What the WashPost Won't Print:Letter to the Editor Sent Last Week

Eilat, Israel -- I'm sitting in a hotel lobby in the Eilat resort, reading Scott Wilson's "For Israel's Arab Citizens, Isolation and Exclusion" on my laptop. At the next table is an Israeli Arab family of 12 who are here with hundreds of other Muslim families to celebrate the Id al Adha holiday. That's not "isolation." Walk along the Eilat boardwalk, eat in a kosher restaurant, swim in the pool, and you see Jewish and Muslim Israeli families enjoying the respite from the wintery winds in the north. That's not "exclusion."

Yes, Israel's Arabs feel different and are treated differently in some sectors but often because their religious and political leaders identify with the Palestinian radicals over the border who seek to destroy Israel or refuse to recognize the right of a "Jewish state" to exist.

By the way, Israeli Arabs serve in Israel's Knesset, They are not "excluded" from the Israeli army. They decided to exclude themselves. Indeed, Israel's Bedouins serve with distinction in all of the army's units. Some young non-Bedouin Arabs have risked being ostracized in their community and have also volunteered to serve in the "Zionist Army."

[January 2 -- A Druze soldier died in a training mission yesterday. It was revealed that he was serving in Israel's most elite Special Forces unit, Sayeret Matkal. Where's the "exclusion?"]

No, it's not easy being a minority anywhere, but Israel's civil rights standards certainly surpasses anything known in the Middle East, and I dare say, Israel -- even in a state of war -- can compete with many of the West's democracies.

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