The Mideast’s war of words

Re “Language that absolves Israel,” Opinion, June 19

Saree Makdisi wholly distorts Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to deny that the Israeli prime minister embraced the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Netanyahu expressly called for a sovereign state with defined borders to be determined by mutual agreement. Nor did Netanyahu suggest that the Palestinian state should be unable to enter into treaties with other states. What he said was that the Palestinian state must be demilitarized and thus must not enter into “military” treaties.

Given Israel’s bitter experience with Hamas’ firing of thousands of missiles at Israeli civilians, no Israeli prime minister could demand less.

Neil Netanel

Encino

The writer is director of UCLA’s Israel Studies Program.

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Makdisi has it almost right, but let’s make it even more clear: Settlers? No. Invaders! Settlements? Colonies? No. Invader enclaves!

Only when we cease to use the innocuous euphemisms that have given cover to the willful, brutal usurping of Palestinians’ homes will Americans come to realize the price that has been exacted from these people.

Hugh Smart

Goleta, Calif.

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In response to one of many of Makdisi’s distortions, the reason the media regularly refer to Palestinian politicians on a spectrum from “extremist” to “moderate,” while Israeli politicians are often categorized from “hawks” to “doves,” is because Israeli hawks do not advocate blowing up women and children in pizza parlors and discos. That policy -- the policy of Hamas, the party that Gaza Palestinians elected as their leaders -- seems pretty “extremist” to me.

Yoni A. Fife

Los Angeles

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Thanks for publishing Makdisi’s Op-Ed article. I’m thankful but at the same time feel fairly hopeless. The unfairness to which Makdisi refers in U.S. policy and media coverage of the occupation of Palestine and genocide of the Palestinian people has been going on for decades. When a U.S. politician as respected and hardworking as President Carter is raked over the coals (as usual, only in the U.S.) for speaking of the apartheid, what can one say?

Saundra Annwyn Kelly

Carmel

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Makdisi claims that Netanyahu’s insistence that the Palestinians must truly recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people “is a relatively new Israeli demand.” The 1947 United Nations partition resolution called for the establishment of an Arab state and a Jewish state in Palestine. Then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat accepted the legitimacy of that resolution in 1988. When he signed the Oslo accords in September 1993, it was generally assumed that the Palestine Liberation Organization accepted Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state.

Subsequent events have shown that assumption to be incorrect. No agreement can legitimately be called a peace agreement unless it explicitly contains this recognition.

Herbert Roth

Indian Wells, Calif.