Growing Impasse in Mideast Peace Talks

In the April 14 edition, there is a comment by Louis Farrakhan on President Clinton hurting the Middle East peace process by not stopping housing construction in the Jerusalem area.

In the first place, East Jerusalem is a misleading designation. It is the “Old City”; East Jerusalem was originated by the Jordanians who occupied the city from 1948-1968, and did not permit Jews to visit the holy places. The housing project on vacant land is Har Homa and is south of the Old City.

Farrakhan is just furthering his anti-Semitic feelings wherever he can find an audience. I never read any of his comments about the civil wars in West Africa.

HAROLD SHAPIRO

Marina del Rey

* The radical right-wing prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, came to Washington lecturing Americans while at the same time wanting support and ever more money from hard-pressed U.S. taxpayers (April 8).

In Israel Netanyahu sabotages the peace while building luxury apartments in which Christians and Muslims are not allowed to live. In South Africa this was called apartheid. Why should Israeli apartheid be supported by American tax- payers?

DICK CURTIS

Los Angeles

* In “The ABCs of Palestinian Nationalism” (April 13), you commit an error that continues to cloud the issue of Palestinian self-rule. You note that “Israel has broken ground” for a “new Jewish neighborhood” in East Jerusalem. Then you say that “Muslim extremists have responded by resuming terrorist attacks” as a result.

The truth is that the extremists are also those in Israel who would destroy the peace process by provoking Arab East Jerusalem with further settlements. The terror is also Israeli bullets killing Palestinian children who throw rocks. Jerusalem is holy to all sides and there will never be a just peace in Palestine until it is recognized as such by Jews, Arabs and Christians alike.

A. LIN NEUMANN

Sacramento

* How hopeless the prospects are for true peace in the Mideast was starkly shown in your article on Palestinian nationalism. An entire generation of Arab schoolchildren is continuing to be indoctrinated with a hatred of Israel as a nation of invaders and usurpers of Arab land. There is no teaching of the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah or of the continual Jewish presence in the land for 3,000 years. There is no teaching of Jews and Arabs living together in peace--they want peace “to free Jerusalem from the Jews who took it from us,” as one student is quoted. How can peace result when Arabs refuse to accept Jews as legitimate neighbors, and teach this nonacceptance to their children, perpetuating it from generation to generation?

In case any optimist believes there has been a true change of heart in Arab acceptance of Israel, he should ponder the entry under “Israel” in the new Saudi Global Arabic Encyclopedia: “Israel is a state which was set up by the Zionists with support from international powers on the land of the Arab Palestinians on May 14, 1948, and its population are foreigners and aliens to the land of Palestine.” Peace is as far off and elusive as ever.

CARL PEARLSTON

Torrance