Following the extensive New York Times feature on American companies getting tax deductions for building settlements in the West Bank, one letter writer in the paper is upset:
To the Editor:
Some questions:
Why should it be controversial for tax-exempt charities to aid people who live in disputed territory?
Why is it that Jews living in the ancient Jewish cities of Hebron or Jerusalem on Jewish-owned land are constantly called an obstacle to peace, while the Arabs of Jaffa or Haifa are not?
Why is it that the term “apartheid” is applied to Israel, where Arabs and Jews live together, while it is assumed that ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank must precede the establishment of a Palestinian state?
The hypocrisy is blatant.
I repeatedly see in your newspaper the phrase “a two-state solution.” The solution under discussion is not a two-state solution at all. It is a state and a half for the Palestinians, and half a state for the Jews. In other words, it is just a subtle plan for the dissolution of Jewish sovereignty.
If the creation of a Palestinian state necessitates transfer of Jews from Har Bracha in the West Bank, then the creation of the redefined Israel ought to necessitate the transfer of its Arab minority as well.
Richard Gertler
Teaneck, N.J., July 6, 2010
The letter essentially calls for ethnic cleansing.