Letter to The LA Times

Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2005 10:11 AM
To: letters@latimes.com
Subject: letter to the editor

Dear Editor,

Robert Fisk, who wrote Telling it like it isn’t [Dec. 25, 2005], is really telling it like it isn’t. In his op-ed piece, Fisk spouts pure sophistry by denouncing Israelis for living on “Arab lands” and protesting Israel’s security barrier as cutting “deeply into Arab land.” Israel won the land after being attacked, so they are, at least arguably, Israeli lands. It’s ironic that no news service ever mentions this. In any case, all the settlements or "colonies" were built on land that was empty. Fisk can’t even bring himself to accept the more neutral term "disputed land."

And Fisk is no historian. Jews are called Jews because they are from Judea – now known as the West Bank. Arabs are called Arabs because they are from the Arabian Peninsula. Jews had been in Israel for over a thousand years before there was an Arab anywhere near. Yet he calls the Jews “colonists”! Fisk has little concern that truth will get in the way of his promoting the Palestinian cause. Should he ever have the need, he would have no problem finding work at Al Jazeera.

Michael Berenhaus