Palestinians Engender Their Own Suffering

To be blunt, I am not emotionally moved or concerned about those Palestinians who have to go through trials and tribulations to get to school because of Israeli obstacles put there to assure the safety of Israeli citizens (“Getting to Class Is a Test for West Bank Students,” Aug. 7). My heart goes out to those Jewish children of all ages who will never go to school again because of the barbaric, murderous acts of Palestinian terrorists.

The Times is most consistent in its misplaced compassion, choosing to highlight suicide bombers, their families and those whose lives are made very uncomfortable because they choose evil over good and hand out candy upon the deaths of innocents. Why not an article about the children on buses heading for school whose lives were literally blown away?

Sidney L. Strajcher

Los Angeles

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I have no doubt that there is malnutrition among Palestinians (“Hunger Afflicts Palestinians, a New Report Says,” Aug. 6). I do have a doubt that “Israeli-imposed closures and curfews [are] the main cause.” The Israelis impose closures and curfews only after Jews are blown up or shot by Palestinian terrorists who are given safe harbor in the Palestinian neighborhoods. The entire Palestinian population is complicit in, and therefore guilty of, harboring terrorists.

If the Palestinians want to have the opportunity to obtain the proper nutrition for their people, they need to take an active role in identifying terrorists, having them arrested and insisting that the terrorists stay in jail. If they do not, they have only themselves to blame for malnutrition and the deaths of children during Israeli assassinations of the terrorist leaders.

Alan M. Goldberg

Calabasas

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In “Israel Faces Court Test of Deportation Plans” (Aug. 6) I read: “Human rights activists argue that imposing sanctions on relatives is a form of collective punishment illegal under international law.” I’m curious as to why the killing of civilians, the maiming of passersby and the destruction of property by a suicide bomber is not collective punishment of innocent people. If the implication is that there are no innocent Israelis then it must be true that there are no innocent Palestinians.

Lawrence Calmus

Los Angeles

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As a Jew in the diaspora (living and worshipping outside of Israel), my whole being bleeds with each injury, dismemberment and loss of life in the Middle East conflict. My heart is broken as I find myself, a lifelong liberal, proponent of civil rights and student of comparative religions and cultures, starting to have knee-jerk negative reactions to people whom I deem by their appearance to be Arab and thus my enemy.

I don’t want to feel this way. It shames me. I mourn my idealism and pray that the time be not distant when I can more easily embrace the Arab community once again, as I embrace my fellow Jews.

Carol Felixson

Culver City