Conrad on ‘Masada, 1988’

Paul Conrad’s cartoon (“Masada, 1988”) of April 15 is as offensive as it is inaccurate. It seems Conrad has joined the anti-Israel witch hunt with a vengeance.

For the record, it is not the Israelis who should be placed atop Conrad’s Masada, but the Palestinians, who have consistently rejected all solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict from the Partition Plan of 1948 to Secretary of State George Shultz’s latest mission.

Indeed, the Palestinians National Covenant contains repeated demands for the total destruction of Israel (Articles 9 and 15) and considers Palestine “indivisible.”

Nor is the offer “Land for Peace.” Rather, international pressure is being exerted to make Israel give up land in return for negotiations and promises. While the vast United States is bordered by peaceful countries and has not fought a war on its own territory in 100 years, Israel is surrounded by hostile neighbors and has suffered many casualties at home. Consider that Jordan television censored all references to Jews out of a recent presentation of “Gandhi.” If even the Jordanians are too delicate to so much as watch Jews on TV, how can one expect them to make peace with real Jews?

To force Israel to give up territory with no enforceable guarantees of peace is to destroy the country in order to save it. I’ll thank Conrad to get his facts straight before he starts drawing next time.

MIRIAM CAIDEN

Los Angeles