Two Good Letters to the Editor

In today's NYT:-

To the Editor:

Jeffrey Goldberg argues that “the dismantling of settlements is the one step that would buttress the dwindling band of Palestinian moderates in their struggle against the fundamentalists of Hamas.”

That strategy has failed. In the summer of 2005, Israel dismantled every settlement in Gaza, expelled all the Jews, destroyed every military base and removed every soldier.

Rather than build a functioning peaceful society, the Palestinians rewarded Israel by electing Hamas.

There is no reason to believe that dismantling West Bank settlements would produce a different result.

Until the Palestinians desire peace more than the destruction of Israel, there will never be peace.

Jacob Sasson
New York

•

To the Editor:

Re “For Israelis, an Anniversary. For Palestinians, a Nakba,” by Elias Khoury (Op-Ed, May 18):

The biggest similarity between the war in 1948 and the continuing Israeli control of Palestinian towns in the West Bank is that both were the unfortunate choice of the Palestinians.

In 1948, Israel agreed to the United Nations partition plan, and was willing to live as a neighbor to a Palestinian state, but the Arabs chose war. After the war, Arab countries chose to put the Palestinian refugees into refugee camps, while Israel integrated an equal number of Jewish refugees from Arab countries into Israeli society.

And in 2005, Israel chose to withdraw from Gaza and plan for further evacuation of the West Bank, and the Palestinians chose to use Gaza to fire missiles at Israeli civilians rather than build a productive society. Clearly, Israel cannot transfer control of more territory if that territory will be used to fire missiles at our civilians.

Bruce Dov Krulwich
Beit Shemesh, Israel