Kudos to the Mashberg Letter

My letter-to-the-editor responding to the letters published in response to Dani Dayan's op-ed, all negative without balance, didn't make it but this one did:

To the Editor:

Maen Rashid Areikat, a senior Palestinian official, in his July 27 letter rebutting an Op-Ed article that supported Israeli settlements in the West Bank (“Israel’s Settlers Are Here to Stay,” July 26) laments “sixty-four years of a relentless struggle for freedom by Palestinians.” 

Let’s see. Sixty-four years ago takes us to 1948, the year of Israel’s birth. But there were no West Bank settlements in 1948. The West Bank was occupied by Jordan and remained so until 1967. So exactly what have the Palestinians been struggling against relentlessly for 64 years? 

Whether a welcome moment of candor or a revealing Freudian slip, a Palestinian official has acknowledged what is at the heart of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians: the very existence of the state of Israel. 

GREGG M. MASHBERG
New Rochelle, N.Y., July 27, 2012

This was mine:

The PLO's Maen Rashid Areikat, in rebutting Yesha Council head Dani Dayan's rejection of a Palestinian state, asserts the only choice is "settlements or peace" (Jul. 26). But, as we all know, the terrorist PLO was founded in 1964, following the terrorist Fedayeen in the 1950s, when there were no "settlements", that is, Jewish communities, in those territories later to be administered by Israel after 1967.  No "occupation" either.  And there certainly wasn't peace.  Areikat represents the traditional Arab anti-Zionist approach that we Jews have no choice whether to live peacefully or live in our national homeland, in any border configuration.

I hope my letter and perhaps others in the same vein, forced the NYTimes to publish one of us.

Great going Mashberg!

Oh, and as for Areikat, nothing will help.  He simply lies.

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