Israelis living in the West Bank, most of whom moved there in the context of bolstering Israel’s claim to particular strategic locations, which tended to be locations sparsely populated by Arabs, retain their citizenship rights just as Israelis do who move to Rome or Los Angeles.
If and when an agreement is reached, including on borders, Palestinians living in Israeli areas might opt for Israeli citizenship or choose the status of resident aliens who are citizens of the Palestinian state. Jews living in areas that fall under Arab control would likely move to Israeli territory. In an ideal world, they would also have the option of remaining in their present homes as either citizens of the Arab state or resident aliens, but the Palestinians have made clear that in the context of a two-state solution all Jewish residents would have to leave, just as all Jews were expelled (or killed) in areas that came under Arab control after the 1947-48 war.
Yet notwithstanding the gravity and falsity of Tarazi’s accusations, his ultimately genocidal prescription for the Jews of Israel, and the many letters sent to the Times editor expressing outrage, the paper initially ran only four replies. Of these, just one brief letter rebutted Tarazi while the others were laudatory or non-responsive to the errors, half-truths and distortions in the piece.
Nor, when contacted by this author, would the newspaper itself correct the false statement that “as non-Jews” the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza were denied the rights of Israeli citizenship.
When a letter was then submitted citing just a few of the factual problems, the Times refused to publish it if the words “error,” “distortion,” “deceptive,” or “incendiary” were not removed. These were words, a Times editor argued, that were not “in accord with the tone of the letters page.” However, in the weeks immediately preceding, numerous Times letters had included many examples of these adjectives, as well as other strong criticism. Most of these were directed at the Bush administration, corporations or other entities.
A letter submitted without these words was then scrutinized closely by the Times Letters department for accuracy, with particular focus on my verifying the percentage of Israelis who are “non-Jews.” The scrutiny continued even after the letter was published, when the Times responded to a reader’s request by asking me for proof that Palestinians had been allowed to use the roads of the West Bank along with Israelis.
The contrast in fastidiousness about the facts is striking. Why is a piece by Michael Tarazi that overflows with unfounded and extreme accusations against Israel readily published, while a letter responding to only a few of his falsehoods is subjected to rigorous “fact-checking”?
The answer seems all too obvious, especially in light of the Times’s readiness to publish other op-eds of similar virulence. Noam Chomsky’s tirade against Israel in February 2004 flung the apartheid charge and repeated similar claims about alleged Israeli water policy. Although Chomsky has long been favored in radical circles, his appearance in the Times is a troubling barometer of anti-Israel extremism on the opinion pages.
A piece by Jimmy Carter in November 2004 contained various factually absurd, anti-Israel distortions, including the claim that after the Oslo Accords there was “an absence of serious violence by either side” until “a Jewish nationalist assassinated Mr. Rabin.” This would come as quite a surprise to the many families of Israelis slain in bombings and other acts of unprecedented terrorism between September 1993 and November 1995, families that considered the slaughter of scores of innocents “serious” indeed.
Carter’s statement was patently false and should have been challenged, but the error was never corrected by the Times and was only addressed – without mention of the word “error” – in a reader’s letter.