Local peace activists upset with column, claim atrocities were fabricated

November 17, 2023 Edition

We are writing in response to Craig Westcott’s “A Short History of Palestine.” It would be more appropriate to call this offensive article, “A Racist History of Palestine.”

We are told all Arabs hate Jews, and that the “Arab world is riven by deep tribal and religious cleavages.” Reading on, we had to wonder if Wescott recalls who started the two world wars?  Who dropped the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima? Who organized the 1953 coup in Iran that overthrew a democratically elected government? Who bombed and destroyed Iraq and Libya? The short answer would be western states, where the majority religion is Christian. We don’t recall Muslims taking sides in the religious troubles in Northern Ireland. Perhaps western governments need to resolve their deep tribal cleavages?

What follows is a history of the persecution of the Jewish people from the Romans on. Of course, Wescott ends by reminding us that it was Hitler, no Arab, who drove “thousand more European Jews to Palestine.” Here Mr. Wescott names the country correctly.

Palestine was never a vacant land, in fact up to May of 1948 the inhabitants had their own passports. However, the recently established United Nations determined that Palestine should be partitioned so as to create two independent states, one for the Jewish Zionists and one for the Palestinians.

Somehow Mr. Westcott fails to mention the 1948 Nakba whereby the Palestinians experienced the violent destruction of over 500 hundred villages and the forced displacement by Zionist militias of over 700,000 Palestinian women, men and children. Many of these families ended up in refugee camps in Gaza.  

Conveniently, Mr. Westcott also forgets to mention that three prominent human rights organizations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem, based in Israel, have declared Israel an apartheid State. As Amnesty’s report explains, “The report sets out how massive seizures of Palestinian land and property, unlawful killings, forcible transfer, drastic movement restrictions, and the denial of nationality and citizenship to Palestinians are all components of a system which amounts to apartheid under international law.”   

Mr. Westcott has filled his “history” with atrocities that are not newsworthy because they are fabricated. He sees the Israeli Palestinian conflict as a cartoon where the good Jews are harmed by nasty Arabs. He gets so worked up he conflates Hamas with the Palestinian people. As if Benjiman Netanyahu represents all the Jews worldwide. And yet those demanding a ceasefire now includes not only Palestinians, but many other nationalities and religions including thousands who are of the Jewish faith.

No one marching supports terrorism, occupation or apartheid. We march because we want to see an end to the brutal, indiscriminate massacre of over 10,000 Palestinian men, women and children.

Carmel Conway and Bill Hynd

Editor’s Note: You incorrectly allege the column of November 3 stated “all Arabs hate Jews.” In fact, the column quoted a respected historian who pointed out the widespread bias and bigotry directed towards Jews in Arab countries. I’m sorry that it’s a revelation to you that bigotry exists in the wider world outside the politically correct woke circles of the St. John’s left. You also maintain that no one who is marching in the weekly protests against Israel supports terrorism. Perhaps you should take a look at the numerous marches throughout the world, including Canada, where masked Islamic extremists are wielding Jihadi flags, calling for the death of Jews, chanting for the expulsion of Israel from Palestine, and away from the demonstrations harassing Jews and Jewish businesses and institutions, including three schools in Montreal that were fired at by extremists using guns. Perhaps the most surprising discovery to emerge from the reaction to the latest war in Palestine is the deep-seated, widespread antisemitism, that is to say hatred for Jews, festering within the ranks of the extreme woke left in Canada and other western countries. When it’s okay in “peaceful protest” circles to wave Jihadi flags, but verboten to display a poster of a kidnapped Israeli child, the woke left are exhibiting a severe problem of bias.