It's standard operating procedure for the Israel-bashers: come up with some of the reprehensible actions of the Palestinian Arabs or other enemies of Israel and falsely accuse Israel of them.
This was done in a letter, included here, published by The Danbury News-Times April 29. The writer accuses Israel, which offered the Palestinian Arabs far more than they could ever reasonably have hoped for (of course, reason has never been a characteristic of Israel's enemies) of not bargaining fairly!
The letter is followed by some comments, to which some may wish to add.
This was done in a letter, included here, published by The Danbury News-Times April 29. The writer accuses Israel, which offered the Palestinian Arabs far more than they could ever reasonably have hoped for (of course, reason has never been a characteristic of Israel's enemies) of not bargaining fairly!
The letter is followed by some comments, to which some may wish to add.
Force Israel to bargain fairly
Since 1967, despite continuous protests from America, Israel has built settlements with 470,000 residents on occupied territory, making it increasingly difficult to create a viable Palestinian state. The current government does not want a two-state solution, thereby killing the peace process.
There could have been peace decades ago if America had pressured Israel to bargain fairly with the Palestinians, but we always protected Israel, defending their actions even though the U.N. condemned them. This has caused great harm to the Palestinians, to America's position in the world and to Israel, which would have benefited from peace.
More recently we supported their invasions of Lebanon and Gaza, where their army deliberately targeted civilians in the mistaken belief that Hezbulah and Hamas would be weakened instead of the opposite which happened. Despite our objection to the embargo in Gaza, where 20 to 50 per cent of children suffer from malnutrition, it still continues. We have done nothing further and are complicit.
This is the country that long ago stole vital military secrets from America, and later traded them to the Soviet Union in exchange for Jewish refugees from Russia. It is time that America rescued Israel from its stupidity and forced it to bargain fairly. If they refuse, our commitment to democracy demands that we withdraw all our support.
William A. Estlick
Roxbury
Estlick: "Since 1967, despite continuous protests from America, Israel has built settlements with 470,000 residents on occupied territory"
Comment: The territory in Judea and Samaria is disputed, not occupied and the figure used apparently includes Jewish residents not only in disputed portions of Judea and Samaria but in Israel's capital city of Jerusalem.
Estlick: "making it increasingly difficult to create a viable Palestinian state."
Comment: The presence of a few hundred thousand Jews in disputed territory, most of which will be incorporated into Israel under any conceivable agreement, no more precludes the establishment of another Palestinian Arab state than the presence of more than a million Arabs within its borders precludes the existence of Israel.
Estlick: "The current government does not want a two-state solution, thereby killing the peace process."
Comment: The current chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is also the leader of the PLO and Fatah, both of which continue to call for the elimination of Israel. It is the unwillingness of the Paletinian Arabs and their leadership to agree to any reasonable compromise not entailing the destruction of Israel that has destroyed the so-called peace process.
There is no more reason for Israel's leaders to be Palestinian Arab nationalists than there is for the Arab leaders to be Zionists.
Estlick: "There could have been peace decades ago if America had pressured Israel to bargain fairly with the Palestinians, but we always protected Israel, defending their actions even though the U.N. condemned them. This has caused great harm to the Palestinians, to America's position in the world and to Israel, which would have benefited from peace."
Comment: As is typical, the writer accuses Israel of that which its enemies are guilty.
Far from not bargaining fairly, Israel has been incredibly willing to compromise. In 2000, it offered to give the Palestinian Arabs not only all of Gaza and virtually all of Judea and Samaria, but even offered to give away substantial portions of its own capital. The response of the Palestinian Arabs demonstrated that they had no interest in either fair bargaining or any compromise, even one heavily weighted in their favor. They not only rejected that offer, but launched a brutal terrorist offensive that destoyed any reasonable hopes for peace.
Estlick: "More recently we supported their invasions of Lebanon and Gaza, where their army deliberately targeted civilians in the mistaken belief that Hezbulah and Hamas would be weakened instead of the opposite which happened.
Comment: More false accusations.
Israel made tremendous efforts to avoid harming civilians even while Hezbollah and Hamas used civilians as shields.
Estlick: "Despite our objection to the embargo in Gaza, where 20 to 50 per cent of children suffer from malnutrition, it still continues. We have done nothing further and are complicit."
Comment: This is the height of hypocrisy. The Arab League has maintained a boycott of Israel for more than six decades, a boycott aimed at destroying Israel.
Gaza is controlled by a terrorist organization which is pledged to destroy Israel. No country has an obligation to freely trade with a de facto state which is attacking it. Despite that, and the fact that Gaza also shares a border with Egypt through which it could import goods, Israel itself has transferred massive amounts of humanitarian assistance to Gaza, to the very people launching rockets at Israeli civilians in Sderot, Ashkelon, Beer Sheva and other Israeli cities, towns and kibbutzim.
Israel has continued to transfer assistance to Gaza even though Hamas and other terrorist groups have repeated attacked the crossing through which the assistance goes, sometimes murdering the very people transferring aid to the Arabs in Gaza.
Estlick: "This is the country that long ago stole vital military secrets from America, and later traded them to the Soviet Union in exchange for Jewish refugees from Russia."
Comment: This is simply fantasy with no basis in reality.
Estlick: "It is time that America rescued Israel from its stupidity and forced it to bargain fairly. If they refuse, our commitment to democracy demands that we withdraw all our support."
Comment: The lengths to which Israel has gone to induce its enemies to make peace has been amply demonstrated. Our failure has been in not effectively pressuring the Palestinian Arabs to bargain in good faith.
At its heart, the Arab-Israeli conflict results from the unwillingness of the Arab states and the Palestinian Arabs to accept a free, Western-oriented democracy, which also happens to be a Jewish state, within the overwhelmingly Arab and Muslim Middle East. Israel, while battling for its own survival, is also battling for Western civilization. We abandon Israel at our own peril.
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