Latest Non-Published Letter to the Editor at NYTimes

Witnessing the actions led by pro-Palestine student groups on college campuses as well as listening to and reading their slogans, one cannot but be confused and confounded as to how a supposedly "anti-occupation" movement insists upon occupying property that does not belong to them nor have they permission to reside in them. That is, until one realizes that rules of logic do not necessarily apply to the issue of "Palestine" .

Yisrael Medad

Shiloh, Israel

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Non-Published Letter to the London Review of Books

Sent on November 20th:

Manal A. Jamal, writing in her blog post, "On Non-Violent Resistance" (LRB, 17 Nov 2023), asserts that "from the beginning, non-violent resistance has been central to the Palestinians’ struggle for freedom.". Unlike clinging to the truth in Orwell's "1984", Professor Jamal would rather we go mad, adopt the process of continuous alteration and cling to the untruth. She purports a fantasy as history.

In 1851, after having purchased property in Jerusalem's Old City so as to rebuild the Hurva Synagogue , which Arab creditors burned down in 1721, Rabbi Avraham Tzoref was axed by an Arab and died three months afterwards on September 16. In August 1890, Yisrael Rozeman was shot and killed while on guard duty in Gedera. Another over two dozen Jews were killed by Arabs on the background of their "resistance" to Jewish settlement all prior to the Balfour Declaration.

During the three decades of British Mandate rule, Arabs violently and murderously rioted against Jews in April 1920, May and November 1921, August 1929 and then April 1936 until May 1939 killing almost 900 Jews in additionn to pillaging, burning homes and agricultural produce as well as raping. More instances of individual murders occurred in between those outbursts. Many instances of mutilation are recorded. Arabs seeking an alternative route of opposition to Zionism were eliminated in dozens of internal assassinations on the orders of the Mufti Amin Al-Husseini.

Mubarak Awad aside, who I met and discussed his politics, there has been no significant non-violent campaign of resistance by any influential Arab personality or organization, official or civil society based in over a century and a half.

Yisrael Medad

Shiloh
Israel

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My Exchange with NYRB's Editor Following a Beinart Piece

After I read something Peter Beinart published at the New York Review of Books back at the end of January, I initiated corrspondence with the NYRB by first submitting a short letter-to-the-editor:

From: Yisrael Medad 
Sent: Sunday, January 31, 2021 9:02 AM
To: Editor 
Subject: Letter for Publication

Peter Beinart asserts that "Those Palestinians who can [vote in Israeli national elections] —the 'Arab Israelis' who hold Israeli citizenship—mostly vote for Arab parties that are, by custom, barred from Israel’s coalition governments" (What the Lincoln Project Gets WrongAbout Israel-Palestine, NYRB, Jan. 27). That assertion needs to be corrected.

Arabs have been enfranchised to cast their ballots in Israel's elections since 1949. In fact, the parties that traditionally received the most votes usually were Communist. That Israel, even until today, tolerates Communist parties supported mainly by the Arab minority, as well as pan-Arab nationalist factions, is a testament to its vibrant democracy. Moreover, these parties are not so much "barred" as not invited to join due to their principled ideological position which is anti-Zionist. It is not a racist policy as Arabs, as well as Druze, have served in government as ministers and deputy-ministers when members of other parties. Members of these anti-Zionist parties have been member of the Knesset Presidium.

 The reply within two days:

February 2

Dear Yisrael

Thanks for this communication, but we do not believe there is any need to correct Beinart’s assertion. Further, I am afraid you are misinformed.

First, one of two leading parties in the Arab Joint List is Hadash, which supports a two-state solution and is thus, by definition, not anti-Zionist. Second, many governing coalitions in Israel in the past have included non-Zionist ultra-orthodox parties representing, in some cases, Jews who do not recognize the state of Israel. In short, it is a canard that Arab parties are not admitted to coalition governments of Israel because they do not pass some ideological test of Zionism. The salient political fact is simply this: that no Israeli Jewish politician is willing to govern in coalition with the elected representatives of Arab citizens of Israel.

In other words, Beinart's assertion was completely correct, and the counter-assertion is incorrect.

Best wishes, 

Matt Seaton

Editor, nybooks.com

My retort:

February 2

Dear Matt,

I think you have been misinformed.

Hadash is Communist and thus, by definition, anti-Zionist. It may recognize Israel as a state but that is not the same.

The Joint List comprises, as you surely know, four parties. "Leading" or not is an irrelevancy. But just as an aside, if the Ra'am Party pulls out, according to tonight's news, it will drop from 15 to 9 so how can one even judge what "leading" means?

As for the ultra-Orthodox parties, they define themselves as Zionist but claim their Zionism is Torah-based, whatever that means. Most actually do get to serve in the IDF in one form or another, something Arabs, the vast majority anyway, are loath to do. They even refuse in the main (I am sorry but exact figures are not at my fingertips) to do national service.

Moreover, to assert that "no Israeli Jewish politician is willing to govern in coalition with the elected representatives of Arab citizens of Israel" is a "salient political fact" is wrong as I pointed out that Arabs, elected in Arab lists as well as Jewish lists have served in coalitions.

I am sorry for disputing this so strongly but my suspicion is that you were provided that information and the person that did it either is ignorant or is purposely beclouding the issue.

As I have had letters previously published in the NYRB, I find it odd not to take a chance on me by publishing my letter, it isn't that long at all, and have Peter Beinart respond, you know, an element of open debate in his own name.

I trust your sense of 'fair play' would actually work in my favor.

Thank you for your reconsideration.

Yisrael

On February 11, I checked the latest issue and then wrote the following:

I see the new issue has appeared. My letter is not visible.

Can I assume my letter will not ever be published? Or is Peter still composing a response?

Yisrael

And the conclusion is:

Hi Yisrael

I'm afraid we don't publish letters in response to online-only pieces, unless the matter at dispute rises to the level of meriting a full Exchange between a correspondent and the author, and this didn't.

