I am including both their version and mine because they made substantial changes to my original text. I believe it diluted the meaning, so I include both below, their's first, mine second. Daphna Baram's op-ed continues the long Guardian tradition of ignoring the entire Israeli mainstream in favor of anti-Zionist far-left fringe figures who lose no opportunity to cast all Zionist politicians as evil. It is, for me, the modern equivalent of the Catholic Church's use of converted Jews in the Middle Ages to bash Jews who remained steadfast in their faith. It is extraordinarily harmful to Jews in mainstream peace movement, who must contend with rightist attacks identifying them with those Jews who are opposed to Israel's existence as a Jewish state.
Sir:
Daphna Baram appears to cast the entire Israeli political mainstream as evil warmongers. In 2000, Israel's Labour party was ready to approve a proposal that handed the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians, dismantled nearly all of the settlements in the West Bank while providing land-swaps for the others, and allowed more than 100,000 refugees to return.
Michael Brenner
New York
You can the link for this letter here.
Daphna Baram's original may be found here.
The original text of my letter read:
Sir:
Daphna Baram appears totally ignorant of the Oslo peace process in
attempting, as so many anti-Israel leftists do, to cast the entire
Israeli political mainstream as evil warmongers. In 2000, Israel's
Labour party was ready to approve a proposal that handed the Gaza
Strip to the Palestinians (how this constitutes "turning Gaza into a
huge prison" Ms Baram does not explain), dismantled nearly all of the
settlements in the West Bank while providing land swaps for the
others, and allowed more than one hundred thousand refugees to return.
Michael Brenner, New York
Slightly more biting, don't you think?
posted by Michael Brenner @ 1:05 AM
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