Mideast: Terror Takes a Toll on All Sides

The only lesson that has to be learned from “War Eats at Soul of Israel” (July 3) is that we have to let the others live in peace to ensure the same for ourselves. Neither escapism nor adventurism will help us solve the actual problem.

Basheer Ahmed Khan

Garden Grove

Your article on the “psychological toll” of the intifada on Israelis leaves out one critical point. Israel alone has the power to end the conflict. How? By simply ending its 34 years of military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Israel must withdraw its colonists from the illegal settlements it has set up in the occupied territories and give the Palestinian people the free, independent state they so richly deserve. Nothing less will bring peace or security.

Isaac Boxx

Austin, Texas

“The War Against America” (editorial, July 2) shows again The Times’ twisted logic and biased opinion. You state, “Americans should be ready to support their government if it finds occasion to strike back hard in legitimate self-defense.” How is it that it’s OK for America to strike back hard when it is only threatened by terrorists but it is not OK for Israel to strike back when its citizens are being killed daily by the same terrorists, and your anti-Israeli editorials condemn these retaliations?

George G. Glancz

Indio

“The War Against America” has it backward. It’s U.S. wars against the world. We should be alarmed over a foreign policy that causes this nation to war on Islam, a combined population of 1.2 billion. We should be alarmed that U.S.-inspired boycotts against Iraq have not resulted in Saddam Hussein losing one ounce of weight while thousands of Iraqis have starved to death, and long-range consequences of depleted uranium munitions are causing cancer in Iraq. Yet bombs fall on Iraq, for what justification?

It’s time to question this country’s foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East.

William Dreu

Vista