Ibish: All Sides Could Use a Reality Check

So Hussein Ibish (Commentary, Nov. 25) thinks that Israel “violently wrested” all of its land from the Palestinians? Jews have been living in that area for thousands of years. More recent historical immigrants purchased land. To be sure, in the 1948 and 1967 wars Israel obtained lands, but those wars were both initiated by the Arabs in attempts to wipe out the Jewish state; sometimes you have to suffer the consequences of your behavior.

He also thinks the U.S. and Israel could stand to be introspective regarding their policies. Vigorous debate characterizes both those countries--pretty standard for democracies with a free press. Contrast that with the authoritarian Arab regimes. Any “introspection” about Syria killing thousands of its own people in Hama in 1982, Iraq’s horrible treatment of any and all dissent or the constant propagation of anti-Western lies by official state Arab media?

Jonathan Matthew

Agoura Hills

One word to describe Ibish’s commentary: Finally! Now we are starting to get to the heart of the matter, but Ibish does not go far enough. He does not detail the covert and overt events that took place over the past 50 years or more, by the U.S. and other nations, that had a formative hand in shaping the Middle East and parts of the Islamic world as we see them today.

It may be difficult for some U.S. citizens to accept our nation’s schizophrenic nature--the good side that President Bush refers to and the not-so-good side that rampages around our planet causing great mischief, harm, misery and untold suffering. If U.S. citizens are truly sincere in achieving peace as well as security, they will themselves need to take that hard look Ibish suggests in order to learn more about what our foreign policies are really achieving, and not achieving, in places like Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey.

Shereen Sabet

Huntington Beach

I find the critique of U.S. policy in the Mideast by Ibish confusing. He blames the West while ignoring the chaos promoted by Arab and Muslim nations from Egypt to Indonesia. His organization, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, raises not an eyebrow when Muslim Indonesia persecutes Christians in East Timor or Irian Jaya, or Pakistan builds a nation in Afghanistan of the Taliban. Why the sudden high ground of blaming the U.S.?

Xavier Swamikannu

Los Angeles