Leaders Stoke Mideast Hatreds

In “Embattled Arafat Vows to Continue His Struggle” (Feb. 10), Marjorie Miller shows her total lack of sensitivity to the victims of Yasser Arafat’s terror regime when she compares Arafat to a “Jewish mother.”

It is unbelievable that Miller would write such a thing and that The Times would find it fit to print.

Arafat sends his terrorists into Israel seeking to murder Jewish mothers and the children and husbands of Jewish mothers. The Times should send Miller to seek out these devastated families and apologize to them for her glib words that kill again.

Ken Kaufman

Agoura Hills

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Re “Israel Strikes Palestinian Compound in Gaza,” Feb. 12: First you report that “hundreds of schoolchildren were on the streets crowded with pedestrians when the first missiles slammed into the compound.”

Then you further state how rescue workers had to dive for cover from the continuing barrage of Israeli aircraft missile fire. Thirty-seven people were injured, including American journalists and a news photographer.

If President Bush were truly interested in rooting out terrorists and the “axis of evil” he would set his sights on Israel.

John Zavesky

Los Angeles

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In his Feb. 8 commentary, “The Missing Link to Mideast Peace: Arab Pressure,” David Makovsky’s statement that the region’s leaders fear their own people is certainly true, because for years the region’s leaders have been instilling hatred of Israel and the Jewish people in their schools and newspapers. This attitude would have to be reversed if they want peace in the region.

Makovsky went on to report that “in a recent meeting with a visiting dignitary, Arafat was unimpressed when the visitor presented a letter from Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak privately calling on Arafat to crack down on Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Arafat said he will take such a letter seriously when Mubarak says the same things publicly to his own people.”

These regional leaders are probably scared to death of being assassinated by their own people if they refute hatred of Israel and the Jews.

This generation of haters is with us for a while. Our hope is that the next generation of Palestinian kids will be indoctrinated with tolerance and respect for others and other religions.

Marilyn Minkle

Tarzana

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The truth of the matter is that the Arab leaders never cared too much about the plight of the Palestinian people.

Even when the West Bank was under Jordanian rule, never was there talk about a separate country named Palestine nor any concern about improving the living conditions of those Palestinians. If indeed the Arab leaders had a genuine interest in establishing a long-lasting peace in the Middle East, they certainly could do so much more to exert pressure on Arafat to tamp down the violence. The sad reality is that the Arab leaders prefer to keep the Israeli-Palestinian conflict festering to distract attention from their own corrupt regimes and the lack of freedom for their own Arab people.

Arnie Keren

Los Angeles

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Why is it when the U.S. military or CIA drop bombs indiscriminately upon innocent men, women and children, there is an uncanny silence from the world community. Yet when Israel attacks a vehicle or building occupied by men--admitted members of the terrorist organizations Hamas or the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who have publicly confessed to organizing and sanctioning the slaughter of Jewish civilians--and in the course of those attacks innocent people are killed or hurt, the world screams foul. Are Jews held to a higher moral standard?

Or is there an underlying expectation of inefficiency by American fighting forces that is not applied to Israelis?

I.C. Rapoport

Pacific Palisades