Israeli-Arab Violence

In your editorial (“Cruel Month,” Dec. 1) you quoted a Middle East expert as saying that “each of these (anti-Israel) organizations carries out these (Arab) attacks from the same view.” That view, you admit, “is that Israel must not be permitted to exist.” Yet, you then attempt to contradict this statement by adding that “neither the Arabs nor the Israelis will ever achieve their just destiny if they can’t manage to elevate their ambitions and find a way to live in relative harmony.”

Why must you insist on equating the aggressor with the victim of aggression? The Arab powers have attacked or provoked wars designed to destroy Israel four times; Israel has never done this to the Arabs. The Arab countries, at Khartoum in 1967, pledged that they would never recognize, negotiate or make peace with Israel; the Israelis have never adopted this position toward the Arab states. With the exception of Egypt, the Arab world, as a whole, is still at war with Israel; the Israelis have never declared war against any of them.

Peace between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East will come only when the Arab world decides to abandon its goal of eradicating the Jewish state and agrees to establish normal relations with that state. Until then, appeals to both sides, as if both are equally responsible for the present tragic situation, become rather meaningless and do nothing to further the cause of peace.

SOL MODELL, Woodland Hills