Don’t ignore history
We all hope for Mideast peace. Yet we must be well versed in history and the goals of the parties involved.
Your recent editorial (“Talks with Syria may signal better days for Israel,” May 23) offered cautious support for peace discussions, wherein Israel would return the Golan Heights to Syria.
There was no mention that Lebanon is a current focus of the confluence of Iranian and Syrian goals to destroy Israel and dominate the Mideast.
Iran desires a Shia Islam-dominated Middle East and world. Via its Hezbollah and Hamas proxies, Iran now seeks dominion over Lebanon and Israel.
Syria wishes to return to the glory days of the Ottoman Empire, when “Greater Syria” included present-day Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan.
Peace discussions about the Golan Heights are quite absurd, for concurrent with those peace discussions, Syria is sending arms — many from Iran — to Hezbollah, in Lebanon, to attack Israel.
There is an uncanny similarity to Neville Chamberlain’s 1938 Munich Peace Conference, wherein Britain ceded the Sudetenland to Germany for “Peace in our time”— while Germany continued its military buildup.
Fred Korr | Oakland
Talk isn’t cheap
Now that it’s common knowledge Israel is holding back-channel talks with Hamas and Syria, among others, I hope j. will reconsider its no-talks-with-the-enemy editorial stance. To talk does not connote obliviousness to 60-year-old huff-and-puff vows to drive Israelis into the sea.
Endless confrontation is intolerable.
Lester Gorn | Pacific Grove
Not ‘at any cost’
Alexandra Wall (Letters, May 23) charges that j. letter-writers who question Israel’s territorial compromises are attacking those like her, who “believe in peace.”
I want to assure Ms. Wall that we all want peace. She shouldn’t confuse debating with “attacking.”
My beef with believers in “peace at any cost” is that they don’t want to bother exploring — or they conveniently forget — everything that Israel has already attempted for peace. A good place to start would be to read Bill Clinton’s “parameters for peace” in his book “My Life.”
Palestinians were to get Gaza, 98 percent of the West Bank (with land swaps), a capital in Jerusalem and control of the Islamic holy sites. Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Barak accepted, but Yasser Arafat said no and went home to start the deadly intifada.
I ask Wall and her fellow believers in peace: What more do they want Israel to give?
I too started this journey with my heart on my sleeve, but I am learning it’s not so easy when one also considers historical facts and that there are two sides to every story.
Sheree Roth | Palo Alto
Special cup of joe
I was pleased to see the story on the award for Peace Kawomera Coffee Cooperative in Uganda (“Leadership award for interfaith coffee,” May 16).
Your readers may be interested to learn that the San Francisco Interfaith Council has been the leader in encouraging congregations to buy and serve the coffee and make it available to congregants. Among the participating congregations are Congregation Emanu-El, Congregation Sherith Israel, St. Mary’s Cathedral, Grace Cathedral, the Swedenborgian Church, St. Ignatius Church and many others.
Four leaders of the cooperative were in San Francisco in April and visited Emanu-El, Sherith Israel, Grace Cathedral and the San Francisco Mosque. This is a tangible example of faiths working together and helping each other make a living and support their families.
The Thanksgiving Coffee Co. is to be congratulated for bringing the coffee to us in the United States.
Rita R. Semel | San Francisco
More rejoicing
Thank you for your increased coverage of Bay Area Jewish LGBT news, and for Dan Pine’s moving piece (“Jewish same-sex couples rejoice at Supreme Court decision,” May 23). I celebrate Avi Goldberg and Will Garcia’s family.
I also want to mention that in quoting Ora Prochovnik, the article did not mention that in addition to being with her partner, Rena Franz, for almost 25 years, they are the parents of two teenagers. Also, Ms. Prochovnik is nearly at the end of her two-year term as president of Congregation Sha’ar Zahav in San Francisco.
Under her stewardship, the shul has hired its first cantor, Sharon Bernstein, and is also moving toward the publication of an exciting and beautiful new siddur of particular relevance to Reform and LGBT communities.
Andrew Ramer | San Francisco