Kiwis for Balanced Reporting on the Middle East
September 29, 2009
Press again favours anti-Israel letters
The Press continued its policy of favouring anti-Israel letters (see May 21, Aug 7 and Sep 23 posts) by printing an unprovoked attack on Israel. The letter claimed that Israel's claim to their land comes ‘only from the Bible’ — one of the most outrageous falsehoods KBRM has seen. At least four KBRM members wrote rebuttals, as follows. Not one was printed.
____'s criticism of Israel is misplaced. His assertion that the Jewish people's claim to Israel is based solely on the Bible demonstrates an ignorance of the continuous Jewish presence in the Holy Land, spanning three millennia, despite the efforts of successive historical empires to dispossess them of their sovereign territory. Even following the Roman expulsion, thriving Jewish communities continued to exist in their ancient homeland, renamed ‘Palestine’.
In more recent times, Arabs destroyed many ancient Jewish communities, such as those in Hebron and East Jerusalem. Despite this, Arab Israelis have full rights as Israeli citizens, making 20% of the population and demonstrating the kindness to ‘aliens within the land’ commanded in the Bible.
The Jewish people have a Biblical, an historical, and even a 1947 United Nations mandate to possess the land of Israel. Not even ____ can claim such a strong mandate to dwell in his homeland.
I am sure that ____ knows better and if he does not perhaps he should do some more research. It is not necessary to be a Bible believer. There is ample evidence from other sources to prove that the Jews were sovereign in their own land well before the advent of Islam and Christianity & despite expulsions and pogroms they maintained a continual physical presence in Israel. Legal recognition of the Jewish People's right to their ancient homeland was given by the international community after the First World War and later by the United Nations. That is more than can be said for the British Colonial authorities when they claimed NZ for the Crown. All Israeli citizens regardless of their ethnic or religious origins have full protection of civil rights, which is more than exists in most Arab regimes.
____ (Sept 29) may claim not to be anti-Semitic, but he certainly spread a lot of falsehoods about Jews. His statement that Israel's claim to the land comes ‘only from the Bible’ ignores the documented, continuous presence of Jews well past Biblical times. It also ignores the international authorisation for Israel's creation. (Incidentally, New Zealand has neither of these justifications for its existence.)
The Palestinians who left in 1948 fled from a war started by the Arabs, while the Jews in Arab-controlled areas were driven out or killed. The 1.4 million Arabs (today) who didn't leave are indeed treated fairly and with ‘kindness’ — a lot better than NZ's ‘aliens’ were treated during the world wars. Finally, to say the German ‘crime against humanity’ was simply to drive Jews out of their homes is beyond ludicrous.
It's a shame that the letters column, which should be a forum for informed debate, is being used as a vehicle to spread insidious lies about the one Jewish nation.
____'s factually bereft and overblown attack on Israel (29 Sept) is astonishing. If he wants to talk ‘irony’ he should be mindful that the ‘Hebrew God’ he uses to chastise Israel is the very same invoked for centuries by Christians to justify their persecution, ghettoization and massacres of the Jewish people.
His attempts to delegitimize and demonise Israel, while toying with the semantics of genocide, reveal a distressingly naive evaluation of current Middle Eastern realities as well as a dearth of historical perspective.
Jews returned to Palestine, where a de facto Jewish homeland had continuously existed, following the vicious Russian and Eastern European pogroms of the 1880s and early 1900s and subsequently the Holocaust. It was a sanctuary, not a Biblical fantasy.Their right to live in Palestine was enshrined in International Law, first by the League of Nations and then by the UNO. Other massacres e.g of the Armenians, convinced post WW1 leaders like Woodrow Wilson that all peoples must have a homeland. The Holocaust, which Palestinian Arabs condoned, supported this conviction.
The Palestinians who lost their homes did so within a context of war initiated by them and their Arab neighbours. At the same time almost a million Jews were expelled from their homes in neighbouring Arab states and Israel absorbed them all. None ever received compensation for the loss of their homes and livelihoods.
At least the Palestinians need have no moral qualms. Their holy book exhorts them to ‘kill Jews wherever they find them.’
The Letters Editor, Michael Vance, wrote privately that a letter ‘attacking ____'s views’ would be published. The KBRM chairman replied:
Thanks for letting me know, Michael. Is there any chance you could tell me what date it will appear?
But please understand that it is not Meikle's ‘views’ that concern me and KBRM; it is the falsehoods in his letter. As a journalist, I'm sure you recognise the difference. For example, one is free to say ‘I hate John Doe and I hope he dies an early an unpleasant death’, but if that person says ‘John Doe killed six children’ when he did not, that is a serious error that should be corrected as soon as possible.
As of October 12, thirteen days later, no such letter has been printed