Letter to wash post jerusalem bureau chief

From: Dr. Michael Berenhaus [mailto:mberenhaus@comcast.net]
Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2007 12:38 AM
Subject: letter to wash post jerusalem bureau chief


Nice piece – Israel Court Orders Rerouting of Barrier [Sept. 5, 2007]. Your article shows that the barrier can be moved – that it is not necessarily a permanent annexing as some are wont to describe it. The article points out that the Court ruling, to move the barrier, is a rare one – but nonetheless, it shows how Israel’s court system is unique to that part of the world – we would be hard-pressed to find another country in the Middle East that would do the same thing.

However I do want to take you to task on a particular point: in previous articles, you have referred to sections where Palestinians lived as “land which the Palestinians view as part of their future state.” I do not find fault in that verbiage. In this article, however, you say that “The barrier’s opponents say it is primarily an Israeli tool to annex Palestinian land in the absence of a peace agreement.” There were no quotes around ‘Palestinian land’ though it is not doubtful that that is what they would have said. By not having quotes, you are saying that the fait accompli of Bilin is that it will be part of a Palestinian state. Currently, since there has been no negotiated settlement and not even the Palestinians have declared their own state with Bilin in it, I don’t understand how you can call it Palestinian land. It may be land owned by Palestinians, but that doesn’t make the land in and of itself Palestinian. Palestinian Arabs (Israeli Arabs), owning land in Israel, don’t live on Palestinian land because they are Palestinian. Other reporters have been repeating this over and over again - which doesn’t make it true.

My best,

Michael