Letters-to-the-Editor That Were Published - And One That Wasn't

I blogged on the Agha/Malley oped (here) and sent the paper a letter.

It didn't get published.

Here it is:

Hussein Agha and Robert Malley write in their op-ed that "But two states may not be a true resolution if the roots of this clash are ignored. The ultimate territorial outcome almost certainly will be found within the borders of 1967" ("The Two-State Solution Doesn't Solve Anything", Aug. 11).

"Within the borders of the 1967"? Do not they mean "without"? There was Arab aggression in 1967, and the losing side should be obliged to territorial concessions. Is one to perceive a suggestion of Agha and Malley that the new future borders of Israel will be between the 1947 UN Resolution borders and the 1949 armistice boundaries, the lines that invited thoughts and plans of an Arab attack?

As you may surmise, as usual, it didn't get published.

What did get published?

Here:-

To the Editor:

In discussing a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute (“The Two-State Solution Doesn’t Solve Anything,” Op-Ed, Aug. 11), Hussein Agha and Robert Malley stress dislocation
and subsequent refugee status as core Palestinian grievances.

Every people is defined by its own historical narrative. But the Palestinians became
refugees, in large measure, because of bad choices they made, especially rejecting the 1947 United Nations partition plan and joining a war to destroy the new state of Israel. Has any war not produced refugees?

Since then, the United Nations has protected the Palestinians by creating a separate agency,
the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, while all other refugees worldwide are under the mandate of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. A separate definition of refugee eligibility has been created for Palestinians, allowing their descendants, without limitation, to fall under the purview of Unrwa, thus perpetuating a culture of victimization.

Being an actual refugee is not easy. I have seen it up close. My parents were both refugees. So
was my wife. And I worked in refugee resettlement long enough to understand the trauma caused by dislocation — and the capacity for renewal.

Isn’t it high time for the Palestinians to confront current realities and historical failures, and move on to embrace a pragmatic peace accord that promises a better future for all, Israelis and Palestinians alike?

David Harris
Executive Director
American Jewish Committee
New York,

•

To the Editor:

Without going into details, a resolution of the seemingly intractable Israeli-Palestinian
conflict will be possible only if and when the two sides to the conflict learn to accept each other’s legitimate claims.

The Palestinians should once and for all acknowledge the fact that the Israeli Jews are not strangers who all of a sudden appeared from nowhere to disinherit them from their land.

Conversely, the Israeli Jews should understand that although it was indeed a Jewish dominion years back, when the Jewish pioneers came to rebuild their ancestral homeland — my parents among them — the land was not empty. Something took place in the intervening years.

Only a mutual understanding of the other side’s stance will breed respect and build the
confidence that will enable honest and true negotiations between the Jews and Arabs.

Rachel Kapen
West Bloomfield, Mich.

•

To the Editor:

Hussein Agha and Robert Malley are correct: A two-state solution featuring one state with limited sovereignty, as the current Israeli prime minister insists on, will never be sustainable. Nor will the status quo, which amounts to religious apartheid.

The ultimate solution to this conflict lies in a one-state solution that recognizes and respects the equal human rights of Jews, Muslims and Christians. The sooner policy makers — especially in the United States — realize this, the sooner this conflict will finally be resolved.

Tamer Samir Nassar
Palo Alto, Calif.

•

To the Editor:

The authors’ suggestion that the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be based on a one-state, rather than two-state, solution is long on ideology and short on pragmatism.

The events of 1948 cannot be undone any more than, say, the results of the American
colonists fighting the British and establishing the United States of America.

Yes, there are seemingly intractable issues that date back to 1948, but the broad outlines of a reasonable permanent peace arrangement have been in place since the waning days of the Clinton administration.

Israelis have already demonstrated several times, in clear and tangible ways, that they are
prepared to resolve this depressing conflict in a fair manner. Palestinians and the larger Arab world have been short on useful action and long on meaningless rhetoric.

So let’s put aside all this intellectual bombast about existential struggles and finally get everyone to agree to something that works, realizing that there are legitimate grievances on both sides and that in this world people rarely get everything they want.

Jerry Rapp
New York

•

To the Editor:

Hussein Agha and Robert Malley assert, “Few Israelis quarrel with the insistence that Israel be recognized as a Jewish state.” But this raises the question, what is meant by distinguishing Israel as a “Jewish state”?

If it means that my family can at any time flee persecution and seek out the safety of Israel no matter what because of our Jewish heritage, then I have no quarrel with this distinction.

But if a “Jewish state” means that I can travel to Jerusalem any time I want while my Palestinian friend who lives a mile away from Jerusalem and happens to have family there cannot obtain a permit to visit her loved ones, then I have to reject this privilege. I have seen first-hand how
the special status that Israel grants to Jews has come at the expense of non-Jews.

Mr. Agha and Mr. Malley are right to point out that the way we define the state of Israel is at the root of the conflict. Now it is time to have an honest debate about what defining Israel as a “Jewish state” really means.

Zachary Noteman
Astoria, Queens

•

To the Editor:

The authors argue convincingly: “The heart of the matter is not necessarily how to define a state of Palestine. It is, as in a sense it always has been, how to define the state of Israel.”

The logical corollary of this conclusion as it bears on American policy is that Washington must move from characterizing the conflict as the Palestinian problem to defining it as the
problem of Israel in the heart of the Muslim-Arab Middle East.

Doing so will put the issue in its proper perspective and allow policy makers to fashion
regional policies in keeping with broader American strategic interests in the Middle East.

Mohammed Ayoob
East Lansing, Mich.

The writer is a professor of international relations at Michigan State University.

•

To the Editor:

My interpretation is that Hussein Agha and Robert Malley both believe that the two-state solution is essentially unworkable and that, by implication, a single country addressing Palestinian concerns is the only viable option.

This, of course, negates the concept of a Jewish state, means the death of Israel as we now know it and, fortunately, is a nonstarter as far as the people and government of Israel are concerned.

Joel Teisch
Hillsborough, Calif.