Best wishes, Matt

So, I made a pitch:

From: Yisrael Medad 

Sent: Thursday, February 11, 2021 2:41 PM
To: Matt Seaton  Subject: Re: Fw: Letter for Publication

 

Thanks.

Would submitting a piece to the online edition be a possibility for me then?

And the answer was:

Thu, Feb 11, 2021 at 9:44 PM Matt Seaton wrote:

Of course, you may submit. But I would advise you against offering a right-to-reply type response piece to the Beinart; it's not something we do, and we simply would have to turn that down flat.

I inquired as to how many words and was informed "optimal length for us is 1500-2500w".

On February 18, I submitted the following:

Is It To Be Competing Narratives or Narrative Cancelling?

We are now in an era, 45 years on since the UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 was adopted determining “that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination" and 30 years since it was rescinded, when presumed intellectual conversation can call for the dismantling of the Zionist project, openly suggest in one of America’s leading newspapers there is no need that a Jewish ‘home’ be a Jewish state in that it be replaced by an entity called “Israel-Palestine”, a senior level church officer can echo a New Testament blood curse, applying it to Israel and a Congresswoman can retweet a meme that Israel be eliminated by applying to it borders that delineate another state if afterwards in was deleted. As the conversation gets less intellectual and progressively ideological, even theological, the demands made in relation to Israel worsen in tone, become malefic and eventually, generate a sense of freedom for acts of illegality and eventually terror. This is not marginalization but cancellation.

It is not that anti-Zionism has never been a legitimate topic of debate. Of course it has. Indeed, a very small minority of fanatic obscurantist Jews, inheritors of the Satmar Hungarian rejection of all human efforts to re-establish a Jewish state, are quite active and find solace in misrepresented Talmudic sources. There are Jews who support and promote all forms of national identity, including one termed Arab Palestinian, but deny the same to those, Jews and non-Jews, who wish to see Israel continue to exist and flourish. There are anti-nationalist Jews steeped in progressive or communist or socialist theories who cannot bring themselves to identify with Zionism.

A century ago, some 300 American Reform Rabbis attempted, in a letter published in the New York Times, to abort President Woodrow Wilson’s approval of Palestine becoming reconstituted as the historic Jewish national home. The American Council for Judaism took up the anti-Zionist baton following the 1937 Reform Judaism’s decision rejection of the same. The Jewish Bund prided in its anti-Zionism. The ultra-Orthodox Agudah preferred to see themselves as the true Zionists, refusing to acknowledge full legitimacy of the World Zionist Organization even while eventually forming an awkward coalition with it.

These days, we witness the endeavours of a plethora of Jewish anti-Zionist groups, including the backing of a sham Twitter account of a long-dead anti-Zionist Rabbi, but it need be made clear that anti-Zionism, once a position of theoretical debate, is an historical fossil. At this time, with Israel's establishment and continued flourishing, if actively advanced, it is no longer a philosophical matter but one of eliminationist ideology (as illustrated by a Congresswoman’s T-shirt) that promotes staticide, that is the destruction of a state and endangering lives of upwards of 9 million humans as well as millions of Jews who would (not might) need to flee to it due to an upsurge in anti-Semitism. An op-ed recently published at the New York Times argues against sanctions that are in place against Iran, a state sponsoring regional and even global terror that also views a need to eliminate Zionist Israel, even through an act of legislature, yet its author supports sanctions on Israel due to Jews residing in Jerusalem suburbs, Hebron, the burial place of the Jewish people’s patriarchs and matriarchs or my community village, Shiloh, where scientific archaeological excavations conducted over a century by Danes, British, Israelis and Americans, have proven the Biblical narrative.

Moreover, in the immediate sense, persons and institutions who might also be non-Israeli such as Jewish and non-Jewish students who do support Israel, find themselves under verbal, psychological and even physical attack on campuses not only from fellow students or off-campus radicals but their lecturers as well. Already in 1990, pro-Palestinian promoters were aware of the need for progressive political support even as the messaging - “they [Jewish Americans] control Capitol Hill…they have big money and fear on their side” (at 2:38-43 in the clip) – is blatantly adoptive of anti-Semitic memes. We have now reached the point when the moderator of an international affairs commission of a Christian fellowship of 350 churches from more than 110 countries, representing over 500 million Christians worldwide stated, falsely, that people are killed every day as a result of the Israel-Palestinian conflict adding “the blood of the people of Palestine will be sought from” Israel’s supporters thus employing a meme of classic anti-Semitism.

Bret Stephens, who thinks that hard-core anti-Zionism is indeed a form of anti-Semitism, penned, “If anti-Semitism is a form of racism, and racist language is intolerable…might we someday forbid not only advocacy of anti-Zionist ideas, but even refuse to allow them to be discussed?” In connection with what can and what cannot be discussed, I wish to take Stephens question one step further and ask: if the negation of a people’s national identity and aspirations is legitimate, indeed, if it is acceptable to even refuse to acknowledge that an ethnic community also possesses national characteristics – as does anti-Zionism – cannot another people’s claim to national identity undergo scrutiny, debate and even negation?

As an example, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Ernest Bevin, himself quite unsympathetic to the idea of a Jewish state, nevertheless had no compunction, in his words in the House of Commons on 18^th February, 1947, to admit that “the Arabs...are therefore unwilling to contemplate further Jewish immigration into Palestine. They are equally opposed to the creation of a Jewish State in any part of Palestine”. Is it possible to express that point of view today, especially as regards the position of Hamas?

Can one point out that the term “historic Palestine”, geographically, always encompassed the territory that Jordan occupies? Can one point out the Jordan was the occupier of the West Bank until 1967? Can one note that the term “West Bank” was created only in April 1950 when Jordan annexed that area? Can it be recalled that in the United Nations Partition proposal of November 29, 1947, when delineating the borders between the Arab State and the Jewish State, a recommendation that was dashed when Arab-initiated violence broke out, never employed the then-unknown term “West Bank” but rather “Judea” and “Samaria”?

