Censored by The Jewish Voice and Herald--Rhode Island

March 13, 2007
Dear Editor:
Re “Refresher on Israeli history for President Carter,” and “Carter, history and the Jew,” (Opinion and Editorial, February 2), both critiques of former President Jimmy Carter’s book, Palestine, Peace Not Apartheid. Yehuda Lev states, “Israel has committed its share of errors in this conflict and also has much to answer for. He continues, “Israelis learned a bitter lesson in Gaza, when after evacuating all Jewish settlements in the Strip, they discovered that it led only to intensified shelling of Jewish communities in Israel proper.”

The United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Israel’s own human rights organization B’Tselem have all commented about Israel’s behavior in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip. B’Tselem observed, as reported in Norman G. Finkelstein’s book Beyond Chutzpah On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History (2005) that, “What renders Israel’s abuses unique throughout the world is the relentless efforts to justify what cannot be justified.” Finkelstein goes on to quote former New York Times reporter Chris Hedges, reflecting on his observations from the Gaza Strip that, “I had seen children shot in other conflicts I have covered…but I had never watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport.” Also quoted in Beyond Chutzpah is Amnesty International’s report that states since the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, Israel “routinely tortured Palestinian political suspects.”

These actions on the part of the Israeli government are not “errors,” but rather the well-documented dehumanization of Palestinians that have continued since the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank began in 1967. The abuses have included the bulldozing of homes in the West Bank and Gaza, denial of access to water, lack of medical facilities for Palestinians, greatly diminished opportunities for Palestinians to work in Israel proper, the establishment of Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory, and the construction of a wall that cuts through territory occupied by Palestinians in the West Bank. While Israel has suffered the horrific actions of suicide bombers, the death toll of the second Intifada has been one Israeli killed for every three Palestinians who have met the same fate. These topics are hotly argued in Israel, as part of democratic discourse, however, the Israel lobby in the U.S. has bristled at any rational discussion of Israeli policy toward the Palestinian people and the vicious reaction at the publication of Jimmy Carter’s new book was hardly unexpected. There is an obvious disconnect in the U.S. within some segments of the Jewish community in being able to reasonably discuss Israeli democracy on the one hand, and the taboo of discussing Israel’s very different and unacceptable treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In Shein’s opinion piece, he concludes, “Few in Jewish history have stood with us when we—alone—faced a world arrayed against us, lusting for our downfall or even death.” Thankfully, anti-Semitism is generally a relic of the past in the U.S., and collectively we make up the religious group with the highest income in this country, and usually live lives free of fear. While there exist pockets of
anti-Semitism in the larger world, Jews worldwide have generally been able to live lives free of the horrors of Germany of the 1930s and 1940s. This writer wonders how much contemporary anti-Semitism is fueled by Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Anti-Semitism is wrong anywhere, just as is discrimination against Palestinians!

In Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip it is long, long past due for a reasonable approach to the settlement of this seemingly endless dispute. All parties need to renounce violence against one another and stop the heinous dehumanization that is so antithetical to the Jewish tradition of peace and rational discourse. Painting Jimmy Carter, a fine president and tireless worker for peace, in libelous and slanderous terms will do nothing to bring about peace in the Middle East! Accusing American Jews who criticize Israel as being self-hating, disloyal and anti-Semitic does nothing but diminish Judaism in perhaps irrevocable ways.
Sincerely,
Howard Lisnoff