Middle East Peace Process
Stanley Sheinbaum (“The Peace Process Falls for the Decoys,” Commentary, July 20) is typical of those bemused individuals whose concern for Middle East peace is focused only on Yasser Arafat, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the Palestinians, ignoring the fact that Israel is still in a state of war with every one of the Arab nations that created the PLO, except Egypt. Sitting down with Arafat or the PLO or any Palestinian will do nothing to resolve Israel’s problems with Syria, Iraq, Libya, Jordan, Lebanon, or any other Arab state. Sheinbaum criticizes Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir for his refusal to sit down with Arafat and his willingness to sit with President Hafez Assad of Syria, but Syria is a nation that represents a distinct military threat to Israel, irrespective of what happens with the Palestinians. Peace is made between nations.
The PLO was created by the Arab nations in 1964, before the 1967 war when Israel took over Gaza and the West Bank territories. Those Arab nations fund and control the PLO; it is those states that are the repositories of power, and not the PLO.
CARL B. PEARLSTON JR.
Torrance
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