An Open Letter To Dore Gold

An Open Letter to Dore Gold and Other Columnists of His Ilk, Who Propagate the Myth That The US and Israel Share Common Values.

On November 9, 2012, I was surfing the Internet for the latest news about the abominable Israel-Palestine conflict, when I came across a column written by Dore Gold in the Algemeiner website (www.algemeiner.com), titled, “On Middle East peace, Obama will be more realistic in second term.” In it he wrote that the US and Israel shared values. Just a few minutes before, I had seen on YouTube three videos of the IDF soldiers demolishing Palestinians’ houses in the West Bank. In one particularly heart-wrenching video, the Israelis were using heavy drills made by the Caterpillar company, the name clearly visible on the yellow behemoth, to demolish a well built stone house, while three Palestinian women were wailing, their arms raised up towards the sky, and terrified children gripping their mothers’ black garbs. Nearly one hundred Palestinian men, women and children, and a few reporters with video cameras, watched in silence. And then I read the gross, biased column by Dore Gold about Israel and its high moral values. Immensely disturbed, I immediately wrote a comment and submitted it to the website. Did the editor publish my comment? Well, make a guess. He censored my comment, of course, but published four comments, all supporting Israel, of course. I was distressed, but only for a few minutes. After all, I have my own website where I could publish that comment if I wished. One thing admirable about the Internet is that once an article appears on a website, it stays in the Ether World for a very long time, indeed. And so here it is:

Dear Mr. Dore Gold,

You are perpetuating the myth that U.S. and Israel share common values. You have written, “But at the end of the day, the U.S.-Israeli relationship is based on common interests and shared values and those will continue to form the fabric of the ties between the two countries in the years ahead.” I wish to ask you: What shared values? US values, as proclaimed by our Presidents and political leaders of both parties, are that America stands for freedom, liberty, equality, and the unshakable belief that all people have an inalienable right to live in a free, democratic nation of their own. The new Israel, especially the Israel of the last twenty years, does not think that Palestinians deserve a nation of their own, and so has systematically confiscated, using military force even, Palestinians’ ancestral lands, destroying their ancient olive orchards in the process. Israel bulldozes Palestinians’ homes not only in the West Bank, but also in East Jerusalem, evicting the residents and pushing them to pavements as TV cameras from around the world witness and record the abominable acts of IDF. America does not believe that people can be thrown out of their houses and their land taken over without due process and compensation. Even Israel’s strong allies – Britain, France and Germany have not only pleaded with Israel to stop the demolition of Palestinians’ houses and stop the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements, but also condemned Israel’s devouring of Palestinian lands and approval of the ever increasing number of settlements.

Destroying Palestinians’ water cisterns, taking over Palestinians’ water reservoirs, burning down their olive trees, killing their goats, shooting and killing unarmed peaceful protesters at the illegal separation wall: These actions do not conform at all to American values. So please stop saying that US and Israel share common values, because we simply don’t. 

I hope, for the sake of Israel, that sanity will prevail, and that Israelis will finally decide to halt their march towards firmly establishing an old-South Africa style apartheid state. I am distressed to see that in many aspects, for example: Two sets of laws applying to Palestinians and Jews, separate roads, some roads forbidden to Palestinians, arrest and detention of Palestinians – even teenagers and young boys - without charging and trying them in a court of law, etc., Israel is already an apartheid state. I wonder what happened to the Israel dreamed about and established by men like David Ben-Gurion?

Yesh Prabhu, Bushkill, Pennsylvania