Israel and Ahmadinejad’s Comments

Dear campus conservative, I find your comments on the Israel-Palestine conflict not only completely ignorant, but also completely cold. You, who have no doubt never spent a night in a relocation camp, probably lack the right to argue so coldly against the Palestinians. Not to in any way condone Ahmadinejad’s comments, because they were certainly inappropriate and completely wrong but this issue is certainly much more “gray” than the black and white you paint it to be. What you probably do not know is that many Arab states had a good relations with Jews prior to the creation of the Israeli state. Thus, one cannot argue that these people have always been anti-Semitic. No, rather, to turn the perspective around, they see an armed camp of Europeans (mostly) arriving and dictating new state boundaries. I think one could probably make the argument that Arabs have often been more accepting of Jews than Europeans from an historical perspective. Thus, any one with any understanding of the Middle East would realize that Middle Easterners are not highly appreciative of European powers just subjectively drawing maps and that this is what this issue is about, not anti-Semitism or ideology. Ask the Kurds, I’m sure they’d agree. I would also love to hear your argument on what makes it right to displace thousands of people just so another sort of people can have their land? In other words, why do the Palestinians bear the brunt of past crimes against the Jews? Well, you say, look at their terror tactics. Well, I say, what would drive a people to such a point where young men and women would blow themselves up to get their point across? I will not deny that these are often atrocious crimes, but what is the root cause of these terror tactics? Why do these people consider themselves freedom fighters and not terrorists? Perhaps the complete lack of future prospects because they can’t easily trade across the Israeli border, perhaps the fact they are still living in refugee camps in sordid conditions, perhaps the fact that if they’ve left Palestine for another country, they see no foreseeable time when they could return to their homeland. Where do you have the right to paint the Palestinians as an evil people, only out to destroy the democratic society in Israel? Now, I am in no way anti-Semitic or anti-Israel, but what I am trying to argue is that this situation has so many shades of gray I cannot even begin to describe them. I also understand why our leadership supports the 2 state policy. The US government cannot completely condemn the Palestinians while supporting the undemocratic and extremely repressive House of Saud in Saudi Arabia. That would be hypocrisy at its worst. I am personally in favor of the 2 state solution because I do understand how the Jewish people want their own country. I understand how a people that has been subjected to genocide would only ever feel safe again within their own borders. However, I also understand that the Palestinians feel that their land has been stolen and that merely sharing what used to be completely theirs does not seem fair. What an awkward position for Arab leaders to be placed in. If they condemn Ahmadinejad’s remarks, their own people will hate them, if they condone them, the repercussions with US relations would probably be horrendous. In this case, silence is probably golden. I realize that as the campus conservative you feel the need to make shocking arguments, and I feel sometimes they are necessary. In this case however, your arguments are not only uninformed, they themselves promote hatred. Nothing in international politics is ever as black and white as you have made it out to be, and you do conservatives no favors with such ludicrous arguments. In the future, for all of us who enjoy the non-liberal label at BU, please refrain from such nonsense.

Sincerely, Elizabeth Foughty CAS ’06

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