Negotiations to Settle Mideast Crisis

Come now, Martin Woollacott (“All Their Children Are Hostages,” Commentary, Aug. 27), when you try to have us look at the aggression of Hussein from the Arab perspective, you are way off base.

You write that the Arabs, when watching those British children shamefully displayed on Iraqi television by Hussein, see images of the intifada’s dead and of their own children at risk.

The Arab visualization mechanism seems rather narrow and limited as they apparently are not concerned about the thousands of Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish children murdered by Hussein. And obviously it doesn’t bother them that every Israeli child has been at risk during the entire existence of Israel.

Of course, there are always two sides to every story. But would you--and just to throw in another Arab apologist, Alexander Cockburn--have propagandized so transparently for Adolf Hitler and his Nazi minions?

JOSEPH M. ELLIS

Woodland Hills