My response to the honorable congressman:
I read with no small amount of disgust your comments equivocating Jewish citizens of Israel with terrorist thugs. Your comments came at a particularly bad time, as the Israeli people have decidedly shifted to the right politically. It only underscores the complete disconnect between Jews in America and the Land of their forefathers.Write to him at Write Your Representative and use 11361 as your zip code.
Though I detest the appellation, for illustrative purposes I am what you would call a settler. I live twenty minutes south of Jerusalem on a "hilltop" called Neve Daniel. As the highest vantage point in the region between Chevron and Yerushalayim, it is very likely that Avraham stood on this very hill when he "saw the place [where he would offer Isaac as a sacrifice] from afar." One might like to believe that I displaced a poor Arab family from their ancient homestead and stole their orange groves with my own hands, but the truth is this was a barren hilltop throughout the Jordanian Occupation from 1949-1967.
I don't know the last time you were at a Jewish wedding, but when we recite the blessings under the chuppah, the last bracha recited for thousands of years states, "May there soon be heard, Lord our G-d, in the cities of Judea and in the streets of Jerusalem, the sound of joy and the sound of celebration." Chevron, Neve Daniel and others are those cities in Judea that we hope to repopulate when we bless our family and friends at a wedding. Who do you think you are to question that enterprise? Bear in mind that there are tens of thousands of us here, many more than were sacrificed in Gush Katif, the next time you hear that bracha.
You made the statement, "I don’t know what to do about that. I don’t know how you make peace with half of a want-to-be country. I don’t know how you sign an agreement with an entity whose legal, political and administrative bona fides are all in question." Why are these questions so hard for a Jew to answer? I can't even see why these questions are hard for a human to answer! You don't make peace with an implacable enemy. You defeat them. Utterly. Without pause, without question. They want to destroy the Jewish State. They make no moral equivalences, neither should we.
It's an embarrassment to see that even our vaunted Jewish congressman sees fit to throw his lot in with those who would deny Jews a Jewish homeland. That you said you weren't trying to draw a moral equivalence only makes your comments all the more repugnant. Did you sell out to show party loyalty? I hope it was worth it.
Since this letter has no fawning approbations of your nauseating comments, I expect no reply.
A proud Jew, Settler, and Republican,
