By BETTY CAPLANPosted Thursday,October 15 2009 at 18:32



The Israeli ambassador Jacob Keidar’s letter to the Nation (October 7) in response to a previous communication by an Iranian embassy spokesperson must not go unanswered.



I feel it to be most fitting that a Jew should do that,just as it was gratifying to see distinguished Jewish South African judge Goldstone produce the report which detailed atrocities by Israeli armed forces on the people of Gaza in January.



I stress this because the ambassador’s thinking is characteristic of the head-in-the-sand denial and myopia that has caused Israel to go backwards in the last decade rather than make progress — on the political front,at any rate.



AS A JEW,I DECLARE MY POSITION: that I’m passionately in favour of an Israeli state that is not a theocracy,that counts amongst its citizens Muslims,Druids,Catholics and Bedouins with equal rights and treated with the respect that belongs in a real democracy.



That excellent spokesperson for the Palestinians,Sari Nusseibeh said on BBC radio programme,Forum,last week that he didn’t give a damn how many states there were — he just wanted to find a way of living in his own ancestral land humanely.



The Holocaust existed,and if you read President Ahmadinejad carefully,you will see that he is not denying that. On September 24,in an interview on National Public Radio he told Steve Inskeep that here had indeed,been a horrific incident of that nature but that it also took the lives of up to five million political prisoners,trade unionists,communists,gays and Roma people.



'Truly this was one of the world’s great atrocities — an atrocity committed in Europe,by Europeans,against Europeans. It had nothing to do with Palestinians. Or Iran.' He went on to mention slavery. A feature this week described the background of the US First Lady whose ancestors were among the 100 million Africans who died as a result of the slave trade,which continued for over 300 years,and in an altered state continues today in the unbalanced world trade.



Why have Jews been allowed to commandeer the very word Holocaust? Why have they used it to suck in sympathy rather than to extend those feelings to others who suffered similar indignities?



Because a guilty West has allowed them. Israel has,time and again,literally got away with murder. I have always thought President Obama’s biggest test would be his handling of the Israeli situation and I’m sad to say so far he has failed dismally. He could have said No to the Nobel Prize rather than an empty 'it’s a call to action'.



It isn’t just the folly of allowing settlements to be built on occupied territory. Unlike Iran and North Korea,Israel has had nuclear weapons for over 30 years but will not have to sign any non-proliferation treaty nor will it be forced to allow outside inspections. It is a special case which goes back to 1969.



Avner Cohen,leading authority outside the Israeli government on the history of Israel’s nuclear programme,has said the accord made at that time amounts to 'the US passively accepting Israel’s nuclear weapons status as long as Israeli does not unveil publicly its capacity to test a weapon.' Yet it is Iran and North Korea who are vilified for their secrecy!



No wonder Gaddafi tears up the UN Charter and the Iranian president rants and raves. What calls itself the International Community is in fact an elite club of the rich which dictates to the rest of the world how it should behave when its own conduct rarely passes muster. Where else do young people commit mass murder on their own school fellows?



AMBASSADOR KEIDAR,PROUD OF fathering a household where no questions are asked about the Holocaust,cannot see the flaws in his own thinking which come from that very denial.



'Why does Iran destabilise the Middle East by sponsoring violent political organisations in the region and why is it engaged in developing nuclear weapons and long range missiles?' Rhetorically,he continues 'the answer is... extreme ideology which favours hate over peace,ignorance and poverty over prosperity and modernisation.'



Those words precisely define the attitudes of many — though thankfully not all — Israeli Jews. Israel is driven by social tensions between its own ultra-Orthodox fanatics who do not even recognise the modern state because the Messiah has not yet come. It is not uncommon to see them with prayers shawls,Bible in one hand,gun in the other. A country at war with its neighbours can never be at peace with itself.






The man he thinks he can,and the one who thinks he can't are both right. Which one are you?