A Letter-to-the-Editor That Wasn't Published

To the New York Times:

Kaveh Afrasiabi (Letter, Jan. 22) asserts a "growing apartheid-like cantonization of Arab areas manned by some 700 Israeli checkpoints" as well as "growing violence by vigilante Jewish settlers" as a troubling reality.

This past week, my neighbor, Moshe Avitan, who lives in the disputed territories, was shot in the head in a drive-by terror incident while traveling with his wife (both are civilians not soldiers) on a road that is not 'apartheid-like' because Arabs drive on it which allowed that Arab vigilante shooting. In addition, they made a successful escape due to the fact that a checkpoint was removed, one that was forced upon Israel by the outgoing Secretary of State last March.

Moreover, my living at Shiloh, where the Tabernacle stood, where the Land of Israel was divided into tribal portions and where Samuel the Prophet was trained, has nothing to do with "Israel's neocolonial expansionism" whereas the Arab presence has everything to do with their conquest of the area in 638 CE and their centuries-long illegal occupation.

Yisrael Medad