A Letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu

It has been a long time since I have made an entry into this blog. I sent a letter to Mr. Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel recently concerning his relations with the present President of the USA, but did not receive a reply. I would like to share my letter with you.

Benjamin Netanyahu

Prime Minister of Israel

Prime Minister's Office
3 Kaplan St. Hakirya
Jerusalem 91950

Dear Prime Minister Netanyanhu,

I am an American Jew and a Zionist. I am a Zionist because I am concerned for the safety and welfare of all my fellow Jews in the world including Israel (where many of my family live), not because of any particular rock or wall or piece of land. When anti-semites have spoken against Israel, I have spoken up for Israel. However, recently you, your right wing radicals, and your settlers have made it more and more difficult to do so. You meddled in the politics of my country, the USA, on the side of the Republicans. You insulted my President Obama (a true friend of Israel) because he spoke the truth. You have put yourself in bed with Trump, a demagogue who threatens American democracy, a darling of people who oppose minorities including us Jews. You have even gone so far as to praise the worthless wall that Trump proposes on our Mexican border that will only isolate and weaken America if he gets away with doing it. If you watch television, you can see the massive crowds that have come out to protest Trump. In those crowds, we Jews have been well represented (many wearing yarmulkes). Trump is an aberration that will one day be gone. When it suits him to do so, Trump will stab Israel in the back. Do not hitch Israel’s future to this false xenophobic crooked temporary tyrant.

I realize that Israel faces a difficult situation. It is situated in a bad neighborhood. Anti-semitism in the Moslem world exists and is taught in many of their schools. The Clinton-Barak Plan was destroyed by Arafat and his Intifada. The unilateral withdrawal from Gaza resulted in Hamas and their rockets. However the fact is we Jews chose to develop the Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael/Palestine, and the history of the past century or so has led to the present situation. Just as Israel and the Jewish people will not disappear, neither will the Palestinian Arabs or the Moslem world. Israel must come to terms with that reality. Israel’s challenge is extremely difficult but nothing is impossible.

Israel must engage and win over the Arab people, not just their leaders. Leaders come and go, but people stay. Israel’s strength is that it can offer the Palestinians its science, technology, modernity, education, and window to globalism. But you can not entice the Palestinians into modernity, friendship, and cooperation while you suppress them at the same time. I do not know or even care if the relationship will ultimately result in 2 states, 3 states, a confederation, or one binational state. However, to work, it must move in a direction that promises to respect all the individuals who live there and in which each person has an equal say in his or her governance. The settler movement works to contradict that goal. A xenophobic Israel will be one in constant conflict. That was not the dream of Herzl or Ben Gurion.

As an American Jew, I do not live in Israel, do not plan to live in Israel, and can not vote in Israel. My only vote is my voice and my pocket book. This past year I have contributed to Hand in Hand, Masorti Judaism, and Ben Gurion University. Hand in Hand is the most important because it brings Israeli Jewish and Arab children together in a formative time of life and can be a model to bring peace to all of Eretz Yisrael.

So, Mr. Netanyahu, do not place Israel on the wrong side of history. Do not drive a wedge between Israel and your fellow Jews in America and throughout the Diaspora. Do not alienate the American people from Israel by backing Trump, an unreliable unpopular phony.