"Palestinians do not want peace with Israel." The rest of the story is that the Natanyahu government clearly doesn't want peace either. The biggest obstacles to peace on the Israeli side are the continued expansion of West Bank settlements and the dislocation of Palestinians, and the current government is expanding not reducing those activities.

Mr. Kovner's letter reflects the grosss misinformation about the I/P conflict which has been fed for decades to Americans. Together, Israel, the American Main Stream Media (“MSM“), and American Zionists have created a matrix of lies and deceptions designed to convince Americans that the I/P conflict is the exact opposite of reality.

As a preliminary matter, Mr. Kovner ignores--as does most of the MSM--the most basic fact about the I/P conflict which must be recognized in order to have any hope of a reality-based discussion of the situation. The MSM provides an incredibly distorted picture of the facts concerning the I/P conflict. If one were to rely solely on the American MSM, one would never even know that there was, in fact, an illegal occupation of the West Bank. The vast majority of the MSM cannot even bring itself to use the factually accurate term “OCCUPATION”--thereby denying the reader of an indisputably critical piece of information against which all else (that is actually reported) must be read. Despite its dismal world ranking in terms of free press (Israel is ranked only 93^rd in the world in terms of freedom of the press), one only has to read the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz or any of a number of other Israeli newspapers to discover Israel’s relentless drive to expel the Palestinians from their land, its brutal treatment of the Palestinians, its denial of equal rights to Israeli Arabs, and its inhumane blockade of Gaza. Reading Israel’s own newspapers one will see how Israelis themselves recognize the brutality of the Occupation (although most don’t seem to care) and the serious erosion of fundamental rights within Israel itself. (One will also see the multitude of articles and editorials where Israelis themselves characterize Israel as barreling headlong towards fascism.)

Once the existence of the Occupation is acknowledged, the falsity of virtually every statement in Kovner’s letter is much easier to see. First, he claims that the Palestinians do not want peace with Israel. In fact, Israel has been offered peace in exchange for compliance with international law many times and repeatedly rejected it. For example, in the mid-1970s the PLO endorsed a comprehensive peace with Israel in exchange for a full withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. Israel rejected it. In March 2002, the Arab League proposed not only peace but normal relations with Israel in exchange for an end to the Occupation and a “just solution” to the refugee problem. That offer was be re-extended on many occasions, every time rejected by Israel. Why all of these rejections?

The whole world knows, except apparently the United States, that Israel has never wanted peace-NEVER-unless that peace gave them every inch of the West Bank. Although not reported in the American MSM and history books, this fact has been acknowledged repeatedly by Israel’s leaders:

David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father and first prime minister:

--“We must expel the Arabs and take their places and if we have to use force to guarantee our own right to settle in those places--then we have force at our disposal” (1937)

--”I support compulsory transfer. I do not see in it anything immoral…The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making that happen, such as war” (1937)

--”I favor partition because when we become a strong power we will abolish partition and spread throughout Palestine.”

--”Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader, I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country.

--”Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves…we are the aggressors and they defend themselves.”

Menachem Begin, Israel’s 6^th Prime Minister: “The partition of the homeland is illegal. It will never be realized…It will not bind the Jewish people. Jerusalem was and will forever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it and forever”

Ariel Sharon, Israeli Prime Minister from 2001-2006: “It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is no Zionism, colonization {sic} or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands” “Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because everything we take now will stay ours.”

And, in accordance with their leaders’ statements, Israel today is gobbling up the West Bank at a record pace. And its extremist government, which is equally (if not more) extreme than many radical Islamist governments, has no intention whatsoever of giving it up.

Kovner also repeats the false assertion which has become a mantra within the Israeli Matrix, that the Palestinians refuse to accept Israel’s right to exist. The truth: Over 20 years ago, the Palestinians joined the international consensus which calls for two states based on the 1967 borders, a shared Jerusalem and a just solution for the refugees. Fatah recognized Israels’ right to exist and renounced terrorism in 1988. Hamas has also announced its willingness to make peace with Israel along its internationally recognized borders. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh told both Newsweek and the Washington Post “if Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, then we will establish a peace in stages.”

