The Journal News

February 6, 2003

To the Editor:

On February 6th, today you printed a letter, …Editorial excuses Israeli crimes from one Heather Gibbons. I decry her one-sided hate filled anti-Semitic diatribe. Israel is a democracy, recognizing the rights of all religions and races. It is a multicultural society that has welcomed and nurtured diversity. Has the writer forgotten the Ethiopian and Yemeni rescues and airlifts? Israel accepted the 1947 partition, wherein she was relegated to 17% of the original mandate that included both sides of the West Bank and Trans-Jordan. The Arabs rejected that partition and launched the 1948 war. Since that war infiltrating Arab brigands have murdered and terrorized countless numbers. From 1948 to 1967 the Kingdom of Jordan controlled the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where was statehood and independence for the so-called Palestinians? By the way the name Palestinian was the name for the Jews that lived in that section of the Middle East from Roman times until 1948. Even when the Barak Plan for statehood was offered to the Arafat government, they rejected it with this current wave of mindless brutal terrorism. No state can long endure attacks on its sovereignty. The Arabs rejected statehood for the West Bank because the price of that statehood would be a defacto and dejure recognition of Israel. They never really want to recognize Israel because it would have meant they really lost the 1948 war!