November 21, 2009
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July 24, 2008

Latest Jeremaid from the Times' Kristof

Ed Lasky
Nicholas Kristof, New York Times columnist, has repeatedly supported and proclaimed the innocence of Sami Al-Arian ( a University of Florida indicted for helping fund the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group-responsible for the murder of Israelis and Americans, and indirectly the deaths of Palestinians).

Al-Arian eventually accepted a plea agreement when his guilt was all but obvious - clear to everyone except Nicholas Kristof who never even expressed a mea culpa about his stalwart defense of Al-Arian (other journalists and newspapers did so).

Kristof has disparaged Americans who express support for the American-Israel alliance, attacking the Israel Lobby in a way that echoes the views of Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer (Talking About Israel a column refuted by, among others, CAMERA .  Lately, he has been picking up the pace of his anti-Israel columns.

He recently wrote a scathing report on  Israel's settlements ("colonies'" as he describes them)  in the West Bank (The Two Israel's ). The column focused on Israelis living in Hebron-a city of deep religious significance to Jews. In the column, he all but characterized Israel as an apartheid state.

Today, he brings forth one of his worst columns "Tough Love for Israel" 
In the column, he responds to reader's comments about his Two Israels column. For some reason ,he feels compelled to identify the names of the people who criticized his column. Did he want to identify them as Jews? The meaning is in the message , not the messengers-and disclosing their identities was unnecessary.
Here are excerpts from some of the readers’ defenses of Israel’s conduct in the West Bank and my responses:
 
Jews lived in Hebron for 1,800 years continuously ... until their community was murdered in 1929 by their Arab neighbors. The Jews in Hebron today — those “settlers” — have reclaimed Jewish property. So I don’t see what makes them illegitimate or illegal. (Irving)

True, Jews have deep ties to Hebron, just as Christians do to Jerusalem and Bethlehem, but none of these bonds confer any right to live in these places or even visit them. If Israel were to bar American Christians from Jerusalem, that would not be grounds for the United States to send in paratroopers and establish settlements. And if Israel insists on controlling the West Bank, then it needs to give citizenship to Palestinians there so that they can vote just like the settlers.

Then Kristof should also proclaim that he does not support a " right of return". He has never done so.


One side is a beautiful, literate, medically and scientifically and artistically an advanced society. The other side wants to throw bombs. Why shouldn’t there be a fence? (Mileway)

So, build a fence. But construct it on the 1967 borders, not Palestinian land — and especially not where it divides Palestinian farmers from their land.

The legal status of the land is still in question and is subject to negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The course of the fence has been changed to address the rare times when farmland has been "cut off". Compensation has been offered to farmers.


While I do condemn this type of violence, it pales in contrast to Palestinian suicide bombers, rockets and other acts of terror against Jews. (Jay)

B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, reports that a total of 123 Israeli minors have been killed by Palestinians since the second intifada began in 2000, compared with 951 Palestinian minors killed by Israeli security forces.


Even if one accepts B'Tselem's numbers (always worth some skepticism) the number of Palestinian children killed is a product of Palestinian terrorism and the custom of Palestinian terrorists placing children in harm's way by using them as "human shields".

 

The he calls for Israel to:


to stop the settlements, ease the checkpoints, allow people in and out more freely, and negotiate more enthusiastically with Syria over the Golan Heights and with the Arab countries on the basis of the Saudi peace proposal.


He recognizes that this still may not bring peace but advocates that America-Barack Obama, actually- force Israel to follow these policies-which he calls '"tough love".


I hope Mr. Obama, as a candidate or as a president, will be a true enough friend of Israel to say all this, warmly but firmly.


I suppose he knows John McCain would be unlikely to show such a perversion of love towards our ally. But Barack Obama would.

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