Mideast Violence

In your Nov. 6 news analysis concerning the breakdown of the Middle East peace process, you blame Prime Minister Ehud Barak for a lack of vision or purpose. How ironic that Barak should be the whipping boy for a disintegration of the peace process that can be traced directly back to President Clinton’s clumsy and overeager attempt to move the peace process along earlier this year. Needing a legacy to end his term, Clinton blundered into the peace process, implicitly promising concessions to the Palestinians that no one with any knowledge of the region could possibly have believed the Israelis could give. This encouragement led directly to the opening by Yasser Arafat of a campaign of terror to achieve ends implicitly promised by Clinton.

Notwithstanding the disproportionate number of Palestinian deaths, it should be readily apparent that Arafat is waging a ruthless and Machiavellian campaign for world public opinion and is more than willing to see any number of his followers perish for this end.

JAMES A. GORTON

La Crescenta

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In response to the writer (letter, Nov. 6) who suggested that Arafat or a prominent Muslim cleric should have greeted Ariel Sharon at the Temple Mount, to confirm that all Jews and Christians were welcome to visit a site that is holy to all religions: Wouldn’t it have been more appropriate for Sharon to have gone to the Temple Mount with a group of rabbis instead of hundreds of soldiers? An opportunity missed.

ANN P. VAZNAIAN

Rancho Palos Verdes

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Re “A Family Buries a Soldier Who Fought for Peace,” Nov. 3: Why is it that the deaths of Israeli Jews are individual tragedies, while the far more numerous deaths of Palestinians smear into a faceless blur? The fact that this peace-loving soldier worked in occupied (1967) Palestinian land, while mentioned, seemed to escape the writer’s notice--as did the fact that even reserve soldiers shoot real bullets and kill real people, largely teenagers. The fact that The Times’ cultural bias seems unconscious just makes it more insidious, like self-proclaimed American “honest brokering” in general. And then we wonder why our ships get blown up and our embassies bombed.

JONATHAN AURTHUR

Santa Monica

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If 12- or 14-year-old children were in school and not in the streets throwing rocks and firebombs, they would not be getting shot. It is sad and tragic that Arafat and his cohorts are willing to sacrifice such young lives for the illusory dream of annihilating Israel. Compromise and peace are better alternatives than death and destruction from the fantasy of martyrdom.

RABBI SHIMON PASKOW

Thousand Oaks

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The Middle East is beginning to look like deja Vietnam all over again. The reality is becoming clear: Just as in Vietnam the outcome was decided by the willingness of the North to sacrifice as many lives as it would take, the Middle East may be decided by which there are more of: young Palestinian idealists wanting to die for the glory of Allah versus the number of Tel Aviv mothers and wives willing to see their sons and husbands die trying to protect settlers who knowingly built their homes in dangerous neighborhoods.

JOHN F. FERGUSON

North Hollywood