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Esor Ben-Sorek

Her Very Open Letter

The JERUSALEM POST re-printed a very open letter to Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and advisor. It was written by Melanie Phillips in the United Kingdom.

The thrust of her brilliant letter was to point out to Mr. Kushner the many faults and errors in his recent statement concerning the “never can be peace between the Israelis and Palestinians” remarks.

Ms. Phillips, almost like the member of the Palestinian Authority, Hanan Ashrawi, accuses Kushner of being ignorant of history.  Ashrawi condemned him as a personal friend of the Netanyahu family and a strong supporter of Israel. How then, she asks, could he be a peace-maker when he supports one side and defames the other side?

Melanie Phillips condemned him for his lack of knowledge of the facts involved in the one-hundred year old conflict. Frustrated and unsuccessful in making progress, Kushner abandons all hope of ever achieving peace. Perhaps he is right. But to publicly state it is a priori a sign of his failure.

One of Kushner’s problems, like that of so many Americans, Europeans and other nationalities, is the failure to understand the Arab mind.

Their culture, once brilliant and appealing, is a thousand years behind the culture of the civilized western world. Arabs reject words. They believe only in the efficacy of the power of strength. Next to Allah their belief is in force.

Since the earliest days of the Zionist movement and the return of Jews to their ancestral home and land, they have been the targets of Arab aggression and wanton murder. In the pre-State years, Arabs crossed the border from Lebanon and attacked and killed members of the Jewish settlements like Tel Hai in northern Galilee.

In the 1920’s, Hitler’s friend and supporter, Haj Amin al Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Palestine, falsified his claim that the Jews were going to attack the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. This lie led to riots, pogroms and murder of Jews across the country, especially in Hebron, under the eyes of the British mandatory police who did nothing to stop the murders of religious Jews, men, women and babies.

Worshippers at the Western Wall (Kotel ha –maaravi), where men and women could pray together, unsegregated , in the years prior to the establishment of the State of Israel when rabbinic law disallowed men and women to pray together, Jews were frequently beaten by Arabs and were driven away from the Wall.

British authorities often prevented Jews from praying at the Wall in order to appease the Arabs and to prevent them from rioting.

As Melanie Phillips explained, Jared Kushner is obligated to read the history and to understand the facts. It is perhaps good that his public statement that “peace is impossible; it is a problem that cannot be solved” may penetrate the minds of the anti-Israel members of the United (read: disunited) Nations.

To date, there has been found no cure for cancer. And like that terrible disease which destroys the body, there is a cancer among Arabs which destroys the mind. The young generation of Arabs understand only what they are told by their parents. They did not live through the growing pains of establishing a State.

They see only soldiers, police and checkpoints…all of which they hate intensely…not knowing nor understanding the need for security and prevention of terrorist activities.

Time for a story.

Once upon a time (as all good stories begin) a king who had two sons died. The older son claimed the throne since, as first-born, he was heir to succeed his father. The wise men in the king’s council rejected his claim. They told him he had no understanding of what the role of kingship had to be. They told him he was weak and uneducated and therefore they chose his younger brother to reign as their king.

The rejected son called them into a council chamber and explained to them that he had a dream in which his father appeared before him and told him that he should be the new king.

The wise men replied: “Your father should not have appeared to you in a dream. If he wanted you to be king, he should have appeared to all of us in a dream and told us so. He did not. Therefore you are not our king”.

Likewise, the Palestinians have a dream of a future independent State. But that dream has not proven to us to be real or truthful. And until they can prove the ability to cease all hostilities and terrorism against us, their dream will not be fulfilled in their lifetime.

Melanie Phillips’ Open Letter to Jared Kushner was precise, factual and beautifully written.

For that, she deserves a Nobel Prize for Truth.

And. like all good stories with a beginning and an end, let us hope that we can live happily ever-after.

About the Author
Esor Ben-Sorek is a retired professor of Hebrew, Biblical literature & history of Israel. Conversant in 8 languages: Hebrew, Yiddish, English, French, German, Spanish, Polish & Dutch. Very proud of being an Israeli citizen. A follower of Trumpeldor & Jabotinsky & Begin.
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