Israel’s Young Rebels

“The Fresh New Face of Israeli Defiance,” June 28, is a misleading headline, leaving one to believe that Israelis are not cooperating with the “road map to peace” proposal. The report is interesting were it not for the fact that Israel is a democratic society that permits freedom of expression, of protest and demonstration. This is in direct contrast to Muslim countries, including Palestine, that do not tolerate anti-government protests or any expression of discontent.

It is suggested that you publish a report on the violent shooting incidents among the various factions of Palestinian terrorist thugs that resulted in many fatalities. You failed to report that the Palestinian Authority is corrupt and that violence and assassination are daily, uncontrollable occurrences.

Your failure to inform your readers of the endless, Nazi-like hate propaganda in Arab schools certainly will never allow peace between Israel and Palestine when teenage Palestinians are corrupted to engage in suicide bombings that have led to countless casualties. Yet you provided an entire page to detail minor melees that caused no casualties.

Vernon L. Rusheen

Woodland Hills

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I am an observant, pro-Israel American Jew and have long supported a two-state solution and longed for peace. I am shocked and embarrassed that my very Jewishness connects me in any way to the parents in Israel who brainwash their young children and send them to the front lines of the brewing civil conflict between the Israeli government and the right-wing settlers, as documented in the tragic June 28 story.

How many steps is it between letting your child rot in jail and using your child as a human shield? How much different are their heinous tactics from the atrocities that their enemies, the Palestinians, commit against their own children? That these people compare themselves to the Zionists who helped found the state of Israel would be laughable were it not so sad.

The original pioneers fought to establish a democratic homeland where all Jews would be welcome and safe. The settlers fight for a religious state governed by God as they interpret him, and do not welcome less religious Jews, secular life, true democratic government or even a fair court system.

American Jews ought to be frightened and outraged and should make their voices heard.

Jessica

Emerson-Fleming

Los Angeles