By Robert Kaufman, , Seattle
Linda Frank’s attack on the Pamela Geller bus ads lack both facts and logic (Letters, Aug. 16).
Her defense of her interpretation is as damning to Abbas as Geller’s attack. She argues that he did not use the words “Jew-free,” but merely said “…that there would be no Israeli soldiers or Israeli settlers in any future Palestinian state.”
Am I missing something? Is there a third category of human being that cannot be accurately described as either a soldier or a civilian? Does this mutant breed exist only in Israel? Of course he said there would be no Jews.
In case she needs more corroboration, if this Jew-hating state ever comes into being its neighbor to the east will be Jordan, which has had a peace treaty with Israel since the 1990s yet still allows no Jews to reside there.
I was in Israel in July and my daughter wanted to hear more of the Arab perspective, so we signed up for a Palestinian-run tour of Bethlehem in the PA controlled area. As we approached the checkpoint, the driver instructed me to take off my kippah. Since I had promised my daughter not to get into arguments, I obeyed.
A kippah doesn’t identify a man as an Israeli; it identifies him as a Jew. What’s up with that, Ms. Frank?
Perhaps you should share your view with Tzipi Livni, the most optimistic, left-wing Israeli on the negotiating team. Asked recently if Israelis could live in a Palestinian state she replied, “No. The Arabs would kill them.”
Nice try, Ms. Frank, but I’m afraid that whatever your views of Pamela Geller, she is telling this story correctly and you aren’t.