A Call for Truce: Walk the Walk

Re “It’s Goodbye to Arafat, Farewell,” Commentary, June 5: I find it grossly disingenuous for Edward Luttwak to claim that the intifada was Yasser Arafat’s answer to the offer of more than 95% of the West Bank and 100% of Gaza that Ehud Barak made last summer in the Camp David summit. It is amazing how Luttwak fails to mention the most critical elements of Barak’s “take it or leave it” offer that prompted Arafat to turn it down.

In addition to the 90% or so of Palestinian land, Arafat was presented with impossible demands: to hand sovereignty over the Al-Aqsa Mosque to Israel, to accept a state that lacks territorial contiguity, to call a number of isolated pockets in East Jerusalem the capital of that state and to give up the Palestinian refugees’ right of return to the land from which they were ethnically cleansed in 1948 and 1967. The fact of the matter is that Barak’s offer was booby-trapped, and it was intended only to serve as a propaganda coup.

Salah Ezz

Cairo, Egypt

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If Arafat’s call for a truce is to be heard and accepted (June 3), let him show an important sign of friendship: Remove the military uniform he insists on wearing and position himself as a preacher and teacher, telling his people that Arabs and Jews are cousins who need to cherish the relationship by living in peace and harmony.

A simple change in garb from warrior to builder might well be a sign of sincerity. All wars end when society builds a way of life where equal justice and opportunity prevail, people share and care and life is precious.

Hyman H. Haves

Pacific Palisades

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In response to the June 4 letter that states, “If the Israelis had treated the Palestinians humanely in 1948 . . . they would be living side by side in peace now”: I say, “If the Arabs had accepted the 1948 United Nations petition plan to create two states, the Palestinians would have had their own state 50 years ago.” They chose to go to war instead, and the struggle has continued ever since.

Dvorah Colker

Los Angeles