Letter to Australian newspaper

From: Dr. Michael Berenhaus [mailto:mberenhaus@comcast.net]
Sent: Saturday, December 08, 2007 12:42 AM
To: 'letters@theage.com.au'Subject: letter to the editor

RE: No Peace in Israel-Palestine [Dec. 5, 2007].

Dear Editor,

With yet another day of rockets showering down on Israel (2000 Qassam rockets and mortars in 2007 alone), Michael Shalik and Antony Loewenstein remain perplexed as to why Israel feels the need to place blockades on Gaza. Would they criticize any other country for blocking supply routes of enemy combatants?

In 2005 Israel became the only country ever to give the Palestinians any territory making a huge gesture for peace in ceding Gaza. But of course this is not mentioned by Shalik and Loewestein. Nor do Israel critics ever bring up that in 1948, the Palestinians chose not to accept the state that they seem to want now in the hopes of taking over all of Israel through war. They lost Gaza in that war not to Israel but to Egypt, and the West Bank to Jordan. Israel won the land only after the Arab world brought war upon them once again in 1967, one of the greatest military victories of all time. And when it gave Gaza to the Palestinians - a test case, if you will – the Palestinians couldn’t even wait a day to launch their rockets against Israeli cities. Israel has shown remarkable restraint – more than any other country would in the same circumstance. They deserve more than what they get from the Shalik’s and Loewenstein’s of the world.

Michael Berenhaus