Human Shields in Mideast

In “In West Bank, a Risky Quest for Peace” (April 21), you mention Israel’s practice of bulldozing the homes of Palestinian families. Thank you for your honest reporting. It is rare that I see the truth spoken about this dirty little Israeli secret: Palestinian apartheid. Perhaps you could do another piece letting your readers know that while they may realize apartheid is dead in South Africa, it is alive and well in the occupied Palestinian territories. As long as U.S. taxpayers give $2 billion a year to the Israeli military machine, which must be spent on U.S.-made weapons and weapons systems, we will be looked upon as being in bed with that occupying power.

Looking at our own government’s foreign policy of ignoring world opinion, flouting international law and using our military superiority to get what we want, it is little surprise that we support other neofascist governments like Israel. It is surprising that Americans know so little about this sweetheart of a deal the U.S. defense contractors have with the Israeli military. It is a glaring example of the shift of wealth from complacent American taxpayers to the insatiable corporate war machine. Where is the incentive for peace in this equation when only the side that makes or uses the weapons benefits?

Thomas Lash

Huntington Beach

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International Solidarity Movement volunteers demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the conflict into which they insert themselves. They see it as the oppression of one people by another, but the grisly casualties that have been suffered by Palestinians and Israelis alike betray the fact that this is a war with two sides.

Although they use unconventional tactics, those Palestinians we call terrorists are the national Palestinian fighting force and should be viewed as an army. By jumping into the middle of this conflict that has nothing to do with themselves and taking one side, ISM volunteers have already dispensed with the rights afforded neutral international observers.

Moreover, by protecting houses used to conceal tunnels that serve as conduits for guns and suicide-bomber materials, these human shields are, in effect, guarding a military supply line. This makes them combatants and fair targets for military action.

The ISM has no credible peace goals, or else it would not facilitate suicide bombings, which only serve to deepen the cycle of violence. ISM volunteers have chosen very inadvisably to fight without weaponry. They can attain credibility and secure neutral status by sending half their volunteers to ride Israeli buses as human shields against suicide bombings. However, one cannot expect those who willfully target civilians to shy away from murdering a human shield.

Branden Frankel

Newport Beach

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The ISM is a Palestinian-led organization that states quite clearly what its purpose is on its Web site: “As enshrined in international law and U.N. resolutions, we recognize the Palestinian right to resist Israeli violence and occupation via legitimate armed struggle.”

Notwithstanding that there is no U.N. resolution that recognizes Palestinian “legitimate armed struggle,” one cannot state that nonviolence is the way while at the same time supporting and justifying the type of armed struggle that the world has learned to identify with the Palestinian movement. Palestinian terrorists have employed ambulances and children to serve as vehicles of terror.

The ISM would do better to target the hate and incitement that permeates the Palestinian movement rather than those who have struggled to protect themselves against this wanton, civilian-directed violence.

Irwin J. Mansdorf

Raanana, Israel

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I appreciated reading your article. However, I believe there could have been more thorough discussion of the Israel Defense Forces’ brutality over the last couple years. This includes not only the killing/shooting of ISM members but the very reason why these controversial activist tactics have been taken.

The Israel Defense Forces have shot innumerable civilians and deliberately targeted nonviolent activists and journalists. We read constant condemnation of the desperate attempts of Palestinian suicide bombers without reference to the ongoing violent tactics of Israel, which is in violation of more U.N. resolutions than Iraq was! Now you frame a discussion of nonviolent attempts to do something in response to Israel’s (and U.S. foreign policy’s) disregard for Palestinian human rights only in debating the strategy of activists. Let’s see an article discussing Israel’s innumerable violations of Palestinian sovereignty.

Eve Luckring

Los Angeles