Sir, - After a careful reading of Alexander Yakobson's article "The cost of fighting, the cost of not fighting," the best I can say is that he possibly means well but nevertheless is seriously mistaken.
He begins by providing the reader with a seemingly well balanced and judicious argument, in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict, for the need to carefully weigh the gains of taking a given action against the losses suffered if the action is not taken. Unfortunately his judiciousness becomes suspect when he permits his own biases and unsupported assumptions to seep through when describing the posture of Netanyahu, settlers, and the entire Right in regard to the two-state solution.
Without any equivocation Yakobson proclaims and accuses that "the problem with the right-wing objection to partition is that the Right does not consider the costs and dangers of non-partition." Yakobson arbitrarily chooses the pro-partition platform and pontifically pronounces "non-partition is, in the long run, fatal, because if there are not two states in this land, sooner or later there will be one state here, and this state will not be Israel."
I vigorously beg to differ. Am yisrael chai!
ZEV CHAMUDOT
Petach Tikva
[Image credit: Israel Defense Forces]
