Bombing in Jerusalem

* After the July 30 atrocity in Jerusalem, right on schedule come Yasser Arafat’s straight-faced, rote condemnations, a fraudulent, all-too-familiar ritual that keeps the world believing in a Mideast peace process that allows for and excuses Palestinian terror.

The terrible truth is that while Arafat speaks gravely of the peace process and honoring the Oslo agreement, it is his finger on the switch controlling bloody riots and Hamas bombers dressed as Orthodox Jews. In his arsenal are those suicide nail bombers, teenagers throwing Molotov cocktails and whole families hurling rocks; equally potent weapons are his ever-so-solemn, often-vague disapprovals of the ensuing carnage.

That this mass murderer holds a Nobel Peace Prize is a fact as difficult to stomach as the news footage of blood-soaked, nail-pierced shoppers laid out in the street.

JOEL LEVIN

Studio City

* It appears that Arafat in Jerusalem is as helpless in preventing bombings as the FBI is in Atlanta.

JACK GILMAN

West Hollywood

* War and terrorism. What’s the difference, the number of victims? Why, is my question. Somebody remind me when the last time a factional terrorist group, by murdering bystanding civilians, acquired nationhood.

It’s a curious situation in the Mideast. Israeli people are sitting with certain Palestinian Arabs trying to determine some sort of long-term understanding of one another. This, while other Palestinians “demonstrate.”

Talking and murdering, two means trying for the same end: nationhood. The Israelis, headed by either government, give back land and are given corpses. While Hamas kills, Arafat talks. He talks to us, to Israel, to Saddam and to Hamas. Whatever it is that’s transpiring, though, must end in dialogue, because everything does. So why don’t we all talk? The majority of Israelis are united behind the negotiations for peace, but how long can that last and for how high a markup?

EGOZI NISSEL

Beverly Hills