Oslo generation

Salma Khatib (“The Oslo generation,” Comment & Features, June 8) sounds like a well-intentioned and nuanced young person who truly believes her grievances are legitimate. But she was born in 1986 and has a frame of reference that stretches barely 20 years.

Despite all their proclaimed issues, Palestinian Arabs share the health, life expectancy, sanitary conditions and educational opportunities of Israelis. Back in 1967, this was not the case. Those of us who were here at that time remember the abject filth, running sewers, dismal education and awful health that was pretty much Arab reality under Arab rule.

For years, following the Six Day War, there were no checkpoints or barriers. Palestinian Arabs had green license plates but could otherwise travel freely within Israel’s pre-1967 borders. Hundreds of thousands of them were employed in Israel, allowing them to develop themselves, enjoy genuine prosperity and follow the example of Israelis in order to upgrade their lifestyle, health, education and longevity.

That there are today separation walls and checkpoints, Ms. Khatib has only the Palestinian leadership to thank (and the do-gooders of Oslo to blame – the architects of the Oslo Accords, by allowing the thugs and murderers who were isolated in Tunis to come to Judea and Samaria, ostensibly to create a democratic Palestinian state, helped unleash a tsunami of Arab murder and mayhem that made barriers and checkpoints a matter of life and death).

If only I could take Ms. Khatib on a walk through the Old City or Hebron of June 1967, she would be mortified and would instantly appreciate how and why Palestinian Arabs now enjoy a quality of life that is the envy of the Arab world. Then, perhaps, she might understand how Yasser Arafat and his thugs so effectively turned her people into worshipers of death. YOHANAN AV-YAIR

Jerusalem

I was dismayed that your newspaper devoted an entire page to the revisionist Arab propaganda of Salma Khatib.

Khatib writes: “I was born in 1986. The embarrassing thing is that a lot of people of my generation don’t know much about the Oslo Agreement.” She might have added that they are ignorant of the history of the region.

The many lies, distortions and innuendo in this piece can be addressed through the words of the late, great Jeanne Kirkpatrick, US ambassador to the UN from 1981 to 1985: “The long march through the UN has created many benefits for the PLO. It has created a people where there was none; an issue where there was none; a claim where there was none. Now the PLO is seeking to create a state where there already is one (Israel).”

Kirkpatrick’s words remain as true today as they were then. ROSLYN PINE London