The obstacle to peace is Palestinian hatred of Jews and Israel
April 5 -- To the Editor:
In their April 2 letters, Messrs. Odell and Turner demonstrate a total misunderstanding of the situation in the Middle East. Odell claims to know that Israel has killed tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians during the IDF campaign to eliminate Hamas. But how does he know? Is he simply parroting the casualty numbers fabricated by Hamas and accepted without critical review by CNN and the NY Times? Several statistical analyses have demonstrated that the casualty figures Odell “knows” are nothing more than propaganda inventions by Hamas.
Dr. Turner’s letter is less fevered but demonstrates a serious lack of historical understanding about Israel and the Palestinians. The so-called Green Line has never been an international border. It was simply the truce line that was drawn after newly born Israel survived an invasion by several Arab armies in 1948. Before and after 1948, the Jews of Palestine repeatedly offered to share the land with the Arabs of Palestine. Those offers have been repeatedly rejected because the Palestinian (Arab) leadership cannot accept the existence of Israel on any parcel of land, no matter how small.
The Oslo peace accords permitted the creation of a Palestinian Authority to administer part of the “West Bank.” Those accords also permitted Israel to administer the less populated portion of the “West Bank” and to use the IDF to prevent terrorist attacks launched across the Green Line.
Despite the efforts of Bill Clinton to broker a twostate solution, the Palestinian Authority launched a campaign of terrorist attacks inside Israel that murdered hundreds of civilians. To this day, a major expenditure of the Palestinian Authority is payments to the families of terrorists who have died while attempting to kill Israeli civilians or who have been imprisoned for terrorist acts. Is it any wonder that a majority of Israelis, most of whom long for peace, now believe that a two-state solution won’t happen anytime soon? The true obstacle to peace is not Benjamin Netanyahu. It is hatred of Jews lurking in the minds of many Palestinians.
Richard England, Durham