Letter: Many people worse off than the Palestinians
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Your support makes all the difference.Sir: Did you have to devote the front page of your Weekend section (29 May) to an extract from David Grossman's new book on Palestinians in Israel? There are so many people exposed to infinitely harder conditions in this world. This obsessive concentration on Palestinian grievances is not only overdone but also distinctly damaging to more deserving causes. Need I mention the Tibetans, the Tamils, the Marsh Shias of Iraq, etc?
In her panegyric, Sarah Helm claims that Mr Grossman 'felt he had a role to play in spreading understanding by showing Israelis that Palestinians were ordinary human beings'. What a revelation of the obvious]
Are the Serbs, Croats and Bosnians, who lived for decades peacefully as neighbours and now butcher each other, not 'ordinary human beings'? Since when is the recognition of ordinariness creating 'emotional bridges'?
Mr Grossman is indeed the hero of Israel's left, but this ought to remind us how another high-minded left led to the horrors of Communism in Russia and beyond. No, Mr Grossman's efforts are not conducive to better inter-communal relations. They only engender a better understanding of the gulf that divides Israelis and Arabs, and in doing so make the painful business of co-existence even more difficult.
Yours faithfully,
LIONEL BLOCH
London, W1
29 May
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