Dear Editors,
Brent Sasley exhibited harsh anti-Israeli bias in his article, “Key takeaways from the Israeli election” (April 12th). He stigmatized all of Israel’s many conservative parties as “racist,” “far-right,” “hard line,” “hawkish,” “illiberal,” “extremist” or “less extremist.” In his mind, there was not a single tolerable feature among them.
Then he dumped a false stereotype on Israel’s youth, saying, “Young voters are more right-leaning and have grown up occupying the Palestinians, so a message of withdrawal and concessions is meaningless to them.”
Actually, young Israeli voters left the occupation behind. All those born during or after the 1990’s, when Israel and the Palestinians signed the Oslo Accords, grew up in an age when 90% of Palestinians acquired self-rule for the first time ever, when Palestinians gained control over significant portions of the disputed territories, when Israel withdrew entirely from the Gaza Strip, and when Israel’s military administration over all the disputed areas was authorized by Palestinian consent. In short, Israeli youth experienced a transition from occupation to historic withdrawals and concessions.
The reason Israeli youth lean right is because the Palestinians never honored their end of the Oslo bargain. The Palestinians agreed to stop their terrorism and demilitarize. But they exploited their newfound political power and territorial control to escalate their terrorist attacks.
I wonder if Mr. Sasley has kids and how they would vote if plagued by terrorism from an enemy that promised peace.
Joel M. Margolis