Middle East Peace Notes

In response to “What does ‘Death to Israel’ mean to you?” Week’s End, November 4

There is no more admirable a commentator on the Middle East than Bradley Burston. He is right that Prof. Julio Pino’s expression “Death to Israel” was execrable; and our hearts cry out when Burston says his daughter came home “worried about explosive warheads.”

But Burston knows the big picture – that the Israeli right and “Settlerstan” prefers the status quo and “managed conflict,” the occupation and expansionism, and believes that these are sustainable.

It is the liberal and leftist side – and Burston as part of it – that say they are unsustainable. And in this column Burston, perhaps here inadvertently, vindicates himself and Israeli liberalism.

Burston speaks of the crime of “Driving While Israeli,” but he knows the problem is the Israeli right’s settlement road rage driving into the heart of the only possible Palestinian capital in Arab East Jerusalem and the only possible Palestinian state.

Pino and some other haters on the left may be saying “Death to Israel,” but it is the Israelis on the right who are perpetrating it.

James Adler