Coexisting peacefully

I agree with Mike Haltzel and Norm Kurz (“Standards before status: A precondition for Palestinian statehood,” January 29). After thirty years of Palestinian leaders rejecting every peace proposal and working to destroy Israel rather than building the infrastructure needed by a viable state, the Palestinians should not expect that they will get a state via the diktat of the Biden administration.

And, although Haltzel and Kurz don’t seem to have much respect for Prime Minister Netanyahu, he has already outlined the necessary preliminary steps – demilitarization of Gaza and deradicalization of the Palestinians. In the beginning, Israel will need to take control of security in Gaza, until Israel feels that it would be safe to put more control in Palestinian hands.

UNRWA should be dismantled, with Arab states in the Abraham Accords offering the “Palestine refugees” the choice of citizenship in their countries or the option of working to build a Palestinian entity, which would have the possibility of achieving full statehood, based on criteria to be established by Israel and her allies. The work of building the Gazan economy should be closely supervised by the US and the EU to ensure that donated funds actually go to their intended purposes.

Clearly, one important goal is that all involved must accept the necessity for the Palestinian entity and, hopefully, the eventual Palestinian state to agree to coexist peacefully with the nation-state of the Jews.

I would hope that when a Palestinian state is established in Gaza, and possibly in Areas A and B of Judea and Samaria, there would be free movement throughout Israel and the Palestinian entity/state, and that things would function following the example set by the Jewish communities in Area C, where Jewish businesses employ both Jewish and Palestinian workers and serve both Jewish and Palestinian consumers.

TOBY F. BLOCK

Atlanta