Shimon Peres

Re “Peres Fights on Two Fronts, in Lebanon and in the Polls,” Commentary, April 16:

Israel has sunk to the depths of a South American dictatorship trying to maintain an untenable doctrine: that a state can guarantee freedom for one religious group while persecuting another.

Shimon Peres should be condemned for bombing Lebanon to promote his own reelection in Israel. The United States should stop subsidizing countries that promote religious hatred through war. The United States should condemn Israel for bombing Lebanon.

WILLIAM CARLYLE KOELSCH

Pasadena

* I was shocked by the April 14 headline, “4 Children Die in Lebanon as Israel Targets Ambulance.” I read the story with hands shaking in anger and sorrow, at the inhumanity of the action and the tragedy of the situation.

But, after reading the article, I have concluded that The Times purposely inflamed its readers’ emotions by burying an important fact, namely that Hezbollah uses the civilian population as a shield, that the ambulance was being used to transport Hezbollah guerrillas. The Times only pointed this out at the end of its news story.

LOUIS LOOMIS

Winnetka

* With its blind heavy artillery and its indiscriminate fighter-jet missiles, Israel has been raining misery upon hundreds of thousands of innocent people. This, as Israel claims, comes in retaliation for the firing of Katyusha rockets by Hezbollah into northern Israel.

What struck me the most as I was watching the horror on TV, was the scene of an Israeli fighter jet aiming at a civilian ambulance, firing, and turning it into a pile of smoke. Even more appalling was Israel’s lame excuse that the ambulance was ferrying terrorists. Nonsense! What I saw instead was a terrified father carrying his two wounded children--or what remained of them, crying for help and running for cover.

There is no justification for that, nor the firing of Katyusha rockets into northern Israel. I think Israel should have dealt with Hezbollah in a different and probably a more effective manner, rather than carry on this massive and inhumane military operation. Just as it has done in the past, Israel should have planned and carried out covert operations designed to directly eliminate the masterminds and heads of Hezbollah.

JACK N. SAMARA