Don’t criticize from U.S.
“AJC’s Bayme: Settlements impair two-state solution” (March 2) left me with many questions and an unsettled feeling (no pun intended).
How can a person living in the safety and comfort of the United States advocate a policy for the Israeli government that could ultimately jeopardize Israeli lives? If Bayme really wishes to have a say in Israeli policy, I suggest that he make aliyah and vote in the next election.
The article notes that during his lecture, Bayme reviewed Israeli history since its “recapture” of the West Bank in the Six Day War in 1967. The use of the word “recapture” is misleading and factually wrong. Israel never controlled the West Bank prior to the Six Day War. Israel captured this territory from Jordan.
Bayme focuses on the settlements as stumbling blocks to peace rather than Palestinian incitement, terrorism, and inflexibility. Peace is possible only when Palestinian officials condemn terrorism, rather than celebrate it, and become serious in seeking a peaceful solution to the ongoing conflict.
Finally, it is time that Bayme, and those of his ilk, get over their Jewish guilt. Why does he say that it is essential for Israel to “keep the moral high ground”? What is the value of moral high ground when Israel is dealing with enemies who endorse terrorism and celebrate savagery perpetrated on innocent Israelis? Jews had the moral high ground during the Holocaust and what was the result? How many countries came to their aid? The moral high ground resulted in the death of my grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and six million innocent Jewish people.
Perhaps it is time to remember Rabbi Meir Kahane’s famous words, “I prefer a powerful and proud Jewish State that is hated by the entire world, rather than an Auschwitz that is loved by one and all.”
Joel Verstaendig
Plainview, N.Y.
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