Jeff Jacoby (“Peace process harmed Israel’s reputation,” Op-ed, May 23) says the Oslo peace process harmed Israel, but omits the ways in which it enabled Israel’s current spectrum of international relations and innovation economy. Only amid Oslo did countries such as India and China establish diplomatic relations and open large-scale trade with Israel. Only after Oslo did venture capital surge into the country, fueling its high-tech boom and life sciences economy.
Jacoby berates Israel for not abandoning “the fantasy of a ‘two-state solution,’ ” but decries its being “smeared as an ‘apartheid’ regime.” Abandoning the two-state solution means accepting one state in which Israeli Jews continue dominating Palestinians. When the latter soon outnumber the former, as demographers predict, Jacoby will be staring at an apartheid state that he and ideologues like him helped create.