Had you had a shred of credibility you would have mentioned that thousands upon thousands of people either died or in jail because they dared to defy the injustice inflicted by the failed Arab regimes in the ME.

This is sort of a testament to the fact that you haven’t understood a single statement about this post, and have decided to take offense out of your lack of understanding. The facts remain: Show me a single NGO in the Arab world whose mission is to defend Kurds against oppression. Show me a single rally that took place in the Arab world for Darfur, for the Kurdish genocide, for the Baha’i oppression, for Christian persecution. You will find little to none. But then dare to fight for the Kurds, Baha’is, migrant workers and anyone else other than the Palestinians and you will be mocked and ridiculed by the masses, which is how people have been treating us for years now – because Palestine was not our raison d’être and we chose to look at the other injustices.

An alarming number of Arabs call me a Zionist because I defend Baha’is and Kurds (whom many associate with Israel) who have been long abused in our names without justice, and they use the fact that I don’t campaign for Palestine as “proof” of that. This is what inspired the post in the first place. If you feel this is normal, then continue shutting your eyes and claiming that I wrote this post to “make a name for myself,” but that wouldn’t make you any different than the others who bully and abuse activists that struggle for things that said bullies themselves don’t believe in (religious freedom and ethnic human rights.)

Sara, ironically, your attitude confirms everything she wrote about in this post.

My problem with you is simple – you are a zionist.

Not the first nor the last time I’ll hear this claim, it is indeed what Arabs call anyone they disagree with.

Please, continue humoring me.

We saw the Palestinian issue get very cynicaly used here during the 2008 conflict in Gaza. Before, the Palestinian issue was never a focus in Turkey. We were more concerned about Bosina, Kosovo, Chechnya, (some of us) Kurdish issue, Azerbaijan-Armenia, covered women at university etc. But the Gaza fighting happened right before local elections and AKP was afraid of doing bad. So sudenly it is all Palestine every day, ending with our Prime Minister walking out of Davos (but of course maintaining all good relations with Israel….the government isn’t stupid). After election, nothing in the news about Palestine.

Because AKP lost some provinces, I hope during next election this won’t happen again. We should care about Palestine, but not more than other problems. Especially our own problems

Based on all the cmoments on this site from people in USA and Canada, Europe, ect – your voice and message is reaching far more than just those in your region; and changing mentalities there, too. It is, after all, not just “Arab” human rights activists that are choosing which rights to uphold and which ones to ignore.

Victoria, I knew I would be getting into a mess when I started these networks, and when my colleagues started joining them they also knew the risks involved. We figured it was mainly the governments that we were up against. What we didn’t think would happen is us being the target of other “human rights activists” who spend a great deal of time attacking us because we founded this network and didn’t join theirs, which was limited to of course, one conflict that dominates people’s concerns here.

It doesn’t slow us down at all, we’re as active as ever and this kind of criticism inspires us to do more to help prove them wrong, what’s depressing is that more and more “activists” here are going public with their common argument that some people deserve attention and are thus worth campaigning for, while others don’t because they are not truly “Arab” or they’re not relevant to our “Arab cause” and future, which is far from the case. Denying people the right to exist here is the primary cause of widespread discrimination that people so blindly accept or justify.

And the whole insanity that Baha’is and Kurds are Zionists, and that migrant workers deserve what they get because they came from poverty-ridden areas anyways, just adds to the depression. I mean, again, this claim is coming from “activists” themselves – not average people, but people who literally think they are achieving human rights activism with such self-importance and attacks.

We shouldn’t have to be dealing with this. It scares me that we do. It really, really does. We have a huge problem beyond our oppressive regimes, and that’s people’s mentalities, which makes our struggle 10 times more difficult than it should’ve been.

Its unfortunate that you should have to perpetually justify your raison d’etre with the causes we support at Mideastyouth