It's the Occupation

In his Sept. 26 letter ("Anti-Zionism comes from anti-Semitism"), Bryan Saltz says it is anti-Semitic to condemn Israel when other nations are guilty of far worse human rights violations. But why should we criticize only the foremost violators of human rights? By this principle, Salz should not criticize Palestinians for killing Israeli civilians during the Second Intifada, for Israelis, by their own admission, have killed many more Palestinian civilians. But of course, we can and should continue to criticize both.

Moreover, Israel engages in many human rights violations that Occupied Palestine does not: collective punishment, expulsion of refugees, colonization, theft of property and natural resources, and the construction of a massive Wall - not on Israeli territory, to protect it, but on Palestinian territory, to annex it. Mr. Salz mentions the limited civil rights enjoyed by 1.5 million Israeli Arabs, but he ignores the 3.5 million Palestinian Arabs living under Israeli occupation, who have no rights at all.

Americans should take a special interest in Israeli human rights violations because we pay for them. Our $12 billion yearly gift to Israel is the largest to any nation, and it helps Israel buy bulldozers and fighter-bombers that demolish houses in Occupied Palestine. If Americans knew this, I think they would prefer using their taxes to rebuild ravaged neighborhoods in New Orleans.

Finally, as international affairs analyst Phyllis Bennis says, Israeli human rights violations "all take place in the context of a military occupation that is itself illegal." Israel continues to violate the Geneva Conventions, UN Resolution 242, and other codes of international law. These codes prohibit territorial conquest, like Israel's 1967 conquest of Sinai, Gaza, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. And they protect the rights of those living under temporary occupation. Defending human rights and international law is not anti-Semitic: indeed, doing so honors the noblest traditions of Judaism.