Israel’s Illegal Settlements

Yossi Klein Halevi’s spirited defense of Israel (“Key to Peace: Wean Arabs from Self-Pity,” Commentary, Nov. 28) would be a lot more convincing were it not for the fact that Israel has subjected Palestinians to a 34-year military occupation, during which it has aggressively colonized the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza with hundreds of illegal Israeli settlements. In fact, since signing the 1993 Oslo peace accords, Israel has increased settlement construction.

As to the generosity of peace offers made by Israel last year, more objective officials who were actually present at the talks have provided a much less glowing assessment. The resulting Palestinian state envisioned by Israelis would have been fractured and hemmed in by large interconnected settlement blocks to be retained by Israel, along with control over all borders.

Halevi lashes out at Arabs for blaming Jews for all their problems, then proceeds to blame Arabs for everything under the sun. No wonder peace has eluded us for so long in the Mideast.

Ken Galal

San Francisco