Is it possible to recollect that between 1920-1948, a Jewish population of several thousands who had been, in part, residing in Judea and Samaria for centuries, in Hebron, Gaza, Nablus and Jerusalem’s Old City and environs, as well as newer communities in the Etzion Bloc and on the shore of the Dead Sea, were ethnically cleansed in a terror campaign instigated and led by the most senior Islamic cleric in the country, a campaign which included murder, rape, burnings and pillaging?

Is it allowed to point to the uniqueness of UNRWA, the United Nations agency that provides humanitarian care for Arab refugees from Mandate Palestine? That all the world’s millions of refugees have one agency and the relatively few from Palestine have another? That to have been a “refugee” all one needed was to have lived in Mandate Palestine for but two years previous to May 1948? That the status of refugee is applied solely to the descendants of males and also includes adopted children? That the true figure of actual refugees is less than 200,000 according to a US State Department July 2018 report?

Is it permissible to know what topics are mentionable and what are to be banished from all mention? And why? Are there any agreed upon definitions of such? Or is but one narrative the accepted framework while the other is denounced and deprecated?

Are acts of destruction committed by Arabs at locations of Jewish legacy sites, such as was found after the 1967 war on the Mount of Olives and over 30 synagogues in Jerusalem’s Old City discussable? Hasmonean Palaces outside of Jericho, additional archaeological sites or at the Temple Mount when a new, underground mosque was carved out of Solomon’s Stables? Moreover, is the claim of a 10,000 year old Natufian origin of the contemporary Arabs, made by the late Saeb Erekat, open for discussion or to do so would be causing major micro-aggressions?

If one is to hurl a charge of “illegal occupation”, is it permissible to bring up the 19-year occupation and annexation of Jordan or does one simply accept the proffered explanation that that occupation was entirely legal in that the Arabs of Palestine requested to be ruled by Abdullah I, even if the Mufti Al-Husseini had the monarch assassinated in 1951? When is a narrative a genuine reflection of history and when is it but a cover-up for bad politics or even plain revisionist history?

Zionism is, the narrative has it, a settler-colonial enterprise. But did not the Arabs come out of the Arabian Peninsula in the first third of the seventh century and, in a wave of conquest, subjugation and occupation, overrun many lands including, in 638 CE, the Land of Israel, ruled by the Persians who had conquered it in 614 CE from the Byzantine Empire, the continuation of the Roman Empire that had conquered Judea in 135 CE and altering its name to Palestina? What is a narrative, what is propaganda and what is the historical truth?

Having long abandoned anti-Zionism, Isaac Deutscher admitted in 1954 that that anti-Zionism “was based on a confidence in the European labour movement, or, more broadly, a confidence in European society and civilisation which that society and civilisation have not justified.” Does there exist among too many contemporary Jewish progressives a similar presumption of over-confidence? Or does their psychological and ideological opposition to the concept of Jewish national identity overcome rational incisiveness to what is actually occurring around them?

The more, it would appear, Israel strengthens its position including diplomatic successes with Arab Islamic states, significant economic advances and major contributions to the rest of the world in the fields of science, health, agriculture, engineering and the like, the more the verbal abuse increases. Bristol University professor David Miller raged, “It's not enough to say Zionism is racism, Israel is a settler colonial society...The aim of this is…to end Zionism as a functioning ideology of the word.” Jews, who have long suffered from racist ideologies of Aryan and White supremacism, have now been turned into people who benefit from a ‘white privilege’ while the majority of Israel’s population is basically brown and black and Israelis are out-and-out “white supremacists”. Furthermore, university students are being told “Zionism isn’t about self-determination, it’s about Jewish supremacy” and that “white supremacy [equates] with Jewish supremacy.” This is not solely verbal abuse but incitement to violence. It is the new form of the oldest hate, now practiced by so-called progressive leftists.

Israel is not a state à condition que. It is a state, as the 50-member League of Nations decided in 1922, that once existed and need be reconstituted, based on the historical connection of the Jewish people with the territory of their national home. Two fundamental rights were recognized for the Jews in their Land of Israel: the facilitation of Jewish immigration and the encouragement of “close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands”. For sure, the rights and position of other sections of the population should not be prejudiced but those rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine were defined as “civil and religious”, not national nor political. Simply, Israel is.

No longer can there be suppression of discussion. No longer improper application of academic terminology. No longer ignoring the problems with the rival people claiming a more supreme right to the territory on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. The debate over Zionism and the activities intended to oppose Israel as the Zionist state, the result of a 3,000-year old national identity legacy of the Jewish people, has evolved into a violent one, whether on campus or at work places. It does not solely target “Zionists” but seeks to highlight Jews as Jews, which, incidentally, proves, if backhandedly, that Zionism is indeed authentic Judaism.

Yisrael Medad is Research Fellow at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, resides in Shiloh and comments on political, cultural and media affairs.

But the response was:

Hi Yisrael

Thanks for a look at this submission. I'm afraid I will have to decline it as we already have a piece assigned and in the pipeline about Hebron and the related political, territorial, and archaeological disputes, and this would clash too much with that. I hope you are able to find the right platform for your piece.

Best wishes,

Matt

All I could do is respond:

Editorial discretion is a wonderful tool.

I look forward to see how much I clash.

Yisrael

And the article that did eventually appear in the issue of March 19 is

A Day in the Life of Abed Salama

Nathan Thrall

One man’s quest to find his son lays bare the reality of Palestinian life under Israeli rule.

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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 is​acceptable."

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?

^

Yet Another Unpublished Letter-to-the-Editor

Sent on March 3:

In Isabel Kershner's despatch regarding Israel's High Court decision on property ownership in a Jerusalem neighborhood, she wrote "Israel captured the eastern part of the city, including Sheikh Jarrah, from Jordan in the 1967 war, then annexed it" ("Palestinians Threatened With Eviction Can Stay in Their Homes — for Now", March 1).

The term "annexation", as defined in international law, means "the forcible acquisition of territory by one State at the expense of another State". In 1967, the eastern districts of Jerusalem had been illegally occupied by Jordan, which had invaded the city in 1948. Israel but reunited the city, in a defensive war against Jordanian aggression, which, except for those 19 years of Jordanian occupation, had been but one city, not two, for some 3000 years.

