Give (negotiated) peace a chance
When I cut through all of the speculation about the Iran nuclear deal (Iran will or won’t spend unfrozen assets on terrorism; Iran will or won’t cheat on developing a nuclear weapon, etc.), I am left with two reasons to support the deal — one practical and one theoretical.
Military experts opine that even with aggressive bombing of Iranian nuclear sites, we would, at most, set back Iran’s acquisition of the bomb by a relatively short time. If the deal goes into effect, Iran’s uranium stockpile will decrease and its centrifuges will be reduced. There will be inspections by the IAEA.
And if Iran does not honor its commitments under the deal and a military response is required, won’t military intervention be far more effective in dealing with Iran’s reduced nuclear capacity and informed by the information obtained from IAEA inspections?
Beyond that, courtesy of George W. Bush (and in part egged on by Netanyahu), we have been fighting protracted and largely unsuccessful wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are frustrated with Obama, who is only able to extricate us from these quagmires slowly and imperfectly.
We want something different: diplomatic negotiations with our enemies that allow for the possibility of a peaceful solution, while not abandoning military alternatives, if they become necessary. Now, let’s give it a chance.
Yonkel Goldstein | San Carlos
A history of treaties rejected and revised
The Obama administration has wrongly claimed that there is no alternative to the proposed Iran agreement other than war. Sen. Chuck Schumer detailed many flawed provisions of the agreement and proposed rnegotiation. Unable to justify the provisions, the proponents have resorted to personal attacks on the opponents.
Alan Dershowitz has written that the agreement should have been a treaty, but was presented as a presidential action instead, which if adopted will not be law and could be modified or rescinded by a future president. Secretary of State John Kerry has said disapproval by Congress would be inconsistent with tradition, but nuclear nonproliferation legal expert Orde Kittrie wrote that Congress has rejected international agreements signed by the executive at least 130 times in U.S. history, and that 200 treaties signed by a president have been modified by Congress before approval.
It is important to analyze the agreement by the facts, and evaluate it while remembering the lessons of history. I think doing so would result in a vote against the agreement.
Norman G. Licht | San Carlos
BDS push for ‘right of return’ is fiction
Kudos to Dan Pine for his detailed look at the BDS movement and our community’s responses to it (“BDS in the boardroom,” Aug. 14). I would, however, disagree with the description of Dalit Baum’s support for the Palestinian “right of return” as placing her “at the far left of the BDS movement.”
Insistence on the “right of return” for descendants of the Arab refugee population — created by the failed attempt to prevent the establishment of the Jewish state — is one of the three demands of the BDS movement (www.bdsmovement.net/call). All organizations that endorse BDS support this fictional “right,” which exists nowhere in international law. Its purpose, as admitted by Arab leaders, is to demographically overwhelm the Jewish population and turn Israel into a binational state in which Jews would be a minority — and we know the fate of minorities in Arab-majority states. Supporting BDS means opposing the existence of a Jewish state of Israel within any borders. We need to educate the public that BDS is anti-peace, anti-coexistence and anti-Israel.
Michael Harris | San Rafael
A winning BDS strategy means going on offensive
We need two changes in our response to the discriminatory BDS movement. First, ditch the benign BDS acronym and call it what it is: the Israel delegitimization movement. The backers’ goal is not policy change but, as shown on their websites, “to end the 1948 occupation.” Make schools, cities and boardrooms know exactly what they are voting for: Israel’s destruction, from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Secondly, simply defending against BDS campaigns is a no-win proposition. Rather, we need our own university, boardroom and civic resolutions, affirmatively promoting a two-state solution and opposing violence as a tool for political change. We need to frame the debate in our terms, not always respond to theirs.
“Support peacemakers; oppose terrorists; promote two states coexisting in peace and security.” That pre-emptive substitute resolution can be our winning rallying cry.
Mark Schickman | Berkeley
Pluto and Jews, 2-gether 4-ever
Thank you for Edmon J. Rodman’s wonderful column “Pluto’s got heart — it’s a Jewish kind of place” (July 24). Rodman notes that, like the Jewish people, Pluto is little but has a lot of heart (literally), follows a different path than others, has faced adversity from those who change the rules just to keep it out of the club, and makes an impression far out of proportion to its minuscule size. What could be more Jewish than that?
Just as Israel since its birth has embodied the plight of the Jewish people in the community of nations, one can now look up at the night sky and know that there is a tiny island of rock and ice in the wine-dark sea of space, far away in the outer reaches of our solar system, that likewise embodies the indelible Jewish story of resolve and resilience.
Stephen A. Silver | San Francisco
Water story stirs up memories
Reading a recent J., I recalled stories from a neighbor of my parents in the Berkeley Hills area who spent a great deal of time in Palestine teaching water conservation (“As drought marches on, Israel marches in — again,” July 24).
In the ’30s and ’40s, before Israel was a country, Sam Hamberger taught the local population to reuse water. However, he was somewhat discredited, as he was a registered Communist and was subject to the “inquisition” of the first Dyes committee and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) during the McCarthy Era.
Louis Michael Levy | Oakland