Jenin Camp Inquiry Called Off by U.N.

Re “Last-Minute Effort to Salvage Jenin Inquiry Fails,” May 2: Why did U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan advocate dropping the investigation into the Jenin refugee camp? The power to perform such inspections will be seriously compromised by doing so.

The U.N. must be free to question actions taken by all sides in a conflict--not just those of so-called rogue states. How can the U.N. hope to enforce any future inspections when it willingly backs down on this one?

The U.N.-member nations need to remain united for peace with an authority that’s globally respected, or we could all just go home and suspiciously eye the rest of the world from behind our fortresses.

Daniel Walker

Santa Monica

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After it equated Zionism with racism at its anti-Semitic hate fest last summer in Durban, South Africa--when the World Conference Against Racism singled out Israel for condemnation yet failed to denounce human slavery in Sudan or human rights abuses in a number of other repressive regimes--the U.N. lost all claim to neutrality. Likewise, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which reportedly has allowed terrorists and their murderous infrastructures to fester and grow in the refugee camp of Jenin that it funds and administers, cannot be regarded as neutral.

I applaud the Israelis’ refusal to subject themselves to another Durban--to a predetermined, condemnatory kangaroo court of the U.N., and I thank Annan for calling on the U.N. Security Council to stop clamoring for a “probe” of Jenin.

Susan Ehrlich

Beverly Hills

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The U.S. is loudly talking of going to war with Iraq. That country is ostracized and boycotted under the guise of not permitting U.N. inspections. Israel does not like the makeup of the U.N. inspectors of the Jenin massacre, makes a fuss, and the U.N. (and the U.S.) say OK, let’s forget it.

How’s that for another example of the double standard that the world sees in the Arab-Israeli conflict?

Richard A. Poedtke

Vista

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For weeks now the media have been spreading the Palestinian propaganda of “massacre” in Jenin. Thousands around the world have jumped on the Israel-bashing bandwagon. And now the Palestinians have been forced to tell the truth. Just as Israel has maintained, fewer than 60 Palestinians were killed in Jenin, most of them armed gunmen.

Where are the headlines? Where are the news articles stating that the Palestinians lied? Where are the Arab spokespersons who so vehemently denounced the “massacre”? I haven’t seen them. Why? To answer Annan: Yes, all the world can be wrong and Israel right.

Tobi Ruth Love

Thousand Oaks

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For a country with an excellent reputation for its military might and prowess against terrorism, what was Israel thinking? Attacking a refugee camp from helicopters, tanks and bulldozers is not using the left or right side of the brain. What is a terrorist infrastructure? Is it the 1972 Fiat or perhaps the home of a senior citizen? How is this defeating terrorism? Destroying homes, arresting thousands, killing hundreds will lead to a path of more terrorism.

If you want to defeat terrorism you need to defeat the radicals and gain the goodwill of the masses. If you defeat the radicals and alienate the populace, you have only multiplied the problem. Recent military actions defeated no one, arrested few, collected some small arms and alienated the world from Israelis. Destruction of the Palestinian Authority was a total success. The ministries of Education, Public Works and Security have been destroyed. What next? If the goal was to teach soldiers that their “neighbors” are subhuman and can be starved, tortured, detained, curfewed, disrespected, humiliated, robbed, vandalized and harassed, then the youth of Israel have been tainted.

Kevin Phillipp

Los Angeles