Guest columnist
A shocking slap at Israel

By Chaya Siegelbaum
Special to The Times

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It is shocking that The Seattle Times would choose to print Avraham Burg's extremist diatribe against the Jewish state that has overwhelmingly rejected the political party he represents ("A lost tribe," Times Opinion cover, Nov. 9).

It is especially shocking that it would be the paper's sole feature commentary on Israel on the day of the 65th anniversary of Kristallnacht. Just as in Kristallnacht, the Jews are blamed in this commentary for the woes of those who are single-mindedly engaged in liquidating them.

Israel would not be taking measures to protect itself if its entire civilian population were not being attacked daily by the same homicidal terrorism we experienced on 9-11. I am sure that Americans, facing the same ongoing daily terror, would do more than erect roadblocks, clear out tunnels used to import rocket launchers and machine guns, and, gasp, build a fence.

Burg supports a two-state solution. Well, guess what? Anyone who reads history rather than just fliers handed out at demonstrations would know that Israel has supported a two-state solution since it was proposed by the United Nations in 1947. The U.N. allotted the land to the populations with a majority in each area.

The Arab response to the U.N. partition plan of 1947 was the invasion of Israel in 1948 by Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon. It was a rejection of the two-state idea and of Israel's right to exist.

It was also the formation of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1964, dedicated to the destruction of Israel, even though at that time, the invading countries of Jordan and Egypt still occupied Gaza and the land west of the river Jordan that Jordan had conquered, which it decided to annex and call its "West Bank."

Actually, as those who read history also know, the Arabs were given the first state to be carved out of the League of Nations mandate of Palestine in 1921. That was when the British turned over about 80 percent of the entire mandate to create the new Arab state of Transjordan, whose name was later shortened to Jordan. So since 1921, the discussion has been about how to divide the remaining 20 percent of the land.

Until Arab terrorists actually accept a two-state solution on the remaining 20 percent of this land and put Israel on the maps they display in their children's classrooms, the battlefield that they have created will continue to exist and all people living within it will continue to suffer.

Burg and the Labor Party have had their turn to try to negotiate and stop this Arab terrorism; they have failed. They have been rejected as the majority party and have been replaced by the voters in a democratic process unique in the Middle East.

The only thing left for Burg and his political colleagues to do is to travel the world and publish attacks on their own country and its elected government, as in this commentary, which The Times for some reason chose to resurrect on this day of all days, three months after its original publication in the "Forward." May next year's Kristallnacht be recognized with more-balanced coverage.

Chaya Siegelbaum holds a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University, where she specialized in international relations. She was a Fulbright Fellow to Argentina and has lived and studied in the Middle East. She is a University of Washington Extension senior program manager.

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