Israel

To the Editors of the Crimson:

Despite Noam Cohen's sage advice to avoid criticizing rabbis, ("Issues of the Day" Sept. 26, 1988), we feel compelled to respond to a letter written by Harvard-Radcliffe Rabbis Ben-Zion Gold, Avi Weinstein, and Sally Finestone appearing in the same day's Crimson.

The rabbis misrepresent, distort and selectively omit important pieces of the contemporary Israeli-Palestinian picture. Namely, they claim that Palestinians have refused to negotiate with Israel and that they are committeed to the total destruction of Israel. According to them, these are "known facts" about Palestinians.

Reality, however is somewhat different. The Palestine Liberation Organization has repeatedly called for direct negotiations with Israel, articulated its adherence to all United Nations resolutions including 242 and 338, and stated its willingness to accept Israel's existence in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories. In January of this year, Yassir Arafat asserted that the PLO would "recognize Israel's right to exist if it and the United States accept PLO participation in an international Middle East Peace conference."

Israel, on the other hand, has consistently refused to negotiate with the PLO--which the rabbis concede is the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. On May, 8, 1988, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir insisted that "We will never part from Judea, Samaria and Gaza (the Occupied Teritories.)" This should come as little surprise from a man who, only five weeks earlier, likened Palestinians to "grasshoppers" whose heads will be "smashed against the boulders and walls" when they demonstrate for their right to self-determination.

The position of the main opposition party, Labor, is not fundamentally different. Labor's slogan in the 1984 election read: "NO: no return to the '67 borders, no removal of settlements, no negotiations with the PLO, no Palestinian state..." In March of this year, Labor leader Shimon Peres--commonly represented as the most "dovish" of Israeli leaders--unequivocally stated his absolute refusal to negotiate with the PLO: "I object completely to any dealings with the PLO."

This is not say that Israel has utterly ignored Palestinians. Far from it. Since December, the Israeli response to the national desires of Palestinans has been "force, power and blows," in the words of Israeli Defense Minister, Yitzhak Rabin.

In August, an Amnesty International report documented Israeli use of "indiscriminate and excessive" force against Paelstianians. Entitled "Israel and the Occupied Territories, Excessive Force: Beatings to Maintain Law and Order," the report details both the systemic nature and broad scale of Israeli violence against Palestinians. Hundreds have been killed by Israeli forces since December, when the Intifada, as the Palestian uprising is called, began, and thousands more have been brutally beaten, abused, incarcerated and humiliated.

A U.S. organization, Physicians for Human Rights, deplored the extreme physical violence Palestinians have suffered, in a report they published earlier this year. In it, they conclude: "Indeed the word 'beating' does not properly convey the literal pounding and mauling with clubs and other weapons required to produce the injuries we saw."

Of these grim facts, the rabbis' letter is thin in commentary. While there are no totally innocent victims in the tragic Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is Israel which dominates and oppresses the Palestinians, not the reverse. There is no possible justification for Israel's heinous actions, and the rabbis do a great disservice to all involved parties by obscuring and implicitly excusing them. Robert Weissman '88-'89   Jaron Bourke '88-'89