Kovner’s other more minor statements are equally lacking in validity. He claims that Israel cannot be expected to negotiate with people who supposedly honor “terrorists”. His claim overlooks the fact that Israel was born in part on the terrorist acts of its founding fathers, acts of terrorism so brutal as to make the worst of Palestinian suicide bombing look like child’s play. Many of these “terrorists” went on to be honored by Israel by being elected Prime Minister. Most enlightening is former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s statement, in speaking about the acts of terrorism committed by his own people when fighting to end the British occupation of Palestine: “Neither Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can disqualify terrorism as a means of combat…First and foremost, terrorism is for us part of the political battle being conducted under the present circumstances, and it has a greater part to play…in our war against the occupier [the British]”.

Finally, Kovner asserts that the Palestinians bring up their children to believe that their greatest goal is to kill Jews and eliminate Israel--just another reformulation of the claim that Palestinian children are taught in their schools to hate Jews. To address this oft-repeated claim, Congress commissioned the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information to convene a team of professional educators. Their conclusion, stated in a 2003 report: “[The Palestinian} textbooks do not incite against Israel or against peace” and “the overall orientation is peaceful despite the harsh and violent realities on the ground…Religious and political tolerance is emphasized.” Similar conclusions have been reached by the prestigious George Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, Hebrew University’s Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace and the Palestinian-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics and Culture.

Again, in the Israeli Matrix the truth is turned upside down. Outside the Matrix--in the real world--a study of 124 Israeli textbooks by a professor at Tel Aviv University concluded that “over the years, generations of Israeli Jews [have been] taught a negative and often delegitimizing view of Arab” and an “inferiority in comparison to Jews.” And, in an article entitled “Learning all the wrong facts”, Haaretz reporter Akiva Eldar cites numerous studies concluding that many Israeli textbooks not only dehumanize Arabs. But are entirely devoid of the word “Palestinian.” Many educational materials often fail to distinguish Israel from the Palestinian territories with some official Israeli maps including Israeli settlements but exclude Palestinian towns, even those within Israel.

The complete disdain and hatred of Palestinians is also supported outside the schools. For example, Rabbi Yovadia Yosef, one of Israel’s top religious and spiritual leaders who Prime Minister Netanyahu consults with regularly and who received a salary from the government, recently sermonized:

"Goyim [non-Jews] were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel." "Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat." "With gentiles, it will be like any person - they need to die, but [God] will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one’s donkey would die, they’d lose their money. This is his servant... That’s why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew.” Yosef has also publicly espoused the belief that under Judaic law it is permissible to kill Palestinian children if a Jew believes that the child might someone grow up to harm a Jew”.

Americans have become so engulfed in the Israeli Matrix--where everything is turned upside down, where right is wrong, the aggressor the victim, etc.--that most cannot see the reality of what Israel is actually doing. Apparently, Israel's leaders have studied well the tactics and methods of Nazi Germany, refined those tactics and methods, reclothed them in new "sheep's clothes" and are implementing them against the Palestinians in an ever so slightly more sophisticated manner. But, the Israeli Matrix is beginning to crack. Americans are waking up and starting to see the grand deception which has been perpetrated by Israel and its supporters--in particular, the American politicians and media which have until recently been totally complicit in that deception. I fear for what may happen when Americans finally realize the extent of the deception and the criminality of Israel's actions. Let's hope, at least for the DIASPORA'S SAKE, that those so justly enraged will be wise enough to differentiate between those that supported Israel's criminality and those that opposed it, between those that helped build the Matrix and those that sought to expose it, and between those that willfully kept silent and those who did not know any better.

Since when are neo colonialists considered the victims? This one sided letter is so biased and racist that I am laughing in disbelief. Israel is only interested in two things, geographic expansion and ethnic cleansing. Zioinists steal Palestinian lands and properties through  illegal settlements and violence. When you are oppressed and walled into ghettos, like the Palestians are, you do not accumulate much "love" for your oppressors. Israel is more than capable of making peace and the Palestians are also. This one sided declaration is ridiculuous and also shows the pathetic propaganda that Zionists attempt to feed to the American people. Americans are not so dumb as to fall for this false positioning. Israel should consider being a real democracy and have one state where all peoples are equal...sound familiar?