The Herald-Times · Bloomington, Indiana · 18 November 1991
CP-1991-006
‘Tired’ arguments
To the editor
Ramsay Harik
Transcribed from the clipping
“At a time when bold new Mideast peace talks offer Palestinians the first (albeit muffled) voice that they have ever been allowed in discussions of their own bleak future, it is disappointing to find ‘Israel right or wrong’ zealots such as Martin Spechler and Hans Tischler trotting out the same old tired ‘mis-truths’ used to legitimate the silencing and oppression of the Palestinians for over 40 years.
Three of the more glaring of these demand a quick correction. Palestinians are not simply generic Arabs who can or want to be absorbed into Jordan, and Jordan has no more reason or capacity to adopt the Palestinians than France would to adopt millions of Spaniards suddenly evicted from their homeland.
Secondly, even the dullest student of logic can see that the wrongs of certain undemocratic regimes in the area do not justify what Israel has done to the Palestinians (and, for that matter, to the Lebanese)… And finally, yes, the U.S. does have a grave responsibility in dragging Israel to the negotiating table: had the U.S. insisted from the start on Israeli decency as a pre-requisite for our annual billions of aid dollars, Israel would long ago have had to behave like one nation among many rather than a nuclear-backed law unto itself.
Far too many ‘friends of Israel’ have likewise surrounded themselves with a comfortable ‘fortress of the mind’ of rationalizations and distorted history to justify Israel’s exemption from international standards of conduct.
One would hope that now, 50 years after the holocaust, they could acknowledge that while the victimization of the Jews does accord them special status in the eyes of the world, it does not bestow the right to inflict the same on others.”
Context added by this archive
A reader answering two named correspondents in the same paper, at the opening of the Madrid talks.
Cite this clipping
"‘Tired’ arguments," The Herald-Times, 18 November 1991, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1991-006. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1991-006
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Last updated 2 November 2026
This record is part of Covering Palestine, an archive of American newspaper clippings about Palestinians, 1724 to 2023. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles.
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