Readers Write: Jews have right to defend their homeland

The Island Now

The amount of blind hatred that permeates Arturo Bravermann’s opinion piece, “Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza,” (see Great Neck News, Friday, August 15, 2014 edition) is staggering and filled with factual errors.  

While it would be easy to go line by line and show how off-base he is, the real problem is that his hatred of Jews and Israel is so prominent, you couldn’t have a rational, respectful conversation.  

I’ll limit myself to just two of his hysterical phrases that reveal gross bias and ignorance:  

1 – “Israel’s Palestinian extermination program”  

First, there are no “Palestinians” but Arab Muslims from disputed territory. These Arab Muslims are utterly indistinguishable from their brethren in Syria, Egypt, Jordan, etc.  

“Palestine” has never existed as an independent, sovereign country and undoubtedly never will as there is no need for it – Jordan is already two-thirds populated with Arab Muslims from the disputed territories. 

At best, you can say there are Palestinian Jews, now called Israeli Jews, and Palestinian Arab Muslims.  

“Palestinians” is a not-so-subtle way of trying to disconnect all the Palestinian Jews and their descendants/relatives from their millennia-long connection with their holy, God-given land.  

The phrase itself only came into common usage after the 1967 war when Israel again successfully defended itself from attack by all the Arab Muslim countries surrounding the Jewish state.  

Second, I would be interested in knowing Bravermann’s definition of an “extermination program” because there are no facts that support this absurd libel and Bravermann didn’t even pretend to offer any.

2 -“Israel is involved in orchestrating ‘Islamic terrorism’ not only in other countries but also in the ‘Homeland.’”  

Not only is this another baseless libel which he didn’t even attempt to support in his opinion piece, Bravermann put the words Islamic terrorism in quotes to imply that there is no such thing as Islamic terrorism.  

If what Islamic militant fanatics are doing is not considered terrorism, which is a word connoting (to me) unacceptable evil atrocities perpetrated purposefully against civilians only with no military objective, then Bravermann clearly believes that there is no such thing as terrorism or that terrorism against Jews in Israel is not actually terrorism.  

Regardless of exactly what he thinks, Bravermann’s ideas are odious. 

Braverman put the word homeland also in quotes to imply that Israel is not the homeland of the Jews.  

Jews have lived continuously in the Land of Israel for over three millennia and exercised sovereignty in Israel for many centuries before the Jewish state of Israel was re-established in 1948.  

All historians agree on this.  To even attempt to disconnect the Jews from their land, their Holy Land, is despicable and utterly devoid of any historical or Biblical knowledge.

Literally every single paragraph of his tirade is so littered with outrageous lies unsupported by anything except perhaps his own inchoate delusional fantasies that I am left with only a few questions:

What military action would be acceptable to you, Mr. Bravermann, for Israel to defend itself against an enemy who openly is striving mightily to kill all the Jews there?  

Is there any military action that would be acceptable to you?  

Or, do you believe that Israel must do nothing and just keep accepting physical attacks on its populace?  

Would you want to live like that?  

And if you believe Israel must do nothing, do you believe also there is any other country on earth today or any time in the past who has ever allowed such attacks against its populace and took no action at all?

Mark Newman

Great Neck

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