Sunday, March 13, 2022

I Waited But It Wasn't Published

This letter-to-the-editor of the New York Review of Books was sent off on January 28:

David Shulman writes in his review of  Sylvain Cypel's "The State of Israel vs. the Jews" (NYRB, Feb. 10), regarding reported acts of violence perpetrated by Jews against Arabs in the territories of the Palestine Mandate which were at first annexed by Jordan and then came under Israel's administration after 1967, that 

"these events—a random selection—are [not] aberrations​ or exceptions to the rule. They​ are now the norm​...Settler violence,backed up by Israeli soldiers, happens​ every day​...The goal, by no means a​ secret, is to expel Palestinians from​ their homes and lands and, eventually,​ to annex as much of the West Bank as​ possible to Israel.​ Any means to achieve this goal isacceptable."

They do not happen daily but I fear Shulman would not believe that. His shared ideological outlook with Cypel will not permit it.  Given that it is no secret that since 1920 the Arabs residing in that area have been killing Jews and expelling them from their homes to prevent them from reconstituting their historic national homeland there, if only had Shulman noted the daily occurrences of rock throwing, firebomb tossing, the occasional stabbings, car-rammings and shootings committed by Arabs, we would have been provided with a slightly more balanced record of the reality, one which would allow us a better appreciation of the book under review.


Yisrael Medad
Shiloh​, Israel

It does not appear in the next edition. Nor the next.

Is it me? My views? Or the subject matter?

Or the editor?

^

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