By Gary P. Ratner executive director, Western Region
As the executive director of the only national Jewish organization with an office in Santa Monica, I take strong exception to John Marciano’s inaccurate and inflammatory comments concerning Israel and the Palestinians (“Is a change going to come?” page 5, July 1). It is telling that Mr. Marciano chose to base his rantings on the discredited ideas of Israeli academic Ilan Pappé, who left Israel last year after the president of his own university called for Pappé’s resignation.
An extraordinarily high level of intellectual dishon-esty is required to accuse of Israel of “ethnic cleansing” since it is a country with 1.2 million Palestinian Arab citizens who enjoy full political and legal rights. By way of contrast, Hamas does not permit Jews to live in the Gaza Strip, and no Jews are allowed to reside in Palestinian cities and towns on the West Bank. These Judenrein policies are reinforced by racial and religious incitement in mainstream Palestinian media, which promote hatred and violence towards Jews. Again by way of contrast, Israeli media do not feature children’s shows that encourage martyrdom and suicide bombings.
Israel has a track record of making peace with Egypt and Jordan, and it is my sincere hope that more peace accords will be forthcoming. Unfortunately, Palestinian leaders have never submitted a peace plan to American and Israeli governments; they prefer instead to reject them, as Bill Clinton and Dennis Ross can attest. I applaud both leading presidential candidates for recognizing these facts and for publicly pledging to support Israel, the one true democracy in the Middle East.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 3, 2008. Read the original PDF.