Religion and Jews’ Claim to Israel

In his Jan. 10 commentary on the status of holy sites in Jerusalem (“Israel’s Honor and Soul Should Not Be Up for Grabs”), Marvin Hier argues that Zionist immigrants to Palestine were “returning to the Promised Land.” It’s a shame that Hier would ground his discussion of the issues surrounding the conflict on appeals to ethnicity and religion, especially when his claim is incorrect. The truth is that the problems in Palestine arose because people who had never lived there moved in and took land from Palestinian Arabs, in part because they believed that a god deeded that land to just one ethnic group.

What’s needed for a fair solution is a sober and careful examination of the issues, not further appeals to an ethnocentric religious narrative.

TAIT GRAVES

Menlo Park

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Paul Conrad’s Jan. 10 editorial cartoon depicting the Star of David with Israel at its center and Palestine in its points may not be fully comprehensible (is he suggesting the proposed Palestine state breaks apart something essentially Jewish?), but it’s yet another example of Conrad’s inability to differentiate between between Judaism and the state of Israel.

True, this particular cartoon isn’t as offensive as some of Conrad’s past entries in the series, including drawings that depict a Star of David composed of barbed wire or massacred Palestinian corpses. But repeatedly desecrating the Star of David insults the millions of Jews who live outside Israel and don’t get to elect its government. As a symbol of Judaism, the Star of David motif is inappropriate for criticizing a state that’s home to less than a third of the world’s Jews.

RANI SITTY

Studio City

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Re “Joint Report Finds Israeli Riot Police Unjustified in Slayings of 9 Arabs,” Jan. 8: The situation in Israel is certainly a difficult one, with ancient hatreds in force. But history has taught a few things. Among them are that if you repress a population, treating them as second-class people and violating their personal and property rights, there will be rebellion.

The Israeli people have suffered greatly with the aggression of their neighbors, and they have some difficult choices ahead. But they are going to have to give some, or it will never end. When the Serbs killed Muslims, we bombed their cities. When the Israelis do it, we pay for the bullets. Maybe it’s time to reconsider this.

DALE PROCTOR

Irvine