Letter to the editor: In defense of Horowitz
Dear Editor,
After four very critical columns—two from avowed supporters of Israel—in the Sept. 22 issue of Student Life, it is time for someone to stand up for David Horowitz. The vehemence of the responses suggests that Horowitz told an inconvenient truth. In particular, his use of the word “genocidal” appears to have been inflammatory.
The Palestinian National Covenant only advocates ethnic cleansing, to drive the Jews from Israel, not to kill them. So does “Mein Kampf” with regard to the Jews of Germany. In fact, for the first eight years of their rule, the Nazis attempted to expel Jews, not kill them en masse, and the subsequent Holocaust was a secret, not announced policy. The use of the term “genocidal” by Horowitz is an extrapolation, but has historical precedent.
The inconvenient truth is that “every plan devised by the [mind of man] is nothing but evil all the time.” If you, like Anne Frank, believe in the fundamental goodness of humanity, this is disquieting.
If the Palestinian leadership wanted a state, they would negotiate it quietly and in private, with the Israeli leadership. They may prefer the power that comes from permanent conflict. Perhaps they have noticed that most Arab leaders who have negotiated with Israel (Abdullah of Jordan, Sadat of Egypt and Bashir Gemayel of Lebanon) were murdered by extremists.
When the World Trade Center fell, Palestinians danced in the streets. Those are the people Israel, and the world, must deal with.
Jonathan Katz
Professor of Physics
All ~ joelsk apaerps to be grossly overstating the number of Gaza rockets and just plain makin’ stuff about West Bank rockets:So, a “tiny band of extremists” have managed to fire some 10,000+ rockets into Israel from Gaza and perhaps thousands more from the West Bank. I tend to believe those living in Sderot, who have witnessed over 10,000 Qassem rocket launches into their general neighborhood. 1. : There have been several attempts by Palestinian groups to fire rockets at Israel from the West Bank, though none of these have been successful. 2. Gaza rockets: according to a table on the of numbers of casualties and rockets fired, which is populated with Israel MFA information, the number of rockets is nowhere near 10,000. The updated version of the table (footnoted as the source of the wiki table), current to January 2011, is .When I total up the numbers I get a total of 4,968 rockets fired. Not 10,000+ fired at Sderot’s general neighbourhood , but 4,968 in total – all of Israel. Recall, this is Israel MFA information.What is your source for claiming 10,000+ rockets have been fired at Sderot joelsk?The lead paragraph of the wiki article states: Between 2001 and January 2009, over 8,600 rockets had been launched, leading to 28 deaths and several hundred injuries The footnoted source is a BBC article from the end of the Gaza Massacre two years ago, and I can find no prior mention of that number, but plenty of later quoting of it, even in a November 2009 letter by the Israeli delegation to the UN whinging about how unfair the Goldstone Report was.So where have the other 3,600 rockets come from? How does the BBC get from Israel MFA’s under 5,000 to 8,600 rockets and joelsk to 10,000+?- – -At first I thought the discrepancy was to do with Qassam vs other rockets. Hamas uses Qassam, other groups make and use their own rockets, which have such as Quds, Nasser and even Sumud. (There has also been sporadic reports of imported Katushya and Grad rockets, but the number that appear to have been fired of those is in the tens, not thousands, that I can find.)The , which I totalled to 4,968 above, claims to represent Qassam Rockets Fired Per Year . The other footnoted source of the is a May 2008 Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center report (it’s a PDF, link available on the wiki page). It uses the same numbers as the Jerusalem Policy Centre but labels them only as Rocket Shell Fire . I’m more incline to trust the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centerthan the Jerusalem Policy Centre on knowing their stuff’, and I presume the JC are using the name Qassam in a generic sense to describe all Gaza rockers.So that still leaves a deficit of thousands of rockets. Anyone? Is this just another great big Israeli lie, or have I missed something? After the incredibly PR fabrications that came out after the flotilla I believe Israelis have no problem whatsoever just making things up.
Professor Katz,
I really wish you would not confuse us with facts.
This is a liberal institution where facts are best left out of any debate particularly when it concerns Israel and Islam.
You should be ashamed of yourself for introducing facts and logic to this issue!