Web Letters: Shadowplays

Prof. Gordon mentions efforts by the pro-Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, to disrupt and oppose normal relations between Arabs and Jews in pre-state Palestine, but this is more or less buried in passing. An ill-informed reader would not know that the Jews of Palestine and then Israel were seriously threatened by Palestinian Arabs, e.g., that 3.5 percent of the Jewish population was killed or wounded during the war of 1947-48, including several thousand civilian casualties.

This does not mean that every action of Jewish ("Zionist") and Israeli security forces to control or fight against the Palestinian-Arab population was clean and correct. Most were ugly and some (perhaps most) unjust or ill-advised. But to leave the impression, as the reviewer does, that the problems and injustices the Arabs have faced are basically the result of nasty "Zionist" schemes and manipulations is to unnecessarily filter events through an anti-Zionist ideological lens.

Ralph Seliger
Editor, Israel Horizons, a publication of Meretz USA

New York, NY

For the life of me I, cannot understand why Arab collaborators with Israel are painted negatively and Israel's policy of seeking collaboration is viewed as deplorable.

Norman Ravitch

Savannah, GA