Misleading numbers

Sir, – In “Facing the music and dancing the dance” (Encountering Peace, July 25), Gershon Baskin relies on misleading numbers to advance a “peace” agenda divorced from reality.

As he has so often in the past, Baskin refers to Palestinian willingness to settle for only 22 percent of “the land between the river and the sea.” This artificial construct is meant to make the Palestinians appear as downtrodden victims willing to accept meager crumbs in the pursuit of peace.

Baskin ignores a more relevant 22%: Pre-1967 Israel was only 22% of the original British Mandate designated as the Jewish homeland. (The vast majority of the remainder is now Jordan, the first Palestinian state.) Even that was too much for our neighbors to tolerate. They attempted to destroy the Jewish state in 1948 and again in 1967.

The Arabs’ failure to achieve their goal has led them to ascribe legal and historical status to the “Green Line” that no party to the armistice ever contemplated.

Baskin also says that “70% of Israelis... want Israel to make peace with its neighbors.” No doubt the vast majority of us want a real peace. That does not mean, however, that we must support an agreement based on the pre-1967 “Auschwitz Lines” made with a Palestinian leader who lacks legitimate political standing and cannot represent the 40% of Palestinians living in Gaza.

Show us an enforceable peace formula accepted by Palestinians and their leadership in all the disputed territories – one that will permanently recognize and guarantee our rightful existence in the land of our fathers – and we will celebrate in the streets. Until then, Baskin’s facile use of misleading numbers only obscures this critical discussion. EFRAIM A. COHEN

Zichron Ya’acov