Baskin’s views

In “The authority of the Authority” (Encountering Peace, January 5), Gershon Baskin describes the Palestinian Authority in glowing terms.

Amazingly, he leaves out the following: incitement against Jews, terror attacks, support for incarcerated terrorists, undermining Israel at the UN, a lack of free and democratic elections, no apparent heir, low-paying jobs, a lack of free press and free speech, the removal of Salaam Fayad as prime minister, complete control of PA money by President Mahmoud Abbas and his cohorts, and deep-rooted corruption from enriching his sons. MATIAS ROTENBERG

Petah Tikva

In response to Gershon Baskin’s “The state of denial” (Encountering Peace, December 29), the denial Baskin refers to is the Israeli refusal over the years to acknowledge that settlements have been “established illegally on Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.”

Judea and Samaria have never been Palestinian land. Only in 1947, when the UN partitioned what remained of the British Mandate, could it possibly have been regarded as such. But the Palestinians clearly and emphatically had no interest in taking control of the land offered if it required recognition of a Jewish state. Together with the armies of five Arab nations, they attacked the nascent Israeli state with the intention of driving all Jews out of the area.

This leaves Article 80 of the League of Nations as the only legally binding and relevant document relating to the area, which, in view of the 3,000 year association with the land, designated it a homeland for the Jewish people.

It is people like Gershon Baskin who are in a state of denial – denial of the truth of our history; denial of the intransigence, rejectionism and incitement of the Palestinians; denial of the truth that but for their refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own, the Palestinians could today be living in their own state, in freedom and independence. BARBARA BROWN

Netanya