Objecting, II

To the Editors of The Crimson:

While reading Jonathan Moses's article entitled, "A Solution For Israel", in The Crimson of January 20th, I was very distressed to find that a fellow Jew had fallen into the current media trap set by the Western press. Admittedly with constant photos of Israeli soldiers firing at seemingly harmless Palestinian children, it is hard to see the other side, yet I had hoped that the educated among us would not succumb to the unending, unfair, anti-Israel journalism of the past six weeks. To begin to understand the Israeli position, all we have to do is imagine what it must be like for an 18-year-old soldier to be surrounded by scores of Palestinians, throwing rocks meant to kill. It is very hard for me to understand why Moses feels "shame and guilt," rather than sadness about the situation in the West Bank and Gaza. I too feel "nauseous" when watching the news on television, not because of Israel's "immorality," however, but because of the injustice done to the Israeli perspective.

I find it particularly sickening that Moses compares the situation in Israel to that in South Africa. In the first place, if Israel was similar to South Africa, we would not be subjected to bias in the press, because the foreign press would be banned altogether. The Israeli army is controlling an occupation it never wanted. Arabs in democratic Israel are given equal citizenship and voting rights and Jews. Whereas the goal of Zionism is peace and equality with the Arabs, that of apartheid is suppression of an "inferior" race. Have the Afrikaaners been oppressive because there haven't been any legitimate Black leaders willing to negotiate with them? Is Moses comparing the ANC to the PLO or P.W. Botha to Yitzhak Shamir? Such analogies are not only false, but also absent-minded. In similar fashion, Moses writes that Europeans "colonized" the Jews on the "strip of desert," now known as Israel. Europe did not "colonize" Jews, it murdered them. The Jews "Colonized" themselves.

Moses goes on to state that "a solution to the situation on the West Bank must come from Israel, regardless of Arab intentions..." The fact is, that when the West Bank and Gaza were Jordanian and Egyptian hands, prior to 1967, the Arab refugees were kept in squalid camps, treated as animals by their own people, and used as expendables in implementing terrorist attacks against Israel. How can Israel disregard the intentions of those committed to its complete destruction?

The "peace" solution posed by Moses is seriously flawed. Israel cannot withdraw from the entire West Bank, as the area constitutes 75 percent of the country's width. Without it, Israel would be less than six miles wide in some areas, an obvious threat to national security. The move to have Jerusalem be a buffer zone is also questionable. Should the Holy City be used as a peace-keeping, U.N.-controlled territory? The United Nations already regards Jerusalem as an international city, and the U.S. Embassy is located in Tel Aviv. Moses's plan seems to rid Israel of internal strife by reducing the size of the country by one-third. Palestinians under Arab rule are not given jobs or an education, as they are under Israeli occupation today. A Palestinian state would not be able to support itself from within and would become a puppet for terrorist factions.

I am not saying that a peaceful settlement is not necessary. To the contrary, negotiations over Gaza and the West Bank are long overdue. Yet the position held by Moses is seriously flawed. It is very distressing to see people with media-formed, skewed interpretations of the events in Israel. Perhaps Moses should stop feeling guilty, and start educating himself on the facts that the press so conveniently leave out. Glen Schwaber '91