May 16, 2002

Dear NPR News,

Amos Alon, the Israeli author interviewed by Steve Inskeep on Morning Edition today posed as an impartial expert on Israel's policy of building settlements in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Mr. Alon made two statements which are unsupportable by the evidence, and which betray less impartiality and more of an attempt to blame Israel's right-wing, thus to position the Labor Party as the anti-settler 'moderates.' First, Alon stated that the settlement policy began in the early 1980s under the Likud prime minister Menachem Begin, and second, that Labor prime minister Yitzhak Rabin has been the only leader ever to truly stand up to the settlers, paying with his life.

In fact, the settlement policy begin in 1968, under Labor leadership, and all Israeli governments have financed and encouraged settlements. During the Rabin government, from 1992-1995, the settler population in the Occupied West Bank (including east Jerusalem), grew from 260,000 to 347,000 according to the settlement department of the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency (cited by Foundation for Middle East Peace http://www.fmep.org). This represents growth of more than 10% per year--as fast as any period in the history of the Israel military occupation.

Since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, the number of settlers in the Occupied West Bank (excluding east Jerusalem) has again nearly doubled according to the Israeli group Peace Now--much of this growth under the supposedly "doveish" leadership of the Labor Party.

(Another interesting statistic seldom discussed in the United States is that 78% of the settlers in the occupied territories were born in the United States and Europe, while only 17% were born in Israel (FMEP, 1998). Hence, the extent to which the United States is fuelling the conflict, not just through massive and unconditional military aid, but by exporting fanatics who colonize other people's land is little understood.)

Mr. Alon's attempt to blame Israel's right-wing for the state of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship was most unfair. At least we can credit the Likud party with honesty and openness about their intentions. From the Labor party and most of the Israeli "left" what we have always got are professions of peace, which are heard and even believed in the rest of the world, but drowned out for Palestinians by the ceaseless grinding sound of the bulldozers.

Sincerely,

Ali Abunimah