Pal. Writes With Forked Tongue

This letter was published today in the august New York Times:-

Re “The Age of Interruption” (column, July 5):

Thomas L. Friedman finds the recent violence between Israelis and Palestinians to be “utterly without purpose.” I agree. But Mr. Friedman doesn’t discuss the conditions that led to the recent escalation.

Gaza is a prison where 79 percent of households live in poverty, and children scavenge through dumpsters. It is also an Israeli target range, where schools, bridges and electric plants have been destroyed.

In the West Bank, Israel continues to expand its settlements and build its wall deep inside Palestinian territory, destroying dozens of Christian and Muslim Palestinian communities. Meanwhile, Palestinians are the first occupied population to be placed under international sanctions.

The international community must ensure that both Palestinians and Israelis meet their legal obligations, without discrimination, and that they negotiate a solution based on mutual respect, recognition of each other’s rights, and security and freedom for both peoples.

Maen Rashid Areikat
Director General
Negotiations Affairs Department
Palestine Liberation Organization
Ramallah, West Bank, July 5, 2006

and here's my reaction:-

The PLO's Maen Rashid Areikat does not practice what he preaches when he accuses Thomas Friedman of not discussing the conditions that led to the recent escalation ("Plight of the Palestinians", Jul 12). Ignoring the firing of almost 1000 rockets from Gaza into Israel, the deaths, injuries and damage they have caused as well as the forced eviction of 8000 Jews from their homes in the area is yet another example of longstanding Palestinian propaganda behavior.

If Gaza is a prison, as he claims, it is a prison created by the PLO. Worse, its residents are prisoners of a corrupt and immoral leadership that for decades as consistently failed their people, their rights to a better life and a promising future.