Endless Violence in the Middle East

Three cheers for Michael Kelly’s Aug. 15 commentary (“This Is War; Israel Has Every Right to Strike Back”)! He says it like it is: Israel cannot stand by and be bullied, afraid for a family to go out for pizza or for a group of teenagers to gather at a disco. What a breath of fresh air to open The Times and find support for Israel.

Randi Simenhoff

Encino

Re “Israel Boosts Its Policy of Retaliation,” Aug. 15: Is it too late for the U.S. to quietly withdraw its support for Israel? This “eye for an eye” business of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s is just about the most barbaric, unholy and morally corrupt policy I’ve ever seen. I believe the majority of citizens in the U.S. no longer support Israel and its pathetic treatment of the Palestinians. This is Israel’s Vietnam, where human suffering will be the only winner.

Will Ray

Burbank

This is getting ridiculous. Why doesn’t Sharon just blame “terrorism” for world hunger, global warming, the AIDS epidemic, road rage, poor education and the depletion of rain forests? And while he’s at it, why doesn’t he use those excuses to rid the region of all Palestinians? Oh, wait, that is what he’s doing! Why don’t we conduct a poll on who the real terrorist is in this situation? Sharon won’t agree to international observers, so I guess he must be the only one whose opinion counts.

Wasim Muklashy

Los Angeles

I read your Aug. 14 editorial, “Bombs, Bullets and PR,” with fascination as you meticulously doled out one negative point against the Israelis and one negative point against the Palestinian Arabs, making sure that the points were evenhanded. I would like to see how this type of equation would work if you were to stack up the number of Israeli and other Jewish groups who vocally support peace with the number of Arab groups who have voiced any type of support for peace. I think you would hear a deafening silence on the part of the Arabs.

When someone on the Arab side has the guts to stand up and declare a willingness for a true peace with a sovereign Israel, then maybe a balanced equation for peace can be formed.

Klara Shandling

Los Angeles

Two salient points are missing from your editorial: Israel occupies land as a result of defending itself from Arab armies that tried to destroy it; and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak did offer virtually all of the West Bank and a good part of Jerusalem to Yasser Arafat and he refused. It seems that the Palestinian Arabs still want it all.

Mervin Tomsky

Sun Valley

The Israelis occupy and destroy Palestinian Authority administrative buildings and police stations and then demand that the authority control the Palestinian terrorists. Am I missing something here?

Aramazd Stepanian

Glendale

While the whole world’s attention is turned toward the bitter Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Syria has again taken advantage of that preoccupation to deal another blow to Lebanon’s internal attempts at reconciliation and democratization. Following the same pattern it did in 1991 when it militarily overwhelmed the Lebanese government, Syria is now savagely repressing peaceful Lebanese demonstrators and political opponents.

Syria’s actions over the last 30 years both in Syria and in occupied Lebanon dwarf any of the repressive measures for which the Israeli government has been so harshly criticized. Thousands upon thousands of citizens in these two countries have been jailed, tortured and killed, many never to be heard of again. The Lebanese and Syrian people would consider a government that treated them the way the Israeli government treats the Palestinians as a godsend.

William Syth

Arcadia