Three good letters in today’s New York Times, responding to Tony Judt’s tendentious June 22 op-ed:
Israelis settled in the West Bank because it was deemed part of the historic home of the Jewish people and because the Arabs and the Palestinians rejected opportunities for peace with Israel after the Six-Day War in 1967. The territory in legal terms was undecided because the Palestinians from 1947 rejected the United Nations resolution dividing the land into Arab and Jewish states.
Saying — as Mr. Judt does — that Israel will never give up the settlements ignores the fact that former Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to dismantle 80 percent of the settlements at Camp David; that his successor, Ariel Sharon, dismantled all of the settlements in Gaza; and that Israeli leaders have repeatedly indicated that most of the settlements will go if there is peace, and those held will be part of a swap for Israeli territory.
Settlements are not an obstacle to peace if there is serious peacemaking, peace-teaching and compromise from the other side. As for fictions — as Mr. Judt has made clear in his writings, his problem is not with Israeli settlements, but with
Abraham H. Foxman
National Director
Anti-Defamation League
Tony Judt misleads in many ways, among them by implying that the West Bank was captured by Israel in 1967 from some Palestinian country and not Jordan (which does not seek its return), and contending that Yigal Amir was inspired to assassinate Yitzhak Rabin by “rabbinical” influence at Bar-Ilan University (Mr. Amir has stated clearly otherwise).
Most egregious, though, is Mr. Judt’s amazing objection to demilitarizing any Palestinian state established in the
(Rabbi) Avi Shafran
Director of Public Affairs
Agudath
Tony Judt didn’t answer my most basic question: Why does a future Palestinian state have to be free of Jews? If Arabs can live in
By refusing to answer this question, he and all the proponents of a settlement freeze turn the settlement argument into a facade. Because if the settlements don’t have to be removed, then why waste time arguing about what is a settlement, where are the boundaries, what is natural growth?
Making Jews, and only Jews, leave their homes is ethnic cleansing. Isn’t this exactly what
Jonathan D. Reich
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