Conrad on Israel and Conflict With the Palestinians

Conrad has done it again. In his latest exploration of events in the Middle East, he mercifully avoids religious invective, but has replaced it with a distorted and inaccurate portrayal of Israeli-Palestinian relations.

The suggestion that Israel does not desire peace and that she has murdered those Palestinians who might have entered negotiations with her is, simply put, absurd. Even the most biased observer of the past 40 years’ history of that region will acknowledge Israel’s persistent desire to reach an accommodation with her neighbors.

After all, it was Israel and not the Palestinians who accepted the partition of 1948 that would have created a Palestinian entity at the time Israel was formed, and it was Israel and not the Palestinians who signed the Camp David accord.

The irony of Conrad’s message is that there have, indeed, been Palestinians killed who expressed a willingness to negotiate with the Israelis and to move towards peace, but the perpetrators of those murders were their Palestinian and Arab brothers. It is radical Arab terrorists who are stained with the blood of the few moderate Palestinian voices that have surfaced.

No one expects a cartoonist to be a historian and to provide the background and context that has been so sorely missing in Middle East reportage over the past few months, but there is no excuse for blatant distortions and the turning of history on its head.

JACK M. NEWMAN

President

Regional Board

DAVID A. LEHRER

Regional Director

Anti-Defamation League

Los Angeles