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All Human Life Is Sacred
By Marvin Peyser, Torrington
The anti-Israel letter writers (or would it be more appropriate to say "anti-Semitic"—sometimes the distinction is quite blurry) are out in force again with the usual disinformation, non sequiturs, and half-truths. I've also noted with satisfaction that some of the attacks are against me personally, impugning my loyalty to this country. Fellows, you know nothing about me, but that doesn't seem to stop you from making baseless accusations. You're upset that I've written letters supporting Israel in its fight against terror. The reason that I've done so is because anti-Israel letters seldom stick to the facts. No matter how many times it is pointed out, for example, that many of our pro-Israel senators come from states with a totally insignificant number of Jewish voters, we keep reading that these senators support Israel because of the Jewish vote.
Let’s take the so-called "brutal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land" as another example. We hear this all the time, everywhere. If you look at the facts, though, another picture emerges. When the British mandate ended in 1948 Egypt and Jordan (and three other nations) ignored the UN partition plan and immediately invaded. Egypt was ultimately defeated but did occupy and annex the Gaza Strip. Jordan was not defeated, however. Jordanian forces were victorious and conquered and annexed the entire West Bank. The Jordanians celebrated their victory by expelling all Jews from the West Bank and desecrating synagogues and the Mount of Olives cemetery. Jordan controlled the West Bank until they attacked Israel in 1967, and never once in that time did the Palestinians ask their fellow Arab rulers to form a separate Palestinian state. In 1964 the PLO was formed for the express purpose of destroying Israel.
When the Jordanian attack in 1967 proved to be a disastrous decision, the victorious Israelis found the West Bank to be in a deplorable state. The Israeli response was to pave roads, build sewers, bring in electricity and water lines, etc. The Israelis either built or helped build schools and a university system that actually made the Palestinians the best educated in the entire Arab world. Hospitals were built and the medical system was upgraded so that the Palestinians also became the healthiest of all the Arabs, with an unbelievably low infant-mortality rate, almost identical to the Israeli rate. This is the so-called "brutal occupation." Under Israel rule the Palestinian press was free and freedom of speech was the rule (a rare occurrence in the Arab world). The Arabs repaid all this with terror and the Intifada.
In 2000, before the current uprising, the Palestinian Authority (not Israel) controlled 95% of the Palestinian people. (How about that fact, Mr. LeHoskey. You wrote that "Over the years, Israel has occupied more and more territory inhabited by Palestinians." [More Reasons to Vote, June 14] The truth is that the correct statement should have been "less and less territory." Are you paying attention, Mr. LeHoskey, or is this simply being ignored?) The Clinton-Barak offer (at Taba) would have given the Palestinians their own state, with their capital in East Jerusalem, continuous borders, most of the settlements removed, and compensation for the few that remained by the transfer of additional Israeli land to the Palestinian Authority. Yasser Arafat walked away from this, and now everything has changed for the worse. Terror and suicide bombs have become the order of the day, and life is miserable for the Palestinian people.
Mr. William Carlotti [Palestine and the Covered Wagons, August 9] accuses me of a lack of a "modicum of humanity" toward the Palestinians, which is a ridiculous and disturbing insinuation. I might just as well accuse him of a lack of a modicum of humanity towards the Israeli victims of Palestinian terror bombs, as in all his voluminous writing on Mideast subjects, he has never once indicated any sign of sympathy towards the murdered Israeli victims. About 1988 (I don't recall the exact date) I was interviewed on local WSNG radio about the first Intifada, then in full swing. My whole radio talk was about my compassion for the Palestinians, and the hope that they would stop needlessly sacrificing themselves and commit themselves to peaceful negotiation. I said then, and still do, that human life is sacred—all human life, both Israeli and Palestinian—and I expressed the hope then, and still do, that the bloodshed will come to a quick halt.
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