Letter to the Editor

Published: Thursday, January 08, 2009

To the Editor,

Patrick Buchanan, though acknowledging that Hamas has been attacking Israel and that Israel’s right to defend its citizens “is not in dispute,” nonetheless manages to malign Israel for seizing “the provocation it needed to deliver a savage blow to the Palestinian enclave in Gaza” (Dec. 30).

Israel did not seize a provocation — it responded to assault, and it did so only after enduring thousands of rocket attacks over three years from a territory it had unilaterally ceded to Palestinian control.

Mr. Buchanan’s professed concern for Palestinian civilians is not genuine, because he bemoans Palestinian civilian losses without condemning their direct cause — Hamas’ deliberate placing of its personnel and fortifications in civilian areas. This practice is a war crime which makes civilian casualties inevitable, no matter how much care Israel takes — yet Buchanan reserves his ire for Israel.

In other words, he thinks Israel has a right to self-defense in theory — just not in practice.

Mr. Buchanan’s piece represents a form of spurious moralizing and veiled hostility to Israel which fortunately most Americans reject.

Morton A. Klein,

National President Zionist Organization of America