Ignorance, once again, has painted Israel as the sole reason for the stalling peace talks and the biggest obstacle to peace. In yesterday’s column, John Sumpter makes several claims about Israel that disregard fact and hold Israel to a double standard. One such claim is that the loyalty oath is ‘beginning to look like ethnic cleansing and pure racism.’ The purpose of this new bill is not to be racist or to effectively eradicate Arabs from the state of Israel. While the primary outrage over this bill regards people to swear an oath to a sectarian ideology, it’s important to remember that Israel was founded as a Jewish state. Just as there are a number of Christian states, like Costa Rica, Greece and Denmark, among others, and Muslim states, like Egypt, Afghanistan and Yemen, among others, that exist in the world. To claim that Israel’s desire to remain the sole Jewish and democratic state in the world is racist is simply unfair.

Another claim that is baseless in fact is that Rahm Emanuel’s departure from the White House staff will cause Israel to not care about what the United States thinks about its decisions. Sumpter is implying that now that there is no Israeli in the White House, there is no reason for the state of Israel to listen to its most important strategic ally. Sumpter’s ignorance is staggering. His claims completely ignore years of Israeli-American relations when there was no Israeli in the White House, under which the United States brokered Israeli peace deals with both Egypt and Jordan.

Last but not least is that Sumpter’s claim that this loyalty oath will lead to the breakdown of peace talks ignores the Palestinians who are slow to act in direct talks. True, this oath does come at a ‘fragile time’ in the peace talks. Yet Sumpter ignores Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts to extend the 10-month settlement freeze that was put in place to appease the Palestinians so they would enter direct talks in the first place. He also fails to mention that the Palestinian Authority waited 9 months into the 10-month freeze to start direct talks. He places the blame for the stalling of these talks squarely on Israel and ignores the Palestinians’ refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state as an obstacle to peace.

All these things aside, the most disturbing thing of this entire article is Sumpter’s arrogance that he can solve this issue with a ‘stern look.’ This is an issue that countless heads of state and political advisers have struggled with for decades. It is complex, and there is no right or wrong side. Sumpter’s assumption that he can arrive in Israel and solve this problem reveals he knows nothing of the issue and shouldn’t be commenting on it at all.

Ari Weinberger

Junior television, radio and film and entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises major

David Kaplan

Junior broadcast journalism and political science major

 

Published on October 11, 2010 at 12:00 pm