100-year-old’s peace moves
I really enjoyed reading your cover article on the good life of 100-year-old Al Goldbaum (“Full speed ahead,” Feb. 1).
Al and his daughter Laura have attended Bay Area Jewish Voice for Peace community meetings several times, even though that entails a shlep from his Mill Valley home to either San Francisco or Berkeley.
I wondered if Al would like this fact known to j. readers, so I asked. Al said he supports JVP and feels fine about me writing a letter to the j. saying that.
So here it is. You might not get to an active 100 just by joining with JVP to work for peace and justice, but somebody wonderful has done both.
Glen Hauer | Berkeley
Abbas using Arafat’s plan
Your Feb. 8 editorial “How can Obama go to Israel and not talk peace?” evidenced a shocking and disturbing ignorance, or a stubborn refusal to deal with reality: You claimed that as Abbas accepts a two-state solution, peace is doable, and implied that the onus was on Israel to make peace.
However, as anyone who even casually reads news reports knows, Abbas has said — clearly and repeatedly — that he and his Fatah buddies will “never” accept a Jewish state, no matter how indefensible its borders.
His idea of two states is (a) a Palestinian state (with no Jews within its borders), and (b) a binational state, with a Palestinian population that would overtake the Jewish majority, probably, within a decade.
Thus, Abbas’ plan is Arafat’s old plan — he (just as the late terror master) knows that Jews will leave Israel rather than live in a Fatah-Hamas-Islamic jihad state, paving the way for one Palestinian state.
Tod Zuckerman | Daly City
Some ’splainin’ to do
I read with interest Ori Nir’s op-ed (“America must seize the chance to advance the peace process,” Feb. 8) hoping to learn about Peace Now’s thinking. However, his piece raised more questions than answers.
Will Nir explain his concern for the “moderate PA” when its charter (in Arabic), as that of Hamas, still calls for the destruction of Israel and replacing it with an Islamic state, with no mention of a two-state solution or coexistence with the Jewish Israel?
Will Nir explain his trust in the PA’s intentions while disregarding Abbas’ attempt to bypass Oslo and go directly to the U.N. to achieve an independent Palestine, rather than negotiate with Israel as the PLO committed in the Oslo accords?
Will Nir explain his belief in the Palestinians’ desire to accept Israel as a Jewish state, while during the last 100 years they demonstrated only hatred toward the Jews and refused all offered solutions, starting in 1947 with rejecting the U.N. partition plan to the latest in Olmert’s 2008 offer?
Most troubling is his call, as well as that of other Jewish progressives in the U.S., to demand that the U.S. government intervene and dictate “their solution” to Israel, regardless of Israel’s population preference.
Sam Liron | Foster City