Israel and Peace in the Mideast
My esteemed colleague, Rabbi Harvey Fields, presents a vigorous defense of the policy of the present Israeli government: it is not Israel and the Jewish settlements, but the Arab states which block the path to peace (Commentary, July 10). I disagree, and so does at least 50% of Israel’s population. The attempt to place as large a Jewish population as possible in the occupied territories increases the difficulty of achieving a territorial compromise.
Israel’s Ministry of Building and Housing is planning to establish 16,000 new housing units in the Mt. Hebron area and 13,550 units in the Gaza Strip. That will multiply, tenfold, the population of the settlements.
Yes, the United States has thus far failed to make a wise and courageous use of its power to move the intransigent Arab states into the long-delayed acceptance of Israel; and to move Israel into an acknowledgment of the right of the Palestinians to their own national identity in the West Bank and Gaza, free of Israeli domination.
A less timid, more deliberate and even-handed assertion by America might still challenge all parties--Israel, the Arab states and the Palestinians--into acts of reason and decency.
RABBI LEONARD I. BEERMAN
Los Angeles
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