Check your research

Letters

Editor: I refer to the letter of "clarification" from Leonard Angel May 2 wherein, in response to your editorial April 25 on the lecture Love, Law and Peace in Israel/Palestine, where you advised readers to "learn, think and then speak," he claims that he has now learnt and is speaking as your editorial advised.

From his letter, I am afraid that his learning and thinking appears to have been stunted. He has seen fit to lump the Israeli government together with Hamas and other Palestinian groups, whom he claims have been collectively behaving illegally and criminally for a long time. Really?

In the first instance, the state of Israel was brought into existence legally by UN resolution 181 in November 1947 and put into effect on May 14, 1948. Ever since then, successive Israeli governments have had to ward off determined attempts by her Arab neighbors to destroy her. History books will show that when moderate leaders arose such as in Egypt and Jordan, Israel was more than willing to conclude peace agreements with them. This was achieved. However, the intention of the Palestinian groups that your correspondent talks about with such fervor, is to create a Palestinian state from "the river to the sea" and they have repeatedly stated that their barbaric attacks on Israel will continue until this has been achieved.

The first major attack on Jewish settlers took place in Hebron in 1929 when Arab militants, exhorted by the Mufti of Jerusalem, murdered 67 defenceless people and this cycle of violence has continued unabated ever since. It never ceases to amaze me how the media, politicians and anti-Israel lobbyists always try to equate what is, in effect, Israeli retaliation, with Arab belligerence.

The Israeli incursion into Jenin last year, as one classic example, is seen as something seperate from the horrendous suicide bombing in the Park Hotel in Netanya during the first seder a week earlier. The UN pressed to send a commission to investigate the Jenin incident, but never a word about the Park Hotel massacre and many others before it! Israeli retaliatory action cannot be parallelled with Arab atrocities in the form of the suicide bombers who are aimed specifically at civilians.

A golden opportunity for the parties to achieve a peace agreement arose in 1967 following the Six Day War, but this was rebuffed by the Arabs. Similarly, another great opportunity was turned down by Yasser Arafat at Camp David in September 2000 and, since then, Arab and Jewish blood has flowed more strongly than ever.

Finally, there appears to be a lot of woolly thinking regarding the status of the West Bank and the use of the word "occupier." The correct term for this area should be "disputed" and not "occupied." Previous to the war in 1948, this territory was under British administration but was annexed by Jordan when the British left without a Palestinian state having been created in 1948, as called for by the UN resolution referred to earlier. The British had themselves wrested the territory from the Turks in 1917 after the Turks had ruled the area for approximately 750 years. There has never been a Palestinian state in this area ruled by Palestinians. In fact the term "Palestinian" only came into regular use following the 1967 war that Israel fought with Egypt, Jordan and Syria. The upshot of all this is that the Geneva Convention of 1949 cannot apply, as the area in question was the happy hunting ground of the superpowers and no resident Arab government ever existed in this area.

I trust that Mr. Angel will put further effort into this matter before applying pen to paper. To the dictum of learn, think and then speak, I would like to add one additional word, "research."

Abe Katz
North Vancouver

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