U.S. Role in the Middle East

It’s nice to see that Steven L. Spiegel (Opinion, Aug. 4) has picked up the ball that the Bush administration dropped months ago regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The need for “an American-led, multinational delegation on the ground” to resolve issues there seems all too obvious, given that we donate billions of dollars to Israel each year and should at least show concern about a state that has spiraled out of control. The media should have been asking President Bush, “What are you planning to do about the situation there?” not “What do you think about the latest explosion?”

Is the State Department a puppet of the Oval Office? Can the State Department put together a team to go to Israel? Can we get somebody in charge who won’t let the situation unravel and become another Holocaust? God, I hope so.

Erin Scarlett

Cathedral City

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It appears that in Jewish history there will be two Holocausts. The first will have occurred when the Nazis killed the Jews in large numbers. The second, occurring now, is when Palestinian terrorists kill the Jews in small numbers. If the U.S. were truly fighting terrorism, we would be more supportive of the Israelis and insist that they bomb the Palestinians with all their military might, just as we are proudly bombing the terrorists in Afghanistan with all of our military might.

I would like to see and hear Bush show the world that America is truly with those peace-loving nations, like Israel, that are fighting terrorism. Otherwise the president sounds like a hypocrite for wanting to invade Iraq for terrorism that hasn’t yet happened while not being more supportive of the Israelis who are fighting terrorism that happens every day.

Francina Highgrove

Costa Mesa

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Matt Richards (letter, Aug. 4) states that the U.N. gave away “someone else’s land to foreign refugees (Europe’s Jews) against the unanimous wishes of the indigenous Arab population.” There was also a fairly large Jewish indigenous population, one must remember. When Jews began returning to Palestine in large numbers in 1882 there were fewer than 250,000 Arabs living there, and the majority were fairly recent arrivals. There were also many thousands of Jews who had been living there since biblical times. No independent Arab or Palestinian state existed in Palestine.

Palestinian Arabs did not view themselves as having a separate identity from Syria. When the Muslim-Christian Assn. met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, the following resolution was adopted: “We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds.”

Muslim claims to the area were preceded by Jewish claims by at least 1,500 years. In adjudicating the partition, the U.N. and its member states took these claims into consideration and gave some of the land to Jews for a Jewish state and some to Arabs for a Palestinian state. The Arabs declined to establish a Palestinian state. The Arabs did not and continue to not accept this partition and have fought it since 1948. What irks Arabs is that while they refuse to accept that Jews have any claims whatsoever, other nations validate and accept the Jewish claims. From 1948 until 1967, when Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in a war of self-defense, the Palestinians did not demand self-determination or statehood.

Emil Schafer

Riverside

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Richards has it exactly right when he says of the U.S. role in bringing peace to the Middle East, “The Arabs feel we will not be fair and the Israelis fear that we will.” Not enough attention is paid to how Israel has for decades manipulated U.S. foreign policy to benefit Israeli interests at the expense of American interests.

Only in the wake of 9/11 is there a more honest and open discussion of what U.S. objectives should be in the Middle East, and blind support of Israel is not one of them. Americans are dying because Israel refuses to make peace with the Palestinians; it is that simple. It is my hope that the American people will not lose their resolve when the time comes for the U.S. to impose a peace upon Israelis, who will never seek it out for themselves.

Jeff Softley

Los Angeles

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How can the U.S., Europe and the U.N. define Saudi Arabia as moderate and an ally for peace when Saudi Arabia officially blacklists companies that import Israeli products?

Paul Nisenbaum

Los Angeles