Response to Lauren Booth

Yaacov Lozowick
Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
27 August '10

(Doesn't get any better than this. Y.)

Lauren Booth is an anti-Zionist journalist based in London; people who follow such matters seem to think she's even worse than the rest of the pack. I mentioned her a while back, here.

This week she published a chirpy letter to the Israelis, in which, so she claims, she set aside her house chores in order to write us a personal letter. Oddly, she posted it on the website of an ex-Israeli who dislikes us intensely, the last place you'd expect if someone wishes to catch our attention and engage us in conversation; even curiouser, the website doesn't offer the possibility of leaving visible comments. So I'm sending them notice that I've responded, and perhaps they'll forward it to her; I encourage the rest of you to think where else Ms. Booth can be found and to leave her a message. She's made such an effort to reach out, it wouldn't be polite not to reciprocate.

Dear Ms. Booth,

I was touched by your concern for us as described in your "Mom to mom" letter of August 22 2010, in which you tried to inform us about all the bad things happening in our name. I'm a dad, not a mom, but I'll give a stab at reassuring you.

First thing, right up front: nothing's being done "in our name". Whatever it is, it's we who are doing it ourselves. I personally spent three years in the IDF as a young man, and another three over the following twenty-some as a reservist. About the time I was given a pen and retired from service, my first son was serving in the second Intifada, and last year my youngest fought in Gaza with his tank brigade. Ever since high-school I have been well informed about events, as is expected of a voter in a democracy. There's nothing particularly unusual about me, I'm a mainstream fellow with a standard story. For better or worse, what "Israel" does is done by the flesh and blood Israelis, not "in their names". Is this different in your country?

There is no need to carefully broach the matter of looting by IDF troops and nasty graffiti. We've been at war for a very long time, and bad things happen in war; we don't pretend otherwise. Innocent Palestinians have repeatedly died at our hands, which is far worse than looted credit cards, serious though that may be. So we can agree that innocent Palestinians have suffered at Israeli hands. They have. Some still do. Others will, as far into the future as the Palestinian nation refuses to accept the right of the Jewish nation to a homeland in part of the tiny little country they both call home.

(Read full letter)

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