Published? 

Naw.

^

My January 22, 2021 Letter in JPost Magazine

As published in the Jerusalem Post Weekend Magazine, January 22, 2021:

I was astounded, nay, discombobulated, reading Glenn C. Altschuler's review of Aharon Nathan's memoir ("A better Israel and world", Jan. 15). Altschuler, a university professor, finds that a 90-year old, in reminiscing about his female teachers during his teenage school years, wrote in a way that is "inappropriate in 2021". This was, for me, a stupefying moment.

In 2021, it seems he is suggesting that memories need be erased, that reality be reordered, that what was, well, wasn't quite the way it was. Honesty in history is to be avoided.

Was Nathan's language one of suggesting after-school liaisons or encouraging  adult-minor intimacy? He was, to be clear, recalling his feelings and those of his classmates. No vulgarities seem to have been employed. I can only wonder what Altschuler would have allowed in that chapter.

If in academia the cancel culture so reigns in that we cannot read what actually  happened, if only in a young man's mind, that we may never be permitted to know exactly what occurred so that we cannot discuss, argue and deliberate events and thinking, we might as well start burning books and torching films.

Yisrael Medad

Shiloh

And Yet Another Non-Published Letter to the New York Times

 Sent on November 12:

Robert Malley and Phillip H. Gordon suggest that President Trump’s "proposed peace plan was...drafted without input from the Palestinians" and so, it was "dead on arrival" ("Trump Still Has 70 Days to Wreak Havoc Around the World", Nov. 11). Unfortunately, we are left to wonder why there was no input.

Was it because Palestinian Authority communications systems failed? Perhaps the Trump Administration made demands they considered outrageous, such as to halt funding the acts of terrorists and stop anti-Israel incitement in the schools? Maybe President Mahmoud Abbas refused to make any compromises or even to return to the negotiating table? Could it be that the PA is fearful of Hamas? Does Malley and Gordon actually know why?

Yisrael Medad

Shiloh, Israel

^

And A Letter That Did Get Published

 In the Jerusalem Post Magazine:

BEEFED-UP BACKGROUND

I would not object to calling too many of Yair Netanyahu’s tweets brusque, blunt, brash, even boorish and bullying. Nevertheless, Gil Hoffman’s profile of the prime minister’s son is missing something (“Yair Netanyahu: The rise of the son,” October 23). And that something is a bit of context.

He does manage to quote one of his multiple anonymous sources – in fact none of his sources are named – noting that there are “attacks” on his family. Those attacks have been death threats, promises of physical harm, crude and menacing sexualized revilements, sneering insults and foul-mouthed abuse both virtually on social media as well physically outside his house.

While that missing element does not mitigate unnecessary behavior on the son’s part, it would have provided a fuller background to the profile.

YISRAEL MEDAD

Shiloh

And here it is:

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Yet Another Not-Published Letter

After reading Yossi Klein Halevi's op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, "Annexation Would Be a Mistake—and a Tragedy", I sent this 'Letter-to-the-Editor' in.

I cannot seem to find it published.

Yossi Klein Halevi, writing in his "Annexation Would Be a Mistake—and a Tragedy" (June 15), posits that "With every Palestinian rejection, the map of a potential Palestine has gotten smaller. Time is not on their side."  He adds: "Mr. Trump, they are effectively saying, is a useful idiot whose plan will serve settler interests now, and then fail to deliver on a Palestinian state later".

As regards the element of time, ever since 1922 when the Jewish National Home lost all areas of historic Palestine east of the Jordan River, and the 1937 and 1947 Partition Schemes which were to deny Jews more than 60% of the remaining territory west of the river, on through the 1968 Allon Plan, the 1977 Begin Autonomy Plan, the 2000 Camp David II Plan and the 2008 Olmert Plan, among others, how much time would Klein Halevi presume that Israel wait and waste for security and arrangements that will assure as much of a peaceful reality for Israel and its citizens as possible?

Moreover, if anyone will fail to deliver on a Palestinian state, it will be the Arabs-called-Palestinians who will not fulfill the very logical, rational and moral conditions for doing so that the Peace-to-Prosperity Plan sets out. As President Trump detailed in his January 28 remarks, "we are asking the Palestinians to meet the challenges of peaceful co-existence. This includes adopting basic laws enshrining human rights; protecting against financial and political corruption; stopping the malign activities of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other enemies of peace; ending the incitement of hatred against Israel — so important; and permanently halting the financial compensation to terrorists." 

Trump is certainly being useful here, but is far from being an idiot. I will avoid judging Klein Halevy on this matter.

^

Another Letter That Was Not Published

On April 18th, I submitted this letter to the New York Times:

Ayman Oudeh, member of Israel's Knesset, writes that "Seventy years ago, the world changed" for his family ("Israel Celebrates Its Independence, We Mourn Our Loss", April 18). Nowhere in that article can one learn why that happened.  

Could it have been caused when the Arabs of Mandate Palestine, following their violent terror campaign against any Jewish national revival in their historic national homeland since 1920, rejected the UN-proposed partition plan of November 29, 1947 which the Zionists accepted? And then, on the morrow of that UN vote, initiated a war to eradicate the Jewish community? A war they lost? A war in which they inflicted heavy casualties and loss of Jewish communities and the ethnic cleansing of parts of the Mandate territory?

It was not published.

This one, from November 10, 2004 was:

To the Editor:

Thomas L. Friedman writes that if Yasir Arafat had "ever adopted the nonviolence of Gandhi," he would have had his Palestinian state -- "Israel's reckless settlements notwithstanding" ("Footprints in the Sand," column, Nov. 7). Mr. Friedman places the cart before the horse.

Yasir Arafat adopted the path of terror and violence years before any Jewish community had been built in the disputed territories, indeed, years before those territories came under Israeli administration in 1967.

