On Ethnic Cleansing

Here is another of my letters to the New York Times that didn't get published. Although written on February 20, 2004, it remains relevant as now it is Ariel Sharon who is pushing out the Jews.
===============================================


Ethan Bronner describes as "stunning" Benny Morris' statement that "there are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing", ("Who Is to Blame for the Creation of Palestinian Refugees?", Feb. 20). Why should Bronner be stunned?

Was not the demand of the Palestinian leadership, since 1920, that as few as Jews as possible be permitted to live in anywhere west of the Jordan River not so? Was not the war the Arabs launched on the morrow of the 1947 UN Partition Resolution intended to ethnically cleanse the country of Jews?

Does the American policy of encouraging the dismantling of Jewish communities not resonant with ethnic cleansing? Indeed, is not Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's current policy, to expel all Jews from Gaza, where Jews have lived, as in Hebron in Judea, for centuries until Arab riots in 1929 forced them to leave, also engaged in ethnic cleansing?

We revenants, the Jews who have returned to the regions of our historic homeland, have a recognized right in international law, based on the League of Nations decision in 1922, to live in the Land of Israel. We will not be ethnically cleansed.