Double Standard for Israel

Here's a letter to the editor I sent to the Washington Post in response to this article about Mitt Romney's comments about Palestinian culture. I will update if it is published.

 Double Standards for Israel

Reading Marc A. Thiessen’s August 1^st article “There was no Romney gaffe in Israel” begs the question: would Mr. Thiessen support the same standards he applies to Palestinians if they were applied to Israel?

For example, Thiessen justifies Israel’s blockade, which has been estimated to cost Gaza’s economy $2 billion a year [1], and Israel’s illegal trade restrictions in the West Bank by referring to the “culture of terrorism that permeates the Palestinian territories.” Conspicuously absent from Thiessen’s account is any mention Israel’s “culture of terrorism” or their heavily militarized culture and how this may have affected their society.

This absence is particularly striking when one considers the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem estimate that 6,000 Palestinians have been killed since the year 2000, , which is 5,000 more causalities than Israel has experienced during the same period [2].

With this in mind, if, as Thiessen suggests, Palestinian terrorism justifies Israel’s blockade, restriction and occupation of Palestinian territory, do Palestinians have the right to apply the same policies to Israel?

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1. "Israeli occupation hitting Palestinian economy, claims report,” Harriet Sherwood, The Guardian,September 29, 2011. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/29/israeli-occupation-hits-palestinian-economy)

2. http://old.btselem.org/statistics/english/Casualties.asp

Jerusalem Post Letter to the Editor

Surprisingly  I had a letter to the editor published by the Jerusalem Post.  I wrote it in response to this Alan Dershowitz article about Alice Walker's decision to not have The Color Purple published by an Israeli firm. The letter (you'll have to scroll down to read it) was edited quite a bit and I am afraid it sounds a bit weak. If I knew that it would be published, I would have said a lot more about the brutal occupation of Palestine, but then it probably wouldn't have been published. Catch-22... Anyway, you can read it below. 

Sir, – It is clear that Alice Walker’s decision to not have The Color Purple published by an Israeli firm was not motivated by bigotry. Instead, she is preventing a publishing company, which she feels benefits from the brutal treatment of the Palestinian people in the occupied territories, from profiting from her book. In fact, there is already a Hebrew translation of her novel, just not one sold by an Israeli publisher.

If Alan Dershowitz were to prevent one of his books from being published by a Palestinian or Iranian publisher because of a desire to not support the regimes there, I think it would be unfair to accuse him of bigotry against the Palestinian or Persian people. It is the same case with Walker.

There's Another Side to Blockade's Impact

Here's another letter to the editor I had published in The Lowell Sun (original link). I'm responding to some points made in this letter.

The author of the letter to the editor -- "Israel's actions to defend blockade justified (The Sun, June14)" -- makes some interesting and compelling arguments about the free Gaza flotilla attack and Israel's policies. Unfortunately, I fear it also reflects some misconceptions.

The author is quite right when saying nobody can enter sovereign territory of an independent state without its permission. However, the flotilla was not trying to enter Israel; it was trying to enter the Gaza strip, which is, according to the U.N., occupied territory. If one considers the blockade of Gaza illegitimate (as Amnesty International and Oxfam among others do), then the flotilla had all the right in the world to breach it.

The author also makes the point "the blockade is against Hamas terrorists, not against people of Gaza." The blockade was indeed put into place after Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza strip from Fatah in 2007. Unfortunately the blockade affects the 1.5 million people in Gaza much more than it affects Hamas. Numerous human rights reports, including the U.N.'s Goldstone report, have enumerated the harmful effect the blockade has had on the people of Gaza.

Responding to a point about United States military aid to Israel, the author rhetorically asks, "So Israel can't use weapons to protect its own border?" Israel certainly does have a right to self-defense against aggression, but when anywhere from 295 (according to the Israel Defense Force) to 926 civilians (according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights) were killed during Operation Cast Lead by arms largely supplied by the United States, I believe it necessary to question the policy. Palestinian civilians do not deserve to be punished for the crimes of their government any more than Israeli civilians deserve to be published for the crimes of theirs.

The author makes some very good points. This is an important issue, and it is good to know that others are actively engaged in it.