West Bank Fighting
* Re “4 Die, Hundreds Hurt in West Bank Clashes,” May 16: It is no surprise that Palestinian protests are again escalating. For years the Palestinian Charter had asked for the total destruction of Israel, and the eruption of hostilities on the anniversary of Israel’s birth 52 years ago, named as Nakba (Catastrophe) by the Palestinians, is again a reminder that nothing short of Israel’s destruction is acceptable to the majority of the Palestinians.
The Palestinians have always maintained that they would obtain whatever land they could first by force (the intifada) and then, after obtaining a Palestinian state, would use that state as a springboard to push the Israelis into the sea.
Should the Palestinians ever obtain such a state, the Israelis might well name that day Catastrophe II.
MARTIN SENAT
Huntington Beach
*
The Palestinians were demonstrating, the article asserts, “to protest the birth of Israel 52 years ago.” Wrong. What the Palestinians protest is not the birth of Israel, but the birth of Israel in Palestine, casting the indigenous Arabs out of their homes and off their lands.
We Americans should be protesting with them. Instead, we support the actions of Zionism and Israel because so many (but not all) Jewish Americans would have it so.
DONALD S. BUSTANY
Los Angeles
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