Mideast Peace

Henry Siegman’s “Will Netanyahu Take Yes for an Answer?” (Commentary, April 1) challenges the American Jewish community. They need to pressure Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to forget percentages and establish a peaceful relationship with the Palestinian Arabs.

Failure to achieve peace in the Middle East spells danger for Jews wherever they live. Wars and extreme nationalism do not allow societies to develop universalist attitudes toward differences that exist between people.

The best example is here in America. The achieved position and status that is ours today was but a dream in pre-WWII days. It became possible because good won over evil.

Historically, Jews survive where the nations in which they live practice the universalist concept in human relations, and respect differences. While Israel has its own place among the nations, its people and leadership must never forget the purpose of its being, and the admonition that it be “a light unto the nations of the world.” Until peace comes, its own being and self-worth are at risk.

HYMAN H. HAVES

Pacific Palisades

* Siegman claims that Netanyahu is unyielding and confrontational in refusing to accept the Clinton “gift” of being told how much land Israel should cede next to the PLO. He fails to explain why President Clinton is attempting to dictate the amount of land Israel should withdraw from, when the Clinton administration had promised in writing within the Hebron withdrawal accords that only Israel will decide the amount of land it will withdraw from.

Siegman also claims that the reason the U.S. tries to make Israel strong is because Israel would then cede more land to the Arabs. Some of us used to think that the U.S. helps Israel because it is in the U.S. interest to have a strong democratic friend in that area of the world and also because the American people like and are friendly to the land of the Jews.

BERNARD I. LINDNER

Los Angeles