‘Palestine Needs a State, Too’

Klutznick states: “Those who are hostages to the past, those who do not appreciate the historic moment, should move aside. Those who can lead the way forward to a new, peaceful, productive relationship between the two Semitic peoples who both have a legitimate claim in Palestine or Eretz Israel must be helped and encouraged.”

I am afraid that it is Klutznick who should move aside, as what Israel does not need at this “historic moment” is a dreamer. To suggest that the PLO is a legitimate partner for Israel to attempt to negotiate a “peaceful, productive relationship between the two Semitic peoples” is at odds with historical reality and constitutes a flight into fantasy.

While the PLO gives lip service to a renunciation of terrorism and a desire to arrive at a modus vivendi with Israel, the PLO is telling the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world that what it is advocating is only a step toward the dismantling of the Jewish state.

Palestinians have their state and have had it since the 1920s, well before the creation of Israel for Jewish Palestinians. Jewish nationalism has existed since biblical times, and it took approximately 2,000 years to regain a Jewish state in the ancient homeland. “Palestinian” nationalization did not exist until after the 1967 war and the elimination of Jordanian occupation west of the Jordan River, and the Jordanian expulsion of the PLO from east of the Jordan River in 1970.

What the PLO is striving for is a base between the two Palestinian states, Israel and Jordan, for the PLO’s subversion and eventual conquest of both. For Klutznick to believe otherwise is his folly. To expect Israel’s leadership to indulge therein is impertinence, to say the least.

The world at large has never had much interest in the welfare of the Jewish people, witness its general indifference during the years of the Holocaust. What the world at large is interested in is currying favor with the Arab world for its oil and markets.

SEYMOUR KAGAN

Los Angeles