Morton Klein’s Work Against Hatred of Jews
“Tapping Into Jews’ Fears” (June 26), about Morton Klein and his organization, was offensive to me and I am sure to him. Rather than reporting on the compelling evidence he brings forward of hatred toward Jews among Arabs, you chose to focus on his supposed agenda. Those like Klein who inform us of the true nature of Arab feeling are the ones reporting the real news, while you look everywhere else.
Billy Wisse
Los Angeles
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It is not surprising that Klein, pooh-poohed for so long as extreme, is now in the mainstream of Jewish political positions on Israel. What is dismaying is the purblindness of the Jewish establishment in America for decades. Had anyone troubled to look at schoolbooks in Gaza and the West Bank, even 20 years ago, they would have found that from the first grade on, children were being taught arithmetic with problems set like this: “My father killed two Jews on Saturday, and my brother killed three Jews today. How many Jews have we killed?”
It is more than Yasser Arafat sending out suicide terrorists. It is an entire society that has been corrupted into evil from kindergarteners on.
Jascha Kessler
Santa Monica
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In “Bush Declares His Path” (editorial, June 25) you rightly ask the question, “What criteria will the U.S. use to determine who is an acceptable representative of the Palestinians?” Perhaps an equally compelling question is what standards is your paper using to make the assertion that “Arafat himself was democratically elected”? Here is a trivia challenge to anyone who thinks Arafat was democratically elected. Against whom did Arafat run in the 1996 elections? If you answered Samiha Khalil, a 78-year-old grandmother with no political experience, you would be correct.
It is no wonder that former CIA Director James Woolsey commented at the time that Arafat was essentially elected the same way Stalin was. For the sake of peace in the Middle East, let’s hope that President Bush has a better understanding of democracy than your paper’s editorial board.
Jason Feld
Valley Village
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After digesting Bush’s latest Middle East peace plan it’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry. Thirty-five years of illegal occupation and this administration arrogantly chooses to remain clueless. Bush’s misbegotten plan, so full of one-sided ifs and buts and insults to the Palestinians, guarantees only one result--that the conflict will continue. It’s high time that other nations, particularly the Europeans, get involved, end the occupation and bring this bloody exercise in colonial conquest to a close.
Doug Doepke
La Verne