Will Abbas really stop security cooperation with Israel? Not likely

By the time I saw the Jewish Ledger article “Israel loans millions to help Palestinians avert virus-related crisis; will they use it for terror?” (May 19, 2020), Mahmoud Abbas had (again) announced the Palestinian Authority no longer considered itself bound by the solemn agreements it had signed with Israel (as if it had ever honored them!). He said the PA would stop all cooperation with Israel and refused to accept 16 tons of medical supplies, sent by the United Arab Emirates to help the PA protect its people from the COVID-19 pandemic, because the plane carrying the supplies landed at Ben Gurion Airport and preventing normalization of relations with Israel – an obvious pre-requisite to peace – is abhorrent to him. 

Of course, Abbas won’t actually stop the security cooperation with Israel that keeps him alive until he’s on his deathbed and nobody should be surprised by the perversity of Abbas’ actions, but the proximity of those three events is another reminder that in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Israelis wear the white hats.

Alan Stein
Netanya, Israel and Natick, Massachusetts
The writer was a longtime resident of Connecticut

Never Forget 

It is an essential part of world history (not just Jewish history) to never forget or ignore the Holocaust. which killed six million Jews. But there are other essential parts of 20th century middle eastern history  that are usually overlooked.

Never forget the approximate 900,000 Middle Eastern Jews who were tossed out of Middle Eastern Muslim countries. They are perhaps forgotten, but only because Israel took them in and they now represent over 50% of Israel’s Jewish population. Also for-gotten is that the Palestinians, were rejected as refugees by their Arab compatriots, except for Jordan. Sad for the Palestinians, yes.  But blame the Arab nations who re-fused to take the Palestinians in. Don’t blame Israel.

And don’t  forget that, historically, many of the countries in the Muslim Middle East – today including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia – were created out of the same 20th century historical events as Israel.  The Jews got a very small piece of the territory, which is today’s Israel.  The Arab s got the rest.  

Lester Freundlich
Stamford