The responses came in and today, the NYTimes publishes four in "An Israeli Settler’s Case, and Some Rebuttals"
To the Editor:
In “Israel’s Settlers Are Here to Stay” (Op-Ed, July 26), Dani Dayan writes, “While the status quo is not anyone’s ideal, it is immeasurably better than any other feasible alternative.” He is wrong.
The Palestinian population in the West Bank and Israel will continue to grow and may eventually outnumber Israel’s Jewish population.
If Israel annexed all of the West Bank, the country and its allies would be faced with a choice: to grant all Palestinians full citizenship, threatening the identity of Israel as a Jewish state, or to demote them to second-class citizens, threatening the identity of Israel as a democratic state.
A two-state solution is therefore not only the sole means to respect the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, but it is also the only possible way to preserve the Jewish and democratic principles on which Israel was founded.
MANDY KAIN
Ann Arbor, Mich., July 26, 2012
To the Editor:
Dani Dayan asserts that all parties are content with the status quo and that it is there to stay and therefore everyone should focus solely on “improving” it. Not only are these assertions insensitive to the immense suffering of Palestinians under brutal military occupation and siege, but they are also detached from reality.
No human being would accept remaining under a discriminatory regime that denies him basic rights. Sixty-four years of a relentless struggle for freedom by Palestinians is a testament to that.
The choice is clear: either settlements or peace. Israeli settlers may well choose settlements, but then they should have no illusions of peace.
MAEN RASHID AREIKAT
Washington, July 26, 2012
The writer is chief representative of the General Delegation of the Palestine Liberation Organization to the United States.
To the Editor:
Dani Dayan’s article is most disturbing for its stubborn resistance to thinking creatively either about how Palestinians relate to the presence of nearly 300,000 Israelis on their land or about how Israelis are at risk of losing a Jewish majority or living with a disenfranchised population.
Ignoring both demography and democratic values, Mr. Dayan is delighted with the status quo.
What kind of distorted moral and political vision has emerged to sustain such a view of the future? I mourn the loss of perspective, his celebration of victory and the rejection of a two-state solution.
CALVIN GOLDSCHEIDER
Washington, July 26, 2012
The writer is professor emeritus of sociology and Judaic studies at Brown University.
To the Editor:
Even if Dani Dayan is right and Israel has an unquestionable right to build settlements in the West Bank, the practice is still at odds with everything a country like Israel should stand for.
The principle that first justified a Jewish state — that all peoples should have a right to self-determination — is no different for a Palestinian state.
The creation of the Jewish state was a victory for humanity and a beacon for human rights, and it’s a principle that Mr. Dayan and the Israeli community ought to remember.
JESS COLEMAN
New York, July 26, 2012
Not one pro-Dayan letter.
Could it be that no one supporting his position wrote?
Well, I'm going to write a letter and send it. Are you?
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4 comments:
No! Are you a hypocrite? Or are you ignorant? Or just plain malicious?
How can you have been born in one state that espouses respect for all people (American Declaration of Independence), have moved to another state that claims to espouse respect for all people (Israeli Declaration of Independence), and then dedicate your life to being a spokesman for a slow, cruel genocide? How can you live off the backs of people who work day in and day out so you can have services and people who've died so you can be free, and then turn around and become an oppressor, stealing from the innocent and helping to destroy what would otherwise be a peaceful society? How can you wake up and tell yourself, "Oh look, it's the twenty first century. Let me get up and go try to push some inferior brown people off of some land that some 3000 year old parchment says belongs to me."
Do you know why the NY Times published four rebuttals to the Op-Ed? Because the editors at the Times know that the 21st century is one for progress, one for peace, and one for ALL people of the world - including the races and the nations that have been beaten down at the hands of selfish, thieving murderers - to finally enjoy the freedom and the security that they deserve. The editors at the Times know that America is arriving at a new dawn, but that there are a small number of people - like you and Dani Dayan - who selfishly wish to hold it back. People like you don't want America to get better, because if America did get better, it would stop treating Israel like a spoiled child and instead, pressure it to get better too. But no, people like you would rather that we all return to wallowing in racism, ethnic hatred, and hollow, ridiculous notions of religious superiority. I appreciate that the NY Times does not want to let that happen. By printing those four rebuttals, the NY Times showed that it believes that the American people stand with me, in support of respect for people around the world and support for their self determination. Unlike most of America's congressional representatives, we, the American people, will not be convinced otherwise with fancy presentations, "bought off" with free trips to Israel, or tacitly coerced into supporting you because we fear loss of our reputations. No. We, the American people, have messed up a lot, but at the end of the day, we stand for freedom for all. So long as America has any role in Palestine, not the IDF with its guns, nor you with your bulldozers, nor Netanyahu with his lies, will be able to take that from the Palestinians.
I have asked them, and they have said that they would.
If your settlements are supposed to be a better alternative for Arabs, then why aren't they allowed to live on them too? It's good to see that you weren't able to address a single point I raised in either comment. It shows that Danny Dyan was wrong - you yourself cannot come up with a single reason why your tyranny is either moral or wise. Instead, by your silence you show that deep down inside, somewhere within your warped and mutilated conscience, you must know that you are wrong.
Bill,
I really don't engage with ranters.
Will the New York Times publish Yisrael's Medad's submission?
I'd say based on the letters (pro Arab) already printed, the prospects are zero.
So much for its slogan, "all the news that's fit to print."
Pro-Israel news is no news at all at the New York Times.
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