Sharon and Israel’s Future

* Re Yossi Melman’s “Sharon, the Dream Killer,” Opinion, Feb. 4: If Melman is representative of young Israelis, this may indicate that this generation does not have the will and toughness to keep Israel alive. He blames the Israeli right and Ariel Sharon for the Palestinians’ intransigence. It does not seem to occur to him that the perception of weakness fostered by Ehud Barak’s concessions and the rhetoric of the left have encouraged such behavior by Yasser Arafat and his “security” forces. Melman whines that the young intellectuals just want to live like Europeans do.

It seems not to occur to him that he and his fellow leftists can leave Israel and emigrate to Europe if things get too tough. It is the settlers, the Orthodox and the conservatives who have no choice but to stay and fight. He worries that the “hopes, dreams and illusions of at least one half of Israel will perish.” Better the dreams and illusions than the people.

MICHAEL KENNEDY

Mission Viejo

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* Melman wrote that Sharon’s record is different from that of the former Yugoslav president. He “has never ordered or initiated genocide or ethnic cleansing or led a regime of repression.”

Sharon, as the architect of the invasion of Lebanon, did order and initiate genocide and ethnic cleansing. Approximately 20,000 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians died during the initial phases of the war and hundreds more died during Israel’s occupation of Lebanon. Even the Israeli government found Sharon negligent for not preventing the slaughter of Palestinian refugees at Sabra and Shatila. Sharon, as a participant in Israel’s war of 1948, participated in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the British Mandate of Palestine. (True, the Arab regimes were also guilty of ethnic cleansing.)

Sharon’s actions are indistinguishable from Slobodan Milosevic’s actions. Once this should-be war criminal has been elected prime minister of Israel, the U.S. will regrettably roll out the red carpet for him and supply Israel with all the arms and money for which it could wish.

ARCH MILLER

Arcadia