Conflict in the Occupied Territories

The world continues its double standard of holding Israel accountable for the provocative events it is subjected to in the so-called “occupied territories.” The latest provocation is placing women and children rock throwers in the front lines against Israeli soldiers.

The Israelis should never have called these territories, properly acquired by military action, “occupied.” “Occupied” simply indicates the willingness with which Israel was willing to come to peace with its Arab neighbors. However, the Arab neighbors remain obdurate and morally irresponsible.

The Soviet Union has no “occupied” territory in the Baltic, nor anywhere else. The British have no “occupied” territory in Northern Ireland. But Israel is responsible for the couple of pieces of land that Egypt does not want and that Syria or Jordan will never accept as Palestinian and independent.

Beginning with Israeli naivete, we come to the present situation. How can the world not see, the media in particular, who are the eyes and ears of the world, the unfair dilemma placed on Israel? In most cases, under comparable conditions, there has been an exchange of populations--India and Pakistan, Poland and East Germany, and others.

Israel is confronted with a rebellion and is acting accordingly and appropriately. To describe military action per se as if it were morally reprehensible on Israel’s part is to ignore military action to win World War II. Military action alone is not morally reprehensible. It depends on the cause.

The Israelis should have the admiration of the world for their efforts on behalf of their co-religionists, admitting those Jews in Europe remaining from the Holocaust, the Jews suffering discrimination in the Soviet Union and the Ethiopian Jews threatened with famine. The Jews have admitted millions of their fellow co-religionists into Israel, including a million from the Arab lands.

Why haven’t the Arabs given a helping hand to their co-religionists in Israel? After all, there are 22 Arab countries who could readily absorb the complaining Arabs.

The moral shoe is on the wrong foot. Most boundaries, if not all in the world, have been acknowledged as the result of military action. Why should the Israelis, trying to save 3 1/2 million Jews from a hostile world, not be permitted the same right?

JEROME GREENBLATT

Laguna Hills