Debate not done yet!

[Re: “Enough with the Israel debate,” Letters, Sept. 3] Claiming he has had “enough” with the constant “Israel-Palestine squabbling” in the Mirror (or is it just the dismantling of Zionist myths he objects to?), letter writer “Jack” reminds us that Israel’s entertainment weeklies are not full of articles and letters about our “language bickering in Quebec.”

True. Though I suspect you might find a word or two if a self-declared “Christian state” of Quebec regularly demolished Jewish homes in Côte-St-Luc and Hampstead to make room for Christians from Peru to New Zealand as a remedy for the Jewish “demographic threat.”

>>Shirley Groves

[Re: “Rewriting history,” Damn right, Sept. 3] Again, we have the periodic rant against the only country on Earth deserving of one by Scott Saxon. He bemoans the fact that the Israeli government has forced Israeli Arab educational authorities to cease referring to Israeli independence as “al-Naqba,” the catastrophe. Note, they can say what they want about what happened and their opinion on it. They just can’t teach the term.

So I guess the Canadian government should sit by and do nothing if, say, Quebec’s curriculum taught that July 1, 1867 was La journée nationale de la catastrophe, and do that while the feds paid the bill.

Of course, there is no problem with Palestinian (as opposed to Israeli Arab) texts never referring to Israel as a country and teaching that Jews (not Israelis) are the sons of pigs and monkeys.

Well, while we’re enjoying all this humour, we can read in Sweden that Israeli soldiers are killing Palestinians to harvest their organs. From Spain, you can get comments on the Holocaust from “noted World War II expert” David Irving. (He served time in Germany for Holocaust denial after admitting that some of his opinions may be wrong in an attempt to reduce the sentence.) But you will have to search much harder to find the following items of good news.

The Palestinians now have an effective and non-corrupt National Security Force trained in Jordan. They actually catch terrorists before they strike. As a result of this, in the last few months, Israel has pulled most of its troops out of major West Bank cities and eliminated two thirds of the checkpoints there. This has led to considerable improvement in West Bank commerce.

Nice to get some good news, eh? And you read it right here in the Mirror!

>>Ken Frankel

[Re: “Re-re-explaining Israel,” Letters, Aug. 13] Barry Merson’s letter is a cogent and level-headed representation of his Zionism, but I do have to take issue with his use of the concept of “legitimate ownership” as it pertains to Israel. Historically, Palestine/Israel has never been without Jewish inhabitants and is indeed the site of the ancient nation of Israel. This does not mean, however, that the creation of the modern state can be considered as legitimate restitution for the many grave crimes committed against Jews throughout the millennium. This is due to the simple fact that Palestinians are not Romans, European anti-Semites, or Nazis. They had inhabited their lands for a very long time before 1947.

Obviously, that particular historical moment made urgent the need of restitution to the Jews of the world, but the insistence that Israel must adhere to biblical borders is dangerous millenarianism. Sadly, the right of return for Palestinians seems largely unachievable. But can Israel not cease the continuing theft of Palestinian property within its own borders?

The “right of inheritance” you claim is problematic, to say the least. The enduring presence of Arab Israelis flouts the fallacy of claiming Israel as God-granted territory. Are they not also ancient inhabitants with their own “right of inheritance” and their own sacred lands?

>>Peter MacRaild

Whether it’s Mr. Frankel, Gutman, Merson or Binder, or Irwin Cotler, Allan Dershowitz or William Kristol, one thing Zionist Jews will never do is be honest. No matter what we say, they can only resort to diverting the subject, crying about Israel being singled out, parroting the “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East” line, calling people anti-Semites and resorting to outright lies.

The question is after all, quite simple. Why is it okay for Israeli Jews—let’s be clear about this, it is not simply “Israelis” as Israeli Arabs should not be included here—to confiscate land where people have been living for generations, kill its innocent inhabitants, demolish their homes, steal their natural resources, continue an occupation that contravenes the UN charter, the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hague Resolutions and decisions of the International Court of Justice? Why is it okay for Israeli Jews to commit these crimes?

I, of course, am not expecting an honest answer, because Zionist Jews are incapable of answering honestly. What honest answer can possibly defend war crimes and crimes against humanity? The truth about Israel is finally spreading outside our controlled mass media. Despite this, with their continued support for crimes that have been perpetrated for over 60 years, Zionist Jews demonstrate that what they are capable of is a total, and quite evil, absence of any sense of humanity.

>>Aaron Levy

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