Little Did I Know

Funny, at the Conference yesterday, I mentioned letter writing to papers and specifically the NYTimes and that unlike me, whose letters have stopped appearing, Stuart Pilichowski seems to be on every 3-4 months.

Little did I know.

From todays's Letter-to-the-Editor section:

August 21, 2008
Letters
Breaking the Impasse in the Mideast
To the Editor:

Re “Perils of an Israeli Transition” (editorial, Aug. 18):

Roadblocks aren’t strangling the Palestinian economy. Increased attempts at terrorism against Israelis are.

Turning Hamas into a legitimate and acceptable negotiating partner essentially means nullifying everything Hamas stands for and creating a new entity under a different leadership. Anyone interested in a bridge I’m selling in Brooklyn?

The Palestinians recently rejected Israel’s offer of almost all of the West Bank that was captured in the Six-Day War in 1967. In order for negotiations to move forward and stop reaching impasse after impasse, it’s not only Israel that must engage in offering compromise solutions.

The new Israeli prime minister, whoever he or she may be, will be successful in concluding negotiations toward a two-state solution only if the Palestinians realize once and for all that they will not now or ever receive 100 percent of their dreams.

Stuart Pilichowski
Mevaseret Zion, Israel

And here's the one I sent that didn't get published:-

The editorial ("Perils of an Israeli transition", Aug. 18) suggests that "Mr. Olmert could burnish his legacy...if he announced a full freeze on expansion of Jewish settlements". But of what help would an announcement be? How many times have various Arab leaders announced the end of terror and the firing of rockets but with no follow through and no commensurate international pressure that they fulfill their commitment?

Moreover, since there was an actual freeze of Jewish residency in all of the West Bank and Gaza between 1948 to 1967, while Arab terror was rampant, including the founding of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1964, what connection is there between Jewish residency rights and obtaining peace?

And I phrased this one, also and had it sent in (as well as to the Int'l Herald Tribune):-

In your editorial ("Perils of an Israeli transition", Aug. 17), you term the Hamas a "militant group" that "condones terrorism". It would have been more correct if, at the very least, you had written that Hamas either practices, initiates, instigates, commits or otherwise is engaged in terrorism. To condone is to regard something bad as acceptable, forgivable, or harmless and that, surely, is not what Hamas does.