Arabs and Israelis
Sir: I had hoped not to bother myself or you with further discussion of Miss Woolfson's (and now Mr Loncar's) paranoiac delusion (July 14) that Israelis need to strengthen their case by stigmatising the primitive origins of Arabs, whether Amalekite or Edomite. But since you have devoted three weeks to this irrelevant Arabophilia, I would, in the name of logical consistency, ask Miss Woolfson, who asserts that the Israelis condemn the Arabs as descended from beastly.Amalekites, to confer with Mr Loncar who, with the euphoric illogicality comically typical of Arabophiles, triumphantly destroys his (and her) argument by quoting the Hebrew injunction to respect those Arab and Egyptian nations.
And if, as Miss Woolfson says, the Jews lost title to their land when evicted by invaders (including Arabs), then she ought to justify the loss of Arab title by that more recent Jewish settlement. On the other hand (where the somersault of her argument then lands), if the Arabs acquire title to the land by invasion and by settlement, the Jews acquire a stronger title by earlier entry and more creative settlement. Inconveniently for his Marxist colleagues in the anti-Zionist New Left, Brecht exemplified in his Caucasian Chalk Circle the principle that entitle ment, whether to a child or to a land, is not justified by material and physical connection but by the loving concern expressed in nurturing it. Lacking the Jewish religious and historical identity and inspiration, the Arabs did not tend that land as the Jews have done. And as Brecht said: "The land belongs to those who tend it."
Henry Adler
3 Roland Gardens, SW7.
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