A Jew Presumes; I Respond

Here's a letter from April 9 in The Guardian:

Binyamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman (Report, 9 April) should realise that a fair proportion of the world's Jewry feel the same way as Günter Grass about the Israeli government's policies – which are in breach of Jewish law ("Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt", Exodus 22:21) and the Jewish tradition of support for the oppressed, especially at this time of Passover – and feel that it is they who are "sacrificing the Jewish people" in their militaristic and intransigent policies towards the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. Many of us who were supporters of Israel and the Zionist project have become disillusioned by the injustice of the present government, and their failure to take steps to achieve a lasting peace.

Michael Ellman
London

Here's my reaction:

Michael Ellman (Letter, April 10), asserts that "a fair proportion of the world's Jewry feel the same way as Günter Grass about the Israeli government's policies" of Binyamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman and that these two leaders failed "to take steps to achieve a lasting peace".  How to judge what is a "fair proportion" and if Ellman is correct on this point is beyond me, but on his second point, I can assure him that he is quite wrong.

Besides misusing a Biblical instruction which has no relevance to the Arabs of Mandate Palestine's 90-year terror campaign against Jews and Zionism, Mr Netanyahu in handing over Hebron at the 1999 Wye Agreement, which permitted Arabs to snipe at Jewish residents eventually killing an infant girl, his announcement in 2009, repeated, accepting the two-state principle and also his 2010 construction moratorium did, in the face of constant incitement, lawlessness as well as even internal Palestinian Authority corruption against its own residents, I would suggest, more than necessary in the face of Arab intransigence.  And surely no more than the Bible would demand in the situation, a Bible, incidentally, that views Judea, Samaria and Gaza as part of the historic Jewish homeland wherein Jews, like myself, should be able to reside and flourish.

Was it ever published?

What do you think?

This one though was.  And this, too.  But those were a while ago.

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