Power, responsibility

Charles Krauthammer in his May 9 column ("Hamas Dresses Up Perpetual War as a Two-State Solution") said the Arabs started the war with the Palestinians in 1948. In truth the war was started by a combination of the failed British Mandate, a U.N. partition plan that did not consult Arab leaders and well-armed European Jews determined to expel the native population from Palestine. To say that Arabs started the war in this context stretches the imagination.

The real news is that fewer people are accepting the version of history that Israel uses to justify its treatment of Palestinians. This was expressed by Howard Kohr, executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Speaking at AIPAC's spring convention, Mr. Kohr fears a growing worldwide movement that will pressure Israel as effectively as it pressured South Africa to renounce apartheid.

Mr. Kohr rightly observes that a storm is gathering against Israel. For the record, the storm is not gathering because of anti-Semitism. It is gathering, however, because the human family yearns for freedom and justice for all people.

There is enough blame to go around in the Israeli and Palestinian conflict. Even so, greater responsibility should be placed on the far more powerful party. Israel cannot consider itself a democracy, much less civilized, while continuing to imprison 4 million of its people. The sooner the Krauthammers of the world embrace truth and the progress of history, the better it will be for us all.

 

TODD M. DAVIS
Beaver Falls

 

 

The writer is the pastor of Fellowship United Methodist Church in Ambridge.