Yisrael Medad Shiloh, West Bank, Nov. 8, 2004

 And I have been quoted:

Yisrael Medad, a spokesman for the Yesha Council, the body that represents settlers, urged Mr. Olmert to focus initially on social issues, rather than push an evacuation plan that is certain to face resistance and create division among Israelis.

"We should say to Olmert: hold off for two years, fix up the economic and social problems, and then let's see where we are," said Mr. Medad, who lives in Shiloh, a settlement that is also beyond the separation barrier. "If you start to move against the communities here, you will get demonstrations and protests."            

And more than once as on July 20, 2006:

“We’ve given over territory so our Arab enemies can now hit Haifa,” said Yisrael Medad, a spokesman for the Yesha Council, the main group representing settlers. “To put them even closer, where they could literally hit us by spitting over the fence, would be crazy.” [think Gaza and it's Great Return March - YM]

“Unilateral moves will never work,” he added, “because if you don’t have a mechanism in place to maintain security, groups like Hamas and Hezbollah will simply say, ‘We don’t have an agreement with you, and we will do what we like.’ ” [which they have done after the disengagement - YM]

 Maybe, just perhaps, my opinions and analysis are just not what the NYT wants to be read?

^

Alas, Another Letter to the NYTimes Not Published

Surprise but my letter hasn't been published:

Your Oct. 2 editorial suggests that Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s "present course is antagonizing everyone" and that the NYTimes finds it "hard to see why he thinks it is in Israel’s best interest."

A possible answer is that what is in Israel's best interests are the country's current and future security, its basic national goals, its negative experiences with Arab terror and anti-Zionism for over nine decades, the American administrations decided lack of forthrightness in confronting Iran's nuclear program, the continuing anti-Israel incitement of the Palestinian Authority, the failure of territorial withdrawal evidenced by the Hamas-ruled Gaza after the 2005 Disengagement, not to mention the world-wide rise of anti-Semitism, the liberal support for boycott as well as the current American administration's confrontational attitude or abrasive acts like the reported March 2010 snub at the White House.

^

Something Amazing at the NYTimes

Three "Letters-to-the-Editor" --- and not one pro-Pal:

The Opinion Pages | LETTERS
Pain Behind the Release of Palestinian PrisonersMARCH 31, 2014

To the Editor:

Re “Remaking a Life, After Years in an Israeli Prison” (front page, March 30):
While I am in support of measures that both Israelis and Palestinians try to take to move peace talks forward, I was shocked to read about Muqdad Salah’s “struggle” to start his life anew after being released from an Israeli prison.

Considering his brutal killing of an elderly Holocaust survivor, I couldn’t help but cringe at Mr. Salah’s complaints. After what he did, it’s hard to sympathize with his boredom in not being able to leave his immediate area, all while the Palestinian Authority is paying him generously and helping him start a family with expensive in vitro fertilization treatments.

Serious peace is only possible with major sacrifices on both sides. Yet I yearn to understand how releasing and supporting convicted and confessed murderers lead to such a goal.

EMILY LOUBATON
Brooklyn, March 30, 2014

To the Editor:

The release of killers in the name of an elusive peace process is a triple insult: It negates the justice won for their victims, it reduces the lives lost to mere pawns on the Mideast chessboard, and it inflicts further pain on families already torn by terrorism. My nephew Koby Mandell, 13, was killed more than a decade ago, when he and a friend, Josef Ish-Ran, were stoned to death by murderous cowards in a cave in the West Bank.

My family is grateful that his murderers were never found. We know that if found and convicted, they would eventually be part of some prisoner release, a betrayal of the broken bodies of young boys. Every time there is a release of terrorists, we grieve for those families unlucky enough to see the killers of their loved ones cheered and celebrated.

NANCY M. LEDERMAN
New York, March 30, 2014

To the Editor:

You tread so carefully on the story of Muqdad Salah that you pass over the most important question of all: Why do Palestinians insist on treating Mr. Salah, who admitted to killing an elderly Holocaust survivor, apparently as he slept, as a national hero?

In what sense does the murder of an innocent civilian constitute a legitimate act of protest?

DANIEL REIFMAN
Yad Binyamin, Israel, March 30, 2014

I wonder, is Jodi Rudoren pleased with the responses or is she disappointed that her story, seeking to humanize the conflict ("humanize"?  the Arabs dehumanize the Jews), didn't elicit a thanks from some Pal. supporter?

P.S.  Read Tobin. (thanks JD)

^

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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A Jew Presumes; I Respond

Here's a letter from April 9 in The Guardian:

Binyamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman (Report, 9 April) should realise that a fair proportion of the world's Jewry feel the same way as Günter Grass about the Israeli government's policies – which are in breach of Jewish law ("Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt", Exodus 22:21) and the Jewish tradition of support for the oppressed, especially at this time of Passover – and feel that it is they who are "sacrificing the Jewish people" in their militaristic and intransigent policies towards the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. Many of us who were supporters of Israel and the Zionist project have become disillusioned by the injustice of the present government, and their failure to take steps to achieve a lasting peace.

Michael Ellman
London

Here's my reaction:

Michael Ellman (Letter, April 10), asserts that "a fair proportion of the world's Jewry feel the same way as Günter Grass about the Israeli government's policies" of Binyamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman and that these two leaders failed "to take steps to achieve a lasting peace".  How to judge what is a "fair proportion" and if Ellman is correct on this point is beyond me, but on his second point, I can assure him that he is quite wrong.

Besides misusing a Biblical instruction which has no relevance to the Arabs of Mandate Palestine's 90-year terror campaign against Jews and Zionism, Mr Netanyahu in handing over Hebron at the 1999 Wye Agreement, which permitted Arabs to snipe at Jewish residents eventually killing an infant girl, his announcement in 2009, repeated, accepting the two-state principle and also his 2010 construction moratorium did, in the face of constant incitement, lawlessness as well as even internal Palestinian Authority corruption against its own residents, I would suggest, more than necessary in the face of Arab intransigence.  And surely no more than the Bible would demand in the situation, a Bible, incidentally, that views Judea, Samaria and Gaza as part of the historic Jewish homeland wherein Jews, like myself, should be able to reside and flourish.

