A ‘three-state solution’
Why not a three state solution? Forget about negotiating with the Iranian-allied terrorists in Gaza. Find people in the West Bank who want to live, prosper and govern themselves in a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Considering that Iranian nukes would destroy Palestinians as well as Israelis, perhaps mutual survival would serve as the basis for talks and tolerance.
The Obama administration is stuck on “land for peace” but would accept a “confidence building” intermediate solution. For them it’s all about public relations and making Obama look good. For Israel it’s about creating and maintaining political, business and military ties with other freedom-loving people.
Considering that these same nuclear-tipped Iranian missiles could murder hundreds of millions of people in India and throughout the region, it’s time for all the nations under the gun to get-it-together. Obama could actually help build a coalition to “contain” Iran.
Michael F. McCarthy | Hayward
Jews were the exiles
President Obama rightly urged the Arab world “to recognize Israel’s legitimacy” and stop using the Arab-Israeli conflict as a pretext “to distract the people of Arab nations from other problems.” The president failed to underline that it is the Jews who were in exile from this land.
As David Horovitz of the Jerusalem Post put it, this historic Jewish homeland “is the only place on earth where the Jews have ever been sovereign, the place we never willingly left, and to which we always prayed to return. This president, in that place, should have emphasized the point — stressed the physical root of our legitimacy to a Muslim world, and especially a Palestinian populace, that overwhelmingly refuses to acknowledge it.”
Muslims already have 56 countries and the Jews just have 1. That should have been stressed too.
Sheree Roth | Palo Alto
An uneven request
President Obama and Hilary Clinton are adamant that Israel freeze all settlements which, they claim, are detrimental to the “peace process.”
Really?
Then the Palestinians will stop hate incitement in mosque sermons, remove anti-Israel references in school textbooks, make a fatwa against suicide bombing, forbid TV programs based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and cease printing maps that eliminate Israel but show Palestine replacing the Jewish state.
By freezing “settlements,” which include suburbs of Jerusalem and sizable cities, does Obama think Hamas will suddenly stop firing rockets into Israel and delete from its mission statement those nasty pledges to destroy Israel? Or will Israel’s neighbors stop hate speech, cease anti-Israel editorials, and not publish vicious cartoons that blame Israel for all the Arabs’ problems? Will Mr. Abbas utter the words “Jewish state”?
It’s worrisome that the president demands of Israel immediate, documentable changes “on the ground” while he expresses polite but unenforceable “suggestions” to the Palestinians.
June Brott | Oakland
Settlement semantics
The deliberate ambiguity of President Obama’s and Secretary Clinton’s statements on Israeli settlements suggests that the administration’s intention to restructure U.S. policy toward Israel goes much farther than generally realized.
In Cairo the president said, “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.” There is a discontinuity between the wording “This construction” in the second sentence with “Israeli settlements” and “these settlements” in the other two sentences. A more logical construction would have been something like “new settlements” or “settlement activity.” The noun “settlements” implies disapproval of any settlement in the territories considered “occupied,” which is how the intended audience of the Cairo speech likely heard it.
Secretary Clinton’s wording reflects that of President Obama: “With respect to settlements, the president was very clear … He wants to see a stop to settlements — not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions.” This wording implies an intention to change U.S. policy dating from the 1967 U.N. Resolution 242 allowing for some border adjustments to a more stringent approach like the pre-1967 borders.
Steve Astrachan | Pleasant Hill
History tells the truth
There is much geschrei about those wicked Israelis building all those settlements on “occupied Palestinian territory,” actually Judea/Samaria, lately called the “West Bank.”
The reality is that this is part of “Palestine,” which, by the Balfour Declaration and by the mandate of the League of Nations, was promised as a homeland for the Jews. Incidentally, by far the largest part of Palestine was amputated by Winston Churchill, when he was Colonial Secretary of Britain, to create the Kingdom of Transjordan. Judea/Samaria was occupied by Jordan after the 1948 War of Liberation. Nobody but Britain and Pakistan ever recognized this landgrab.
At best, Judea/Samaria is “disputed territory,” but, certainly, Jews have as much or better right to settle and live there than the Arabs. There is absolutely no basis in law or history to think of this area as “Palestinian land.”
Gerardo Joffe | San Francisco
Shabbat sensitivity
Last month the Osher Marin JCC honored a childcare worker and held their first-ever fundraiser for the early childhood education program. My wife and I were unable to attend this wonderful event because the center forgot that some of us who donate and support the center are Jewish. The event was held before sundown on a Saturday. When I telephoned the JCC I got the runaround.
How can we support Jewish values in preschool when we cannot set an example for our community or children first?
Tom Stein | San Rafael
correction
Last week’s story “Richard Goldman, 5 Others Getting Awards from JCF” erred in describing the Robert Sinton Extraordinary Leader Award as “brand new.” The Sinton award was first given out in 1999. Also, honoree Debbie Togliatti teaches at T’enna Preschool at the Oshman Family Jewish Community Center in Palo Alto. She received the Grinspoon-Steinhardt Award for Excellence in Jewish Education.