Skewed message on terror in Israel

Re From Israel: lessons on living with terror,

Insight July 23 This article implies that Palestinians are a constant source of terrorism. Of course, some Palestinians have committed horrific acts. But they did not terrorize thousands of Israelis to flee their homes in 1948 and 1967 and then obliterate their villages. Nor have they systematically bulldozed thousands of Israeli olive groves to clear the land for Palestinian settlements. They have not used Palestinian armed forces to assist in removing Israelis from their homes in East Jerusalem and Hebron so that they can be occupied by their own people.

And they have not built a wall through Israeli villages and separated people from their families and fields; they have not made Israeli freedom of movement virtually impossible; and they have not killed over a thousand civilians using excessive force in response to homemade rockets.

Palestinian terrorism is spasmodic and local. Israeli terrorism is constant and all pervasive. Israel is not calm. It is trigger happy. Fundamentally, Israel is the source of its own fear. Israel offers no solution, only despair. Mervyn Russell, Oakville New York Times writers Isabel Kershner and James Glanz, and possibly the Star, may consider Jerusalem part of Israel, but the only nation in the world that regards it as such is Israel itself. No other country, including Canada, recognizes Israel’s annexation.

UN General Assembly Resolution 181 recommended borders that would create separate Jewish and Arab states in what had been the League of Nations Palestine Mandate. The resolution, however, retained UN sovereignty over Jerusalem as a “corpus separatum” — separate body. The UN has never surrendered that sovereignty.

Israel may keep its boot on the Arab neck into perpetuity, but it won’t bring them genuine peace. For that, they will have to cut a deal that is acceptable to the majority of Palestinian Arabs.

Part of that deal will include sharing Jerusalem as a capital. Robert Elgee, Toronto