Was it ever published?

What do you think?

This one though was.  And this, too.  But those were a while ago.

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NYTimes Facilitates Misleading Historical Narrative

Yesterday, the New York Times carried an op-ed by an Arab activist seeking to dislodge Jews from their homes and weaken the security of the state of Israel.

I had sent in a letter but it wasn't published. As usual.

Here it is:-

In his op-ed ("Peaceful protest can free Palestine", Feb. 22), Mustafa Barghouthi opens with a statement that "over the past 64 years, Palestinians have tried armed struggle". That is incorrect.


Following several months of protests in late 1919 and early 1920, including one on February 27 which involved lifting the United States Consul-General Otis Allan Glazebrook up on to the shoulders of the demonstrators, and incited by a religious preacher, Haj Amin El-Husseini, the soon-to-be "Grand Mufti of Palestine", Arabs fell upon their Jewish neighbors between April 4 -7, 1920, killing 5 and injuring 200 - all civilians casualties. Indeed, the entire history of the past 92 years has been marked by Arab terror, pogroms, riots and murder directed almost exclusively at Jewish civilians by Arabs, in Hebron, Safed, Jaffa and many other locations where Jews resided. Ethnic cleansing from some cities resulted, all prior to the 1948 war.


If there is a "struggle", it is one for the truth and the genuine historical narrative.

And here are the ones that did get published:-

Hurdles That Block an Israeli-Palestinian Peace

To the Editor:

Re “Peaceful Protest Can Free Palestine” (Op-Ed, Feb. 22):

Mustafa Barghouthi, a member of the Palestinian Parliament, writes that “over the past 64 years, Palestinians have tried armed struggle; we have tried negotiations; and we have tried peace conferences.”

Mr. Barghouthi conveniently doesn’t mention one option: accepting Israeli offers to evacuate the West Bank and make peace.

In 2000, Ehud Barak, the Israeli prime minister, offered to return 96 percent of the territories and to divide Jerusalem. In 2008, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered to leave lands equivalent to 100 percent of the West Bank and again to divide Jerusalem.

On both occasions, Palestinian leaders not only refused to accept those offers, but also refused to make counterproposals and initiated violence (the second intifada, increased Hamas rocket fire from Gaza) that poisoned the atmosphere for continued negotiations.

A narrative of relentless Palestinian victimization may be emotionally satisfying, but ignores certain well-known events.

VICTOR LIEBERMAN
Ann Arbor, Mich.

*

To the Editor:

Over the last 64 years, Mustafa Barghouthi writes, Palestinians have been engaged in struggle with nothing to show for it. Do the math. Sixty-four years ago was not 1967, when Israel won control of the West Bank and Gaza from Jordan and Egypt; 64 years ago was 1948, when Israel became an independent state.

So while Mr. Barghouthi rails against post-1967 occupation and settlements, he cannot free himself from the view that Israel itself, from the day of its foundation, should never have been. This is the mind-set that makes an Israeli-Palestinian peace so elusive.

BERNARD JOSHUA KABAK, New York,

*

To the Editor:

Thank you for publishing Mustafa Barghouthi’s eloquent article addressing the hunger strike of Khader Adnan and summarizing clearly the plight of Palestinians. Mr. Adnan, as well as countless other Palestinians, is indeed a hero, and the hope for justice and peace in Palestine-Israel.

JUDY NEUNUEBEL, Santa Fe, N.M.,

Mrs. Neunuebel, an involved Christian, seems to be active in pro-Pal causes via Creativity for Peace and even wrote glowingly of Chas Freeman, that notorious anti-Semite.  Mindless, is what comes to my mind.

_______________

UPDATE

And the following day, this letter appeared:

To the Editor:

In “Peaceful Protest Can Free Palestine” (Op-Ed, Feb. 22), Mustafa Barghouthi does not mention that Israel has been trying for a long time to bring the Palestinians back to the negotiating table.

It is quite disappointing to see that the Palestinians continue to seek ways to confront Israel through boycotts and protests, rather than choose a path of collaboration to find a true and lasting peace between neighbors.

Only if we use the language of peace and dialogue will we be able to create an atmosphere of trust. While the Palestinians have tried terrorism, and subsequently attended peace conferences, they have not uttered the single most important word: yes.

The Palestinian Authority has yet to say yes to Israel, yes to peace and yes to living side by side with the Jewish state. Israel’s outstretched arms extend until the day the Palestinians say, Yes, we are ready to join our neighbor Israel in taking the difficult step toward peace.

Organizing people to protest is much easier than organizing people to make compromises for peace, a compromise that both sides must make.

SHAHAR AZANI
Spokesman Consulate General of Israel, New York

P.S. Typical that independent activists responded quicker than the Foreign Ministry folk.

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Another Unpublished Letter

This was submitted last week but...as usual, why should the NYTimes bother with a perceived "right-of-center" reaction even though my insight, IMHO, is simply factual and an objective view:-

To the Editor:

Ethan Bronner's report on the woes of Israel's Channel 10 commerical television ("Israel TV Station’s Troubles Reflect a Larger Political Battleground", Dec. 28) certainly highlights the politics involved. Of the eight sources whose words were quoted in the story, one was neutral to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and seven were persons ideologically opposed to him, even the one who suggested excusing his presumed behavior. An anonymous source was used to make quite a spurious claim that finally included a direct response of denial from the Prime Minister's bureau. None of Israel's media monitoring groups appeared in the story to offer additional angles. For example, the issue of the previous positive political intervention in favor of Channel 10 over the past decade in permitting its owners to avoid payment of debts and gain other financial favors was missing, as was the possible factual incorrectness of Raviv Drucker's investigation.

Yisrael Medad
Vice-chairman, Israel's Media Watch
Jerusalem,
http://www.imw.org.il/

In other words, my point is that the real story here is not "democracy threatened by Netanyahu" but "democracy threatened by media tycoons who have managed to have politicians from all across the political spectrum allow them for a decade latitude in their financial woes and obligations while possibly 'paying' them off with privileged media coverage which could be considered blackmail in a sense". That, I think, is at least the real story, in addition to the very real quite-left-of-center media branja now ganging up on Netanyahu. The media is the actual threat to democracy.


