A Simplistic View

To the editors:

Miriam Asnes (Opinion, “A Liberation Story?”, April 16), compares the plight of the Palestinians to that of the biblical Israelites enslaved to the Egyptians, who, in her analogy, represent modern Israel.

Equating a modern political situation to an event in the Bible is deeply problematic; the narratives often lack the complexity and nuance that exist in the world we know. For Asnes, the current conflict can be summed up in two straightforward identities: Israelis = biblical Egyptians = bad, while Palestinians = biblical Israelites = good. This sort of rhetoric is offensive both to reality and to the reader’s intelligence.

Asnes cites recent uses of force against Palestinians, in particular the demolition by Israeli forces of 30 homes in a Palestinian refugee camp. Asnes mentions that Palestinian snipers were using these locations to shoot and kill Israeli citizens, but she never explains why Israel’s response makes it the oppressor. She avoids this because admitting that Palestinians are attacking Israelis would complicate her story; it would reveal the fallaciousness of her analogy.

Knowing, though, that there is Palestinian brutality, aggression and terrorism against Israelis, she searches for a place to fit them into her story: these parallel the plagues that God brings upon the Egyptians. In her narrative, these “reprehensible actions” have a moral: “there is an imbalance of power that Israel has the ability to remedy.” Does she mean that the Israeli government must provide its Palestinian attackers with better arms? May one only defend oneself against an equally strong enemy? Because it has better military capabilities, Asnes implies, Israel is necessarily in the moral wrong. While the more powerful side in a conflict has greater ability to oppress the weaker side, logic—and reality—permit the opposite. So while it is relevant to note Israel’s superior military capacities, the imbalance doesn’t reveal which side is acting morally.

For Asnes, powerlessness, victimhood and the moral high ground are elements of a single package, while power, oppression and moral corruption are inextricably joined as well. She complains that in Israel today, the Jews are “not in the familiar position of victim”; she is actually mourning the fact that the Jews in Israel have power.

This is indeed unfamiliar to the Jewish nation, having spent 2000 years in a position of statelessness. But Jews’ finally having power to defend themselves is nothing to mourn. Israel faces the challenge of using military power to protect its citizens in a moral way, considering the realities of a complex world. We must judge Israel’s decisions on this basis, and not dismiss its claims simply because it is the more powerful party in this particular conflict.

Jonathan M. Gribetz ’02

April 17, 2001

The writer is president of Harvard Students for Israel.

Unions, not Wages

To the editors:

The Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) claims the living wage movement is an effort to restore dignity to Harvard’s workers (News, “PSLM Occupies Mass. Hall,” April 18). Speaking from a modest, working-class background, I find their campaign inexcusably condescending. I envision these living wage protesters generously descending from their ivory towers to fight a battle for the common, uneducated worker. This benevolent gesture is patronizing and demoralizing, and if I were among the ranks of Harvard’s workers, I would feel humiliated.