BY ALAN MACPHEE
GUEST OPINION
As a contributor to the public discourse in the editorial section of the press, I try to limit myself to issues concerning public health access for people of our Island community. However, in the case of the recent letter of Richard Deaton to the Guardian, I am compelled to enter the melee.
Mr. Deaton states that Israel behavior is ‘precisely what the Germans did during the Second World War to the village of Lidice in Czechoslovakia in 1942 when it levelled the town and killed all the inhabitants in retaliation of the assignation of Reinhard Heydrich.’
Such a statement is outlandish not only for its lack of historical accuracy, but also for its inflammatory nature. Any comparison to Nazi Germany is a serious charge, particularly so in the case of Israel or the Jewish people.
As a former instructor at Canada’s Royal Military College, I assume Mr. Deaton knows of the genocide of the Jews by the Nazis who, murdered 6 million innocent Jewish people and tens of millions of others. I can only surmise that this comparison of the State of Israel to the Nazis, while wildly and wholly inaccurate and inappropriate is also intentional and maliciously so.
Similarly inaccurate is his statement that ‘Israel is resorting to the vicious tactics used by the Germans in occupied Europe, the French in Algeria and the white apartheid regime in South Africa.’ I do not know what Mr. Deaton taught at the Royal Military College but it does not appear to be in history with accuracy.
While Mr. Deaton may have a right to his views, I think the editorial board of the Guardian has a duty to keep such questionable, inappropriately provocative and harmful comparisons out of the public discourse.
Most, if not all conflicts are tragic, particularly for the civilian populations who are trying to live their lives. I am sympathetic to the Palestinian people whom Mr. Deaton champions. However, I think he lacks context for Israel Defense Forces in portraying them as prosecuting people recklessly and without cause.
Mr. Deaton ever fails to mention the Holocaust as the cause for the formation of Israel, the attempted destruction of Israel by its neighbors in the Arab Israeli War, the ongoing missile and terrorist attacks upon the Israeli people and the continued threat of annihilation by Iran and others.
It is said that darkness cannot be overcome with more darkness; only light can overcome darkness. The same can be said for peace. Mr. Deaton’s views that question Israel’s ‘legitimacy’ is darkness. May God bless the good people of Palestine and Israel in their quest for peace and long live Israel and the Jewish people.
- Alan E. MacPhee is a Souris businessman and a social and community activist, especially in the area of healthcare.