For your information, in any case.

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The Letters In Response To Abbas in the NYTimes

(UPDATE with second batch of letters, see below)

First, my letter that was not published:

Mahmoud Abbas' recollection of history is problematic for understanding the Arab - Israel conflict. In noting the UN 1947 recommendation to partition the Palestine Mandate ("The Long Overdue Palestinian State", May 17), he errs twice.


The country was defined by international law, set by the UN's predecessor, the League of Nations, as "a national home for the Jewish people". In defining the residents of that country, the word Arab does not appear at all but rather "non-Jews". Any Arab claim to the country is one of residence, of civil rights not of sovereignty. Moreover, Abbas neglects to reveal to his readers that the Arabs of the Mandate territory rejected that recommendation and chose to declare war of the Jewish state that was to arise. Those who know not history, cannot proceed to any future.

And the ones that were in - The Mideast Conflict, Past and Present
Published: May 17, 2011

With due respect to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian National Authority (“The Long Overdue Palestinian State,” Op-Ed, May 17), let’s not rewrite history in an effort to shift blame.

The Palestinians rejected statehood in 1947 and instead supported an Arab war to exterminate the Jewish state. The Palestinians rejected another golden opportunity for statehood in the 2000 Camp David peace talks, instead opting for “intifada.”

The Fatah faction that Mr. Abbas leads has now joined a “unity” alliance with Hamas, the same terrorist organization that dedicates itself in its charter to the destruction of Israel.

Yet Mr. Abbas asserts, “The State of Palestine intends to be a peace-loving nation, committed to human rights, democracy, the rule of law.” He adds that “once admitted to the United Nations, our state stands ready to negotiate all core issues of the conflict with Israel.” If you buy that one, I’ve got some unicorns for sale.

Mr. Abbas, don’t ask for a state based on the promise that Palestinians will negotiate the terms for peace some day in the future. Your alliance with Hamas speaks far louder than your words.

JOHN C. LANDA Jr.
Houston, May 17, 2011

To the Editor:

While I fully support Mahmoud Abbas in his “call on all friendly, peace-loving nations to join us in realizing our national aspirations by recognizing the State of Palestine on the 1967 border,” I take issue with his use of history as justification.

Historians will never agree on what really happened between 1947 and 1948, and arguing over it only perpetuates mistrust and bad feelings between Arabs and Jews. The sense of victimhood on all sides is our biggest obstacle to progress.

After 63 years, it no longer matters who is to blame for our predicament. It only matters that today Palestinians feel disenfranchised and oppressed, and Israelis feel embattled and isolated. What we all need is reconciliation, trust and cooperation. The real struggle is not between Arabs and Jews, left and right, or oppressors and oppressed, but between courage and fear.

DAVID P. SCHWARTZ
Director of Resource Development
The Center for Jewish-Arab Economic Development
Raanana , Israel, May 17, 2011

To the Editor:

While reading the Op-Ed article by Mahmoud Abbas, juxtaposed with the article outlining Benjamin Netanyahu’s anticipated message to President Obama and Congress this week and next (“Israel Leader Outlines Points of Negotiation Before U.S. Trip,” news article, May 17), I was struck by the fact that Mr. Abbas outlines a plan for Palestinian statehood that abides by international law, while Mr. Netanyahu defends continuing the occupation of Jerusalem and maintaining settlements in the West Bank, both of which are against international law.

While I support a home for the Jewish people if it is defined within the 1967 borders, what Mr. Netanyahu is offering is nothing but a continuation of the illegal occupation of 44 years. By clinging to this hard-line position, he is jeopardizing any prospects for peace for Israel and the Palestinians.

I hope that President Obama and Congress will join the world community in demanding justice for the Palestinian people and security for both nations.

HANAN WATSON
New York, May 17, 2011

To the Editor:

Mahmoud Abbas writes: “In November 1947, the General Assembly made its recommendation and answered in the affirmative. Shortly thereafter, Zionist forces expelled Palestinian Arabs to ensure a decisive Jewish majority in the future state of Israel, and Arab armies intervened.”

Excuse me?

As reported by The New York Times on May 17, 1948: “The invasion armies of five Arab nations hammered away with air and artillery attacks today at outlying Jewish settlements in Palestine.”

A careful review of the history of that time demonstrates unequivocally that Israel was invaded on all fronts by five Arab nations in an effort to destroy Israel, the United Nations partition plan notwithstanding. “Intervened” my foot.

Mr. Abbas rewrites history. He is not a serious partner for negotiations.

SHELDON M. FINKELSTEIN
Newark, May 17, 2011

To the Editor:

Given the history of expulsions, persecutions and genocide that our ancestors endured in Christian Europe, we Jews should be among the loudest supporters of Palestinian statehood. Do we really expect the Palestinian refugees of 1948 and their descendants to forgo their “right of return” after 60-plus years, when Israel claimed a Jewish “right of return” after 2,000 years?

Unfortunately, many American Jewish organizations have long supported whatever policy emanated out of Israel.

It is not only a Palestinian state that is long overdue, as the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas rightly claims, but also a declaration of independence by American Jews that we will no longer be silent supporters of the Israeli policies of occupation that so clearly violate not only common sense, but also the ethical values of Judaism.

JACOB BENDER
New York, May 17, 2011

To the Editor:

How heartening that Mahmoud Abbas declares that the State of Palestine that he hopes for will be a “peace-loving nation.” Now his task is to somehow square that with his embrace of Hamas, solemnly pledged to Israel’s destruction, as a partner in the formation of such a state’s government.

Mr. Abbas’s words remind me of another declaration of hope for “peace for our time” — by Neville Chamberlain in 1938.

(Rabbi) AVI SHAFRAN
Director of Public Affairs
Agudath Israel of America
New York, May 17, 2011

________________________

P.S. More on the Abbas op-ed:

JoshuaPundit, Honest Reporting, CAMERA, Israelly Cool and others have piled on!


