Conflict in Israel

Louis Rene Beres’ Dec. 28 commentary, “Israel’s Albatross Becomes a Vulture,” is the best thing written about the Middle East in years.

Beres is tragically correct in his assertion that Israel’s very survival is at stake. The vultures stalking the tiny, courageous state are numerous: repressive Mideast dictatorships; Tehran-sponsored extremists; radicals on both edges of the political spectrum adept at camouflaging old-fashioned anti-Semitism as politically correct humanism; and the press, which since the Six Day War has punished the Jewish nation for having the audacity to defend itself against annihilation with a relentless war of words.

Now, add to the flock “leaders” such as Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, whose lust for the Nobel Prize has led them to engage in an orgy of appeasement that would make Neville Chamberlain blush. Or maybe they’re ostriches.

JONATHAN KELLERMAN

Beverly Hills

* We are two 15-year-old Arab-American girls.

The writer’s position should reflect his credibility, not be used to promote lies. How can a professor lie to all of the nation?

If we followed the fable, the man has no gun, and is then therefore a victim of the vulture. Israel has atomic weapons (as the article says) so explain to us who is the victim.

Only in America would you have in the paper on the same day an article on how Israel is a victim and the same victim steals valuable military secrets and sells them to China for profit and still receives billions of dollars in aid (“U.S. Says Israel Gave Combat Jet Plans to China”). So who is the victim?

We would like to be victims, if that’s what it means to be victims. However, we do have a dictionary to look up words that are being misused, such as vulture and victim. To us, a victim is a person who is being mistreated without any reason. And a vulture is something or someone that tries to conquer and take away what is not theirs, which to our knowledge is what Israel has done and continues to do to confiscate Arab land.

MUNA ZUHOUR

NADIA OMMAR

Montrose