Dear Ivan,
I have been reluctant to respond to your two e-mails because I make it a policy not to respond to articles forwarded to me without the sender's view with regard to the article. I do not consider it appropriate to ask me to spend time commenting on an article when the sender will not take the time to express his own view. I will make an exception in this case, but will not do so in the future.
The articles are quite different from each other. The Edinburgh U. letter is right on the mark. It makes it clear that it is not complaining about, "ordinary criticism of Israel" but rather "a hatred that permits itself no boundaries". There is no doubt that some of the attacks on Israel have their foundation in the virulence of anti-Semitism, and the letter points out that the 270 students who sponsored this attempted boycott chose Israel for its opprobrium when there are so many other states which aught to stand far in front of Israel for condemnation of its policies. Why Israel is a reasonable question and one cannot escape the suspicion that anti-Semitism lies at its root.
However, as the author states, fair criticism is another matter and Americans who with their taxes give more support to Israel than to any other country have more than enough right to such fair criticism and even to demand as a condition of such support that policies inimical to the interests of the US and even to the interests of Israel itself must be changed. In the long history of this relationship President Eisenhower called for sanctions in the UN when Israel along with England and France threatened to seize the Suez Canal.
Just as Americans have not only a right but a duty to criticize policies of the US that are immoral or simply ill advised, so Jews, with their special relationship to Israel have that same duty and right.
For Israel and its lobbies to claim that all criticism is founded in Anti-Semitism is ill advised, unsupported and an outrage. No, Israel is not an apartheid state, but if the policies of the settler movement and of Netanyahu are carried out it will become one, and while there is no discrimination against Arabs or Muslims in Israel proper, its unending occupation of Palestinians in their territories, who do not have the rights of Israelis, gives some credence to this charge.
Now, the diatribe attributed to Dennis Miller is another story. It actually was written by Larry Miller as long ago in 2002, and circulating on the Internet ever since. To say there are no Palestinians is to deny their humanity. Clearly it does not matter whether we call them Palestinians or by some other name. They are people who lived in Palestine for generations, and even centuries, long before the state of Israel was founded. The author says: "Before the Israelis won the land in the1967 war, Gaza was owned by Egypt, the West Bank was owned By Jordan, and there were no Palestinians." By that reasoning there were no Jews during the diaspora. The fact is, and facts can be unpleasant, that a Palestinian territory existed long before the area was occupied by the various states that occupied it. In 1922 the then League of Nations created The British Mandate for Palestine. this was only a few years after the British issued the The Balfour Declaration in 1917 which became the foundation for creating a modern Jewish homeland in, yes that's right, in Palestine.
But it doesn't matter what we call them. There are people living in the West Bank and they are not going to disappear. They will either be allowed to have their own country large enough and contiguous so as to be politically and economically viable, which means the '67 lines with modifications or be ejected, which amounts to ethnic cleansing, or will be incorporated into Israel without the right to vote, (an apartheid state) or they will be allowed to vote which would end the Jewish state.
Those are the choices!!! No amount of sophistry can change that.
As for terrorism, I don't think we should be too quick to condemn all terrorists. I was recently in Jerusalem and a sign on my hotel reminded me of what the Irgun, from which Likud sprang, did.
Whether such notice was given is in dispute.
The rest of that letter is simple pure hate mongering, and I will not dignify it by even responding.
Allen Schechtman, who had forwarded the Letter to the Editor of Edinburgh U and who I copied with my remarks, rejoined as follows:
I did not see the choice of a two state solution. Although Jordan usurped much of the Palestinian land and they keep tight control on them since they make up the vast majority of the population, (and slaughtered thousands of them) there still exists the hope and possibility of a two state solution. This assumes that the Palestinian state not be used as Gaza has been which is to destroy the infrastructure and industry left behind and turned into an armory and missile launching site. The mideast was carved up by Europe into a dozen countries. People were shifted, evicted renamed tribes were ignored etc. Yet one questions the legitimacy of those states. Only the tiny piece of land set aside for Jews where they had a continuous presence for 3000 years including during the diaspora was denied acceptance.
I replied:
Indeed that is what I have been talking about and urging all along. When I spoke about ethnic cleansing etc. I meant those were the only possible alternatives to a two state solution. See my extensive posts on my blog beginning with "Hostage Taking at Home and Expansionism Abroad" and the three posts following "Expansionism Abroad - Discussion" "Expansionism Abroad - Discussion II" and "Expansionism Abroad - Discussion III," all of which directly or indirectly seek a two state solution, but which express my fear that the Netanyahu government is not interested in a two state solution, or at least not one that would give the Palestinians a viable economic entity. The desire under all sorts of smoke screens, appears to be to expand settlements indefinitely and to shrink any possible future Palestinians state into a tiny canton which would not be viable either economically or politically. The Israeli settler movement appears to have gained ascendency and is now the primary force propelling Netanyahu policy.
And it is not true that the piece of land set aside for Jews was denied acceptance. It was created by UN mandate and is recognized by most countries of the world, including Egypt and Jordan. One does not have to be anti-Israel to have the humanity to be concerned about the Palestinians, not only in Palestine, but in their diaspora.
What I am urging is what has been US policy for decades and what has recently been reiterated by our President. This is the only way to a two
state solution.
I question your comments on Gaza but that would take too long to fully address.
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