Gaza Continues as an Intense Issue

Believe it or not, there are Palestinians who know how to read and write and express intelligent outrage at the total injustice of Israel’s viciously brutal attacks on Palestinian refugee camps. I find it quite worrisome that the May 26 commentaries, “The Building Blocks of Hope,” by Uri Dromi, the director of international outreach at the Israel Democracy Institute in Jerusalem, and “Demolishing Houses, and Lives,” by Jessica Montell, director of the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, come from Israel, because neither one even noticed the central fact that Israel is responsible for the Palestinian refugees in the first place.

Israel’s long-term refusal to fully implement U.N. Resolution 194 from 1948, the Palestinian refugees’ inalienable right of return to live in peace in accordance with international law and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, has allowed Israel to become an angst-filled, racist nation. And Israel, as the occupying power, has a responsibility to protect the Palestinians.

It seems to me that many compassionate voices in the Israeli “peace camp” are mainly interested not in real justice but in building better, prettier prison camps for the impoverished and persecuted Palestinians ... and that’s just more of the same.

Anne Selden Annab

Mechanicsburg, Pa.

*

Re “Support for Gaza Pullout Plan Is Seen,” May 26:

Lost in this discussion is Egypt’s hypocritical role. Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel and committed to demilitarize the Sinai Peninsula but is doing little or nothing to stop grand-scale smuggling of illegal weaponry across Sinai and through cross-border tunnels into the Gaza Strip, to be used either in terrorist operations or by the numerous irregular Palestinian groups.

The Egypt-Gaza border is only five miles long, and Egypt certainly could patrol that small area.

Scott L. Zimmerman

Woodland Hills

*

For Israel, emptying Gaza of rockets, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades and preventing the potential import into Gaza of shoulder-fired antiaircraft and antitank weapons is many times more critical than it was for the United States and President Kennedy to block Soviet missiles from being staged in Cuba in 1962. It was then a matter of critical importance to the U.S., and it is now a matter of life and death to the nation of Israel. From Gaza these weapons will make their way to the West Bank.

The entire state of Israel, with its major population centers and industrial and commercial centers, airports, power plants, etc., are within range. If the escalation of weapons is not stopped now it will only bring a greater war upon the region when the weapons are deployed. And if anyone thinks that the Arabs will not use such weapons, then perhaps we should not believe that they can fly passenger airplanes into buildings.

Israel must stay on guard to make sure that the “line drawn in the sand” is never to be crossed.

Nahum Gat

Manhattan Beach