last updated 12/14/2003

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Another letter on Israel, another response. I get loads of letters on Israel; almost as many as I get calling me Saddam and telling me to go back to Iraq. The subject of Israel certainly seems to raise people's tempers and cause them to press that "send" button. Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2003 1 From: leonard w. Subject: Israel article While your article on Israel and its creation and the current problem are generally factual you start from a point which supports your bias. You forget the fact that Jews have always lived in the area called Palestine and indead throught the middle east. The area was part of the Ottoman empire and there was never a Palestine until created after WWI by the league of nations. The balfour doctrine granted the Jews a homeland in "palestine" in about 1920. It was not just an idea born out of the holocaust. However, that ws the motive for the movement of large numbers of Jews to the area. Undeveloped land was purchased and settled and it was only after the Arabs attacked the state carved out by the U.N. that the refugee problem was created. Also that great American icon FDR refused to allow Jewish immigration to save victims because he feared a political backlash from antisemitic Americans. So even though you are forced to live among many Jews in New York think how uncomfortable you would be if there were another few million. Its alright to be proanything but the left always acuses the right of distorting the facts but I think that is another one of the left's big lies. You can say what you want but atleast get your favts straight before you try and argue your point. The trouble is those who are uninformed swollow the big lies really easily because they sound so convincing. Leonard W. Lenny, bubie, you need to work on your own distortions. Jews have lived in the area called Palestine for a long time, true, although not quite always. Certainly there has been a Jewish community longer than there has been an Arab community. However, since Roman times most Jews had left or been forced out, and the remaining community was quite small. For more than 1000 years the vast majority of the population was Arab. I think 1000+ years of occupation gives the Arabs some rights, just as most of the Jews being gone for almost 2000 years loses them most of their lease on the land. And if you're going to start talking in terms of 1000s of years, most peoples are going to have to get up and move from wherever they are (starting with most Americans). Why do people always make this big fuss about there being no country called Palestine in the 19th century? There was also no Czech Republic, Latvia, Albania, Finland, Yugoslavia, or Poland in the 19th century, to mention just a few. The fact there was no Palestine does not take away the rights of the Arabs who lived in the region we later called Palestine. Call it East Jordan if you prefer--or Fredonia--, the area is still the same and the majority of the population was Arab up until 1947. The Balfour Doctrine promised the Jews a homeland in 1917 (on land the British didn't happen to own at the time they made the promise, oops.). The Doctrine, however, said "homeland" not "country", and that was deliberate. It also said that the rights of the Arabs in the region should not be violated. And if you read my articles you'll see that I never said Zionism was an idea born out of the Holocaust; Zionism's roots go back well into the 19th century (well before the Balfour Declaration). The refugee problem was created by many things, but one of them was Jewish attacks on Arab villages. To deny this is to deny history. Something I'd think no Jew would ever want to do. FDR and the American authorities certainly catered to anti-Semitism. My grandmother used to tell me that she and her Jewish husband, my grandfather, faced more anti-Semitism in Long Island than they did in Germany. I think she exaggerated a bit, but anti-Semitism was certainly rampant. As for me, why would I mind a few million more Jews in New York or the US? You use the word "forced" as if I find the experience unpleasant. My family is part Jewish, my neighbors are Jewish, half my friends are Jewish, and I could go on. I live in New York fer crying out loud: if you're not Jewish, Italian, Irish, Jamaican, or Puerto Rican you feel kinda left out of the ethnic melting pot. We like diversity here in the Big Apple. My facts are quite straight, thank you. Yours are the ones that seem to stem from biases. But there is always time to correct that. As for left or right distorting facts, both factions do, and both factions accuse the other of doing the same. The Big Lie is that "my boys" got the only truth and "your side" are deluded fools. Smart people listen to all sides and don't follow any party line blindly. I am neither pro-Palestinian nor anti-Israel. I am pro-truth and anti-violence, and I think only through mutual acceptance of their different truths can Arab and Jew make peace in the Middle East. Pretending that it's the other side that has things all wrong only leads to more ugly violence. Shalom. Salaam. Peace.

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