Violence, Hatred in the Middle East

Re “Powell Urges Israel to Switch Its Tactics and Start Talking,” May 16: How sad to have Colin Powell, who is a novice in Middle East power politics, playing a pivotal role. Instead of quenching the fires he pours more fuel into them. The idiocy that Israel should talk instead of defend itself is truly offensive. Israel already has talked itself to death, and all it got was intifada II.

Ariel Sharon is 100% right. The violence needs to stop first. Israel only retaliates. There will be no retaliation if there is no violence. The Arab world is not ready for peace. When Nazi-style anti-Semitism is spreading like a plague, we know that peace is not in the making.

Batya Dagan

Los Angeles

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Yossi Klein Halevi’s piece outlining the frightening lies and hatred against Israel and Jews recently printed in Arab newspapers (“Dance of Death Overtakes the Arab World,” Commentary, May 15) surely filled anyone with a smidgen of historical perspective with horror.

The Arab populations of the Middle East must come to lay the blame for the region’s grave problems where it belongs--on the entrenched dictators who head their governments, be they military or religious dictators or one of the many “kings,” which after all is just a euphemistic word for dictator for life. What the Arab countries so desperately need is democracy movements.

Jennifer Flowers

Laguna Beach