Nine Comments on a Helen Feinberg Letter

From Philadephian Helen Feinberg's letter in the NYTimes:

Without doubt the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers by Palestinians in the West Bank was a horrific act that is absolutely not to be condoned. But instead of taking revenge, why can’t Israel demand that this act be the foundation point for new talks for a two-state solution?

For while these killings were lawless, in the eyes of the Palestinians the building of more settlements in the West Bank is also lawless. If there were two states, Israelis would not be able to cross borders so freely, and the leaders of the Palestinian state would be totally accountable for posse-like actions like these kidnappings and murders.

At this moment, Israel arguably holds the higher moral and negotiating ground. It is the right time to negotiate and form separate sovereign states in which each state’s citizens are their own responsibility.

If, instead, Israel insists on making the Palestinians “pay,” as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated, the whole cycle begins again, with the “wronged” and “oppressed” Palestinians being treated as second-class citizens and believing that their only recourse is acts of sabotage, violence and terrorism.

Jews are supposed to be smart and clever, we're told?

1.  What "revenge"?  
     Hamas is a terror organization.  It kills Jews because they are Jews.  It is justice to eliminate the organization, arrest its agents, dry up its resources and kill its members who fight back.

2.  "Also lawless"?
     Not also.  And even if you consider them "illegal", "illegtimate" or "unauthorized", there still is no "also" because there is no comparison or parallel.  Apples and pears.  And besides, the construction of Jewish residency units is in no way lawless.

3.  "Not be able".
     Wait, only Jews won't be able to cross the border but Arabs can?

4.  "Be accountable".
     They are not now accountable for criminals who live in their Area A or B or who flee to them? They are not now accountable for their educational programming of hate and terror initiation, their media incitement?

5.  "Posse-like actions like these kidnappings and murders".
     They are not "posse-like".  They are kidnappings and murders, plain and simple.  The children were guilty of no crime to be chased by posses?  Posse noun \ˈpä-sē\: a group of people who were gathered together by a sheriff in the past to help search for a criminal.

6.  "Israel arguably holds the higher moral and negotiating ground".
     No, there is no argument because Israel does and always has held to the high moral ground.  It is you, Helen Feinberg, who holds to no moral ground.  And I hope this isn't you, since if so, you should be disbarred.

7.  "The whole cycle begins again".
     There is no "cycle".  Jews were granted the internationally-recognized right to reconstitute their national home in the territory that became known as Mandate Palestine (which originally included the area of Trnasjordan).  The Arabs began the conflict by engaging in terror violence.  Period.

8.  “Pay”. “Wronged”. “Oppressed” Palestinians.
     If you mean to slight Israel's right to justice by bracketing the term pay, then by placing quotation marks also on wronged and oppressed, we can only surmise that the Arabs are not really wronged or oppressed, either.

9.  "Believing that their only recourse is acts of sabotage, violence and terrorism".
     They do not believe.  That is their ideological fundamental position and approach.  It has nothing to do with what Jews do.  It depends not on our acts but on their theo-political orientation.

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