UPDATED - Second Batch

Round 2: More Reaction to Abbas’s View of History


To the Editor:
Re “The Long Overdue Palestinian State” (Op-Ed, May 17):

Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian National Authority, has written one of the most delusional Op-Ed articles ever published.

The only “nakba,” or catastrophe, the Palestinian people should be observing is the reality that had they accepted the United Nations declaration of a Palestinian state in 1948, they could have been enjoying the fruits of a vigorous, prosperous, democratic state for the past 63 years (like their neighbors in Israel) instead of committing themselves to death by suicide bombings and economic chaos.

HOWARD B. WEBER
President, Coalition for Israel
New York, May 17, 2011

To the Editor:

Mahmoud Abbas’s Op-Ed article is a repeat of old ideas that can never lead to peace between Israel and the Palestinians. His article, written just before the arrival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the United States, repeats an old, one-sided, specious history of Arabs and Jews without even offering a modicum of Arab responsibility.

Mr. Abbas does not make any attempt at conciliation. Instead he commemorates “another year of our expulsion — which we call the nakba, or catastrophe.”

It would have been helpful and evenhanded, for example, if he had mentioned how Jewish residents were forced from Arab countries in the Middle East — either by government policy or violence against them — after the United Nations recognized Israel.

Settlers are fair game for Mr. Abbas’s criticism. Many Israelis disapprove of the settlements. But settlers are not terrorists killing innocent people, whereas within the Palestinian movement there are recognized and officially supported terrorists and terrorist organizations.

His rendition of Arab-Jewish history is so one-sided that any fair-minded reader must conclude that Mr. Abbas is more interested in grandstanding than in recognizing a homeland for the Jewish people alongside a peaceful homeland for the Palestinians.

MARTIN H. SOKOL
Great Neck, N.Y., May 17, 2011

To the Editor:

We should support the creation of a Palestinian state because it is in America’s national interest.

Since 1948, the Palestinians have endured repression and occupation by Israel. Not enough people are speaking up on behalf of the ordinary Palestinians and their suffering. Instead, using a broad brush, we paint them all as radicals. The majority of Palestinians just want their freedom and to lead a normal life.

The Israeli occupation is morally wrong and against international law. American support for Israel hurts our image and our interests in the region. Israel should acknowledge the horrors it has visited upon the Palestinians. And, most important, it must end the occupation.

MAHMOUD M. AWAD
Flat Rock, Mich., May 17, 2011

To the Editor:

I am surprised that you gave space and dignity to Mahmoud Abbas’s Op-Ed article. He talks about friendly, peace-loving nations, when his own people have, to this day, no intention of living in either friendship or peace with Israel.

Mr. Abbas’s article is full of selective myopia. He admits nothing of the multiple intifadas or the thousands of rockets launched against Israel.

Israel left Gaza as a peace gesture toward the Arabs. Jews in Israel would like nothing better than to live in peace with their neighbors. But they do not yet have any feeling of trust that the Palestinians will do the same — or even wish to.

THEO KLEWANSKY
Boca Raton, Fla., May 17, 2011


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Parallel Thinking

Parallel to my post on Hillary Clinton (here; and here) wherein I wrote:

...to my mind, the United States in now justifying, in principle, that attack. If the Arab side is “injured,” if the Arabs of the former Mandate of Palestine territory are “harmed,” if the right of Jews to reside in their national homeland is “illegitimate” and runs “counter” to peace efforts, what do you think an Arab, educated in the hate-filled incitement-generated atmosphere of the Palestinian Authority with its anti-Semitic mosque sermons, is assuming and concluding?

Bruce Dov Krulwich of Beit Shemesh published a letter in the NYTimes:

To the Editor:

Re “Suspecting Palestinians, Israeli Military Hunts for Killers of 5 West Bank Settlers” (news article, March 13):

Any statement that legitimizes the killing of a 3-month-old baby in her sleep because of the proximity of Israeli settlements to Palestinian towns is contributing to the problem. Such murder cannot be legitimized whatever the politics.

Thousands of Israeli Arabs live in dozens of Arab towns within Israel’s borders, and no Israelis would say that their existence legitimizes killing their children. Rather, they are minority-group citizens with representation in the Israeli Parliament.

The democratic Western world should demand that the Palestinians similarly tolerate a Jewish presence in their midst, instead of legitimizing murder of neighbors because they’re Jews.

And he's right, too.

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My Letter in the NYTimes Book Review

Here:-

To the Editor:

On the issue of America’s use of drone strikes, James Traub notes that Americans would be outraged if the Taliban “launched a Predator attack on the White House.” So why are equivalent American attacks O.K.? Because “we’re the good guys, of course.” He claims that this morality-based reaction “makes a mockery of both international law and moral philosophy.” What he fails to note is that, at least in this case, America would be reacting to an aggressive act of terror. America is responding, not initiating, and is doing so in places like Afghanistan.


YISRAEL MEDAD
Shiloh, West Bank

That "West Bank" was the NYTimes' version of geography.  Sorry.

And you can extrapolate to Israel as the next logical conclusion.

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Hillary, Pay Attention

In today's NYTimes:

A Demolition in Jerusalem

To the Editor:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has criticized as anti-peace the demolishing of part of the home of the wartime pro-Nazi Palestinian leader Haj Amin al-Husseini, which was legally bought by an American Jew, ahead of a recently announced plan to build residential units on the site in eastern Jerusalem (“Bulldozers Move In on East Jerusalem Landmark,” news article, Jan. 10).

But Mrs. Clinton’s criticism makes sense only on the untenable assumption that peace requires racist zoning laws that perversely prohibit Jews — and only Jews — from living in certain neighborhoods of their capital, Jerusalem. Such laws and practices would not be tolerated here, and they have no place in Jerusalem, irrespective of any future peace arrangements.

Morton A. Klein
National President
Zionist Organization of America

Do you think Hillary and her advisors grasp the deeper meaning of that?

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