To the editor:
In a May 20, 2015 letter to the editor of this paper, Pat Carmeli wrote that she stands for “more educated discussions” on the Arab-Israeli conflict. No, she doesn’t. The charade of a discussion she hosted at the Cazenovia Methodist Church on Sept. 16 proves it — yet again.
Ms. Carmeli has a history of inviting extremists to Cazenovia, and then blocking any chance of debate when they speak. She did it in May, 2015 when she brought Alison Weir to speak at the Cazenovia Library. Weir claims that Israel engages in organ harvesting as a means of “revenge … for the Holocaust.” If memory serves, there were several letters to the Republican following Weir’s talk wherein the writers complained of an intolerant atmosphere for any who might have challenged Weir’s lunacy.
Ms. Carmeli did it again the other night at the Methodist Church, bringing Miko Peled to speak. Peled is the scion of a distinguished line of Zionists and the son of an Israeli war hero. Which is why his rants against the Jewish State are so very weird. For an hour, he attacked Israel as “racist” and “genocidal.” His version of history was so completely fact-free as to suggest he lives in an alternate universe.
Peled claims that Israel was founded in 1948 by an army of Jews who engaged in “ethnic cleansing” against “unarmed” Palestinians. The truth is that the 1948 war of independence was a life-or-death struggle fought by the infant State of Israel against five invading Arab armies, and that the Jews suffered massive casualties. Nearly 1 percent were killed and 2 percent seriously wounded — the equivalent of the U.S. suffering 9.5 million killed and wounded in a war today. So much for Peled’s “unarmed” opposition.
And so on. For an hallucinatory hour.
Peled is a lightweight — not very smart and not very brave. His refusal to permit discussion betrays his justifiable fear that his arguments cannot withstand the slightest scrutiny. After his hour-long rant ended, I tried to introduce some facts into an otherwise fact-free evening. But Peled refused. He said that this was his forum — and his alone (his exact words). It wasn’t his forum or anybody else’s. It was a public forum.
When I asked Peled if he was going to silence me, he said: “Yes.” So I left — accompanied by insults: “racist” from Peled; “crawl back under your rock” from an audience member. As I walked out, I remembered those other Cazenovians who had been so disturbed by the intolerant atmosphere at the May, 2015 “educated discussion” Carmeli sponsored
Organizations that consider hosting one of Ms. Carmeli’s evenings should be sure to set ground rules so that there actually can be the “discussion” she pretends to champion — not the intolerant echo chamber which has characterized her gatherings to date. Everybody has the right to voice an opinion at a public forum — even when it’s not one Ms. Carmeli and her friends want to hear.
Barry M. Schreibman
Cazenovia
