the Israeli public and the world that they cannot expect more from the Arabs, that this is how they are? What discrimination against fellow human beings, not to expect nor demand equal behavior from them. I say we must expect equal obligations and implementations of agreement from our fellow human beings, the Arabs, as the whole world expects from the Jews. Why, then, are many Arabs not measured by the same yardstick? Are they sub-humans who cannot be expected to conform to the same standards of conduct the Israelis expect from one another? What an irresponsibly prejudicial way these Israeli intellectuals often have of treating their fellow human beings! When I see on television the utter disregard displayed by Arab Israeli Knesset members for the nation in whose parliament they participate, their silent or vocal agreement with the aims and ways of Israel's enemies, I ask why are they still Knesset members and Kach leader Rabbi Meir Kahane was not? These Israeli citizens have no qualms about the violence and aims of Israel's foes and yet they are not barred from the Knesset like Kahane was. Why is it that these Israeli critics of their country's society never demand a public outcry from their intellectual colleagues among the Arabs when it comes to the gruesome murders and massacres committed by Arabs? Why does Israel's intellectual elite not even expect of the Arabs that they will do what hundreds of thousands of Israelis did in demonstrating in Tel Aviv in response to Maronite massacres in Sabra and Shatilla? Why were there no such mass demonstrations by thousands of Arabs in Ramallah after the gruesome lynching of two Israeli soldiers who had lost their way? We did not even expect it? If we are honest, doesn't it seem as if we have already succumbed to our stereotype about them, that they remain animal-like and should be treated as such? Are there no intellectual and proud Arab leaders left who, like my wife, love and respect their people enough to demand from their own people the same behavior and actions that especially the Israeli left demands from its fellow Jews? When will there ever rise up a man who will have the courage to finish with this racist double standard and require justice and equal obligations - whatever the consequences - from everyone!? (The writer is the director of the International Christian Zionist Center, Jerusalem.)