Here's a letter to the Editor of the Financial Times. It wasn't published. Grrrr
Dear Sir,
Your correspondent David Gardner may live in Beirut, but he dwells in
a very different world than mine. In his defamatory article on the
Israel-Palestionian peace talks (‘US plays the crooked lawyer in an
Israeli-Palestinian drama,’, April 4), he parades a host of assertions
that no sane observer of the situation would accept as factually
correct. But he makes things worse by his egregious complaint that
Benjamin Netanyahu is blocking the way to peace by refusing to release a
fourth batch of Palestinian prisoners currently serving life sentences
for committing brutal murders of innocent civilians, namely Jewish men,
women, and children.
Over the years, Israel has released hundreds of murderers with blood
on their hands, and the Palestinians have welcomed them home with loud
applause, as heroes and heroines. Do David Gardner and I even live in
the same moral universe? The Palestinian prisoners may suffer for their
heinous crimes, but is that unjust? For that matter, there are hundreds
of Israeli families who still suffer daily from the loss of husbands,
wives, brothers, sisters, and much-loved children. Will the Palestinians
put that right? Do they even care? Do they want peace or another chance
to fulfill their ambition of 66 years: to drive the Jews into the sea
and establish a Palestinian state, as they say every day, ‘from the
river to the sea.’ No more Israel, no more Jews, and badges of honour
for every miserable murderer in sight.
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Denis MacEoin
Senior Distinguished Scholar, the Gatestone Institute
4 comments:
Do you feel that the situation in the US, and particularly in academic, will end up as virulent as is currently the case in the UK?
I suppose the Palastinians just what their home back, hardly a crime in a post-colonial world.
It's already b ad in the States, and anti=Semitism and anti-Israelism on US campuj
ses is way more serious than in the UK.
Emer, it certainly isn't a crime, but what do you mean by wanting their home back? In 1947, the United Nations voted to establish two states, one Jewish and one Arab. The Arabs turned down the offer and lost their chance then to have a state of their own. After that, they launched wars and endless terror attacks against Israel, which was a legitimate state and a democracy. The Palestinians never had a state: before 1948, it was a British mandate territory, and before that the West Bank and Gaza belonged to Jordan and Egypt, and before that it was just a province in the Ottoman empire. You can't go back in history and let anyone who wants to to take back whatever land they fancy. Modern Muslims hanker for Spain, Portugal, southern France, southern Italy, Sicily, and many other territories. Should they just have them? Of course not. International law just doesn't work that way. If they make peace and give Israel secure borders, the Palestinians can have state and enjoy it and make it prosperous if they can. But to do that, they have to give up their demand to have everything and to expel or kill all Jews living in Israel. That is not how things are done in the civilized world, and it is up to the Palestinians whether they join that world or not.
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