The NYTimes Has Its Favorite Letter Writers

It is my observation that despite the many letter writers published in the NYTimes, they have sympathy for certain persons (see below) and do not like others (yours truoy).

In a "letter-to-the-editor" in today's NYTimes, one Benjamin Solomon of Evanston, Ill., who describes himself as "a rather aged American Jew, a World War II veteran, who is a critic of Israel" writes:-

...Whatever one might say about Zionism and Israel’s violent birth in 1948, its task then was to gain over time acceptance and a tolerable peace with its Arab neighbors.

Some three decades ago, however, a Likud-led government opted for a policy of folly and moral wrongness by generating a dynamic of perpetual strife. It chose to strive for exclusive sovereignty over all the Holy Land by building settlements in the occupied territories with the protection of its military.

Given all its complexities, I believe that this decision determined the course of history till this day. I am anguished that Israel has taken this path and at its dire consequences. But the facts cannot be denied. They exist in the huge settlements in the West Bank and the accumulated trauma of years of heightened violence, suffering and hatred.

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Last March he had a letter published wherein he wrote:

There is one course of action for Israel to take to break out of the endless cycle of reprisal and retaliation in its struggle with Palestinians and to generate a new and more hopeful dynamic.

It should repudiate and accept responsibility for the consequences of its fateful decision to build settlements in the occupied West Bank to achieve the extremist goal of a ''Greater Israel,'' sovereignty over all the Holy Land.

This territorial transgression is the root cause of today's perilous and volatile deadlock. It rejected the possibility in time for an exchange of land for peace and greatly ratcheted up the cycle of violence, suffering and poisonous hatred.

In the Chicago Tribune, he wrote of Sarah Palin:

...“antediluvian.” I’d like to apply it to Sen. John McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin. She is an avowed extremist opponent of women’s reproductive rights, embraces creationism and believes that human activity is not a major cause of global warming.

and another on Oct. 13th.

And even back in 1992 the NYT published him on Iraq with the first Bush President.


Back in 2005 in the New York Times, again, he summed up his outlook up as:

draw down our overextended global system of military bases; cancel our foolish missile defense program; lead a worldwide crusade to rid the earth of nuclear weapons; acknowledge that we were misguided in invading Iraq, move to share responsibility with the United Nations and leading powers, and schedule withdrawal of our troops; and turn to a more evenhanded policy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by ceasing financial and diplomatic support for Israel's settlement expansion into West Bank territory.

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And as for Solomon's claims in that first letter of today above, actually the Likud simply copntinued Israel government policy, that is, of the Labour Party coalition, to permit Jews to live in their national homeland, just like Arabs live in israel, with no discrimination, no racism, no ethnically-cleansed territory unlike the "solution" that entails forced evacuation of all Jews from a future "Palestine" and the dismantlement of their homes, communities and businesses.

The perpetual strife was started, stoked and stimulated by Arabs who could not tolerate, religiously, nationally or morally any Jewish presence in land they considered theirs, even though it wasn't their national land but simply where they eneded up after centuries of war and strife and conquest.