Israel’s solid case doesn’t need exaggeration
By Daily Bruin Staff
June 5, 2002 9:00 p.m.
Rabbi Seidler-feller is the director of UCLA Hillel. Â
By Chaim Seidler-Feller
A report on Dennis Prager’s talk on “A Moral Case
for Israel” (“Prager claims Israel is
legitimate,” Daily Bruin, News, May 30) indicates I asked if
“it was necessary for Israel supporters to exaggerate to get
their points across.” After speaking to many students and to
my wife, I learned that my query was taken out of context as an
assertion that Israel supporters generally exaggerate their claims.
However, it was clear at the event that my remarks were aimed
exclusively at the speaker who, although he had presented a cogent
argument for Israel, had, in my opinion, misled his audience on a
number of occasions.
This distinction is of great relevance because of its
implications it has regarding the truth put forward by
Israel’s advocates. It is indeed a short road from
“exaggeration” to untruth and then to the question of
the legitimacy of Israel as a state. That is precisely the reason I
chastised Prager.
As the full transcript of my remarks would indicate, the case
for Israel is solid and transparent and not in need of
amplification or overstatement. In fact, it is the exaggerations
that fracture the integrity of the argument and lead listeners to
doubt the credibility of the entire line of reasoning.
In this particular instance, it was evident to me that Prager
had constructed an imprecise analogy between conditions on the West
Bank under Israel and that of Puerto Rico as a U.S. territory.
While Puerto Ricans enjoy all the freedoms of Americans and had
exercised their rights by voting to remain a U.S. territory, the
Palestinians are still struggling to gain full freedom and
currently live under the dual oppression of foreign dominance (the
Israelis) and the corrupt and undemocratic rule of Arafat. Those of
us in the Jewish/Israeli peace movement have said for years that it
is essential to recognize that Palestine is home to the
Palestinians. At the same time we have been consistently
disappointed by our Palestinian/Arab interlocutors who have failed
to confront and accept the reality that the Jews have come home to
Israel. That in a nutshell is the tragedy of the Middle East: two
indigenous peoples claiming the same land. And the only just
solution is the Solomonic division of territory.
The majority of Jews and Israelis are prepared to accept this
painful compromise.
Unfortunately we are no longer certain that we have a willing
partner.
