U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem

Big blunder

Regarding “Trump has opened a can of worms in Iran” (Page A15, Thursday), it is an understatement to say that it’s just a can of worms. This action may be best described as a blunder of massive proportions.

President Trump has acted unilaterally against the advice of most of his Cabinet, against the wishes of the American people who support the agreement by about 2-1, against the advice of former U.S. leaders and against the wishes of virtually all of the European Union. He has created a crisis where none existed.

The Iran nuclear agreement was an agreement signed on to by seven different entities and ratified by the United Nations Security Council. It was working. There is now no plan B if Iran restarts its nuclear weapons program. And now we have a second crisis created by Trump in just one week.

By moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem, he has inflamed the tensions across the Middle East and between the Palestinians and Americans. There was no reason for this. It was stupid, dangerous, ill-judged, badly timed and about as ill-informed as imaginable. All that happened was that it started a mob action of religious people highly offended by such a thing, which so far has cost the lives of some 60 people and which has resulted in injury to another 1,000.

This action was not the fault of Hamas. It was a blunder by Trump. His talk about a “strong commitment to peace” sounded hollow when weighed against the death and destruction his actions have caused. He can try to blame it on Hamas all he wants, but the blood of those 60 people lay at his feet. Robert L. Fischer, Houston

Trump critics

The move of the U.S. Embassy in Israel was supposed to happen many years ago, but no previous U.S. presidents had the gumption to actually do it.

President Trump recently got three U.S. prisoners released from North Korea and didn’t give up five high-level terrorists to do it. And, we all know that the illegal immigration problem would continue being ignored if Trump had not been elected. Obviously, for Trump critics nothing is positive. Trump could cure cancer, and they would gripe that he was putting doctors out of work. Bob Fowler, Point Blank

Point missed

Regarding the “Defense of Israel” cartoon (Page A15, Thursday) the cartoon depicts an Israeli soldier and a dead Palestinian protester. The soldier is quoted as saying: “I had to defend myself. He had a rock.” The cartoon wholly misses the larger point of what is occurring in Gaza.

The militants that govern the strip burn tires to obstruct the views of Israeli soldiers, use kites to carry Molotov cocktails over the border into Israel, and tell the protesters that the soldiers are abandoning their posts in an effort to encourage them to charge the security wall.

Dying while attempting to kill Jews and Israelis is sold as the path to martyrdom to young, poor Palestinians. Only when this lie, and this regime, is dead, will there be a chance for peace. Tom Kelley, Beaumont