Allied Victory in Mideast War

Congratulations on your masterful half-page editorial (“Now That We’ve Won the War, How Do We Win the Peace?” March 1) that covers the Gulf War and what should follow in the peace. Your views are light-years ahead of your Left and Right columnists on the Commentary page, who both have their ideology blinders on.

Alexander Cockburn, for example, in his Column Left (“War Proves TV’s Value as Propaganda”), not being able to make events in the Middle East square with his PLO bias, presents a “sour grapes” position--that the American people are basically ignorant. He says: “The war supporters . . . simply know less.”

Cockburn simply tells half-truths when he links the Iraq occupation of Kuwait with the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Since they both occupied other people’s land, you would have to follow his logic to the following supposition: Iraq and its allies invade Kuwait in order to destroy it as a separate state. Kuwait surprises by refusing to be liquidated, but instead throws the invaders back and even captures some Iraqi land before a cease-fire in place is ordered by the United Nations.

That happened to Israel 23 years ago, and the Israelis are still there because the Arab world, Egypt excepted, refuses to make peace and accept Israel’s right to exist. When they do, despite Cockburn, the Israeli-Palestinian problem can be solved, in the context of a general peace, and not an isolated peace.

JOSEPH SIMON

Malibu