Ex-envoy distorts the facts
To make a political case, Ilan Baruch (“Sigmar Gabriel is right,” Comment & Features, January 9) seriously distorts facts. He maintains that the Palestinian Arabs in Judea and Samaria live in conditions “reminiscent of apartheid.”
Apartheid is a libelous buzzword used by those seeking to delegitimize Israel. In South Africa, it was a system of severe racial segregation that mandated total separation of the races, with blacks treated repressively. Israel is dealing with a political situation of an entirely different order. Israeli Arabs move freely within society, are treated in the same hospitals, eat in the same restaurants, etc.
Baruch writes: “Israelis participate in parliamentary elections. For 50 years and counting, those Palestinians [in Judea and Samaria] have been denied the right to vote.” Is he truly unaware that the Palestinian Authority, which has considerable autonomy, has held parliamentary elections?
Baruch fails to mention opportunities the Palestinian Arabs have had to establish their own state: Yasser Arafat and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, respectively, rejected very credible offers made by then-prime minister Ehud Barak in 2000 and then-prime minister Ehud Olmert in 2008. He would hold Israel responsible for the situation of the Palestinian Arabs rather than holding them accountable. Arafat and Abbas rejected the offers because they called for a declared end to the conflict, and they would not sign off on this. That is the heart of the matter.
An honest inquiry exposes the fact that the Palestinian Arabs do not want a two-state solution – they want it all.
What Baruch also chooses not to mention are the thousands of innocent Israelis who have been slaughtered by Palestinian Arab terrorists and how security issues affect Israeli policy. The cold hard fact – well documented – is that during times when the Palestinian Arabs have been granted the most freedom of movement and the greatest cause for political hope, their terrorism has increased.
The Palestinian Arabs would like a state granted to them by the international community without the need for bothersome negotiations, which require concessions. It is people such as Ilan Baruch who promote this. ARLENE KUSHNER Jerusalem
The writer is an author, journalist, blogger and co-chair of the Legal Grounds Campaign, a group promoting Israel’s rights in Judea and Samaria.
I was shocked to see you publish Ilan Baruch, a former Israeli ambassador to South Africa, branding the country he represented as an apartheid state. Within a week of the Knesset barring foreign excoriators, it is sad to see that we have so much to clean up right here “within the family.”
The ex-ambassador has proudly blogged that he “breathed a sigh of relief” upon leaving the Foreign Ministry. One hopes he has similarly disavowed his Foreign Ministry pension.
How can we complain about EU countries funding BDS when people like this are defaming Israel on the Israeli taxpayer’s dime? ZALMI UNSDORFER London