The Tripod - Editor
Issue: 4/20/04

Israel Often the Victim of Double Standard
By Berel Lang

To the Editor:

Professors Bauer and Pfeil object to Professor Kassow's defense of Israel's legitimacy as a state, and they presumably base that objection on the right of the Palestinian Arabs to self-determination.  But why should that right - which Kassow admits - preclude the right of Jewish self-determination in Israel?  A democratic one-state 'solution' in Israel/Palestine undoubtedly has its attractions - just as a democratic one-world government would more generally.  But when Bauer and Pfeil urge that one-state solution as a means of bringing peace and civil polity to a region riven by five wars in the last half-century and in which none of the surrounding countries with an Arab majority practices democracy even for its Arab inhabitants let alone for its 'minorities' (including women), they seem clearly to be applying a double standard:  one for Israel, one for everyone else.

Respectfully,          
Berel Lang
Professor of Humanities