The two good:
To the Editor:
You end your editorial by saying, “Israel will have no peace — with its neighbors or its own citizens — without a peace agreement.” But Israel’s neighbors will have no peace agreement until they can demonstrate legitimately peaceful behavior.
During this so-called truce, Israel withstood continued mortar attacks on its citizens and recently learned that Hamas was using the “truce” to dig tunnels to enhance its war-making abilities.
This has been the Palestinian game since Oslo: talk peace, pretend to be peaceful, while covertly (and overtly) making war. This has to stop before any real peace agreement can be signed.
Rick Armstrong
Brooklyn,
•
To the Editor:
You state: “The lesson of the last few months should be clear to all. Israel will have no peace — with its neighbors or its own citizens — without a peace agreement.”
There are numerous peace treaties signed by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The problem is that the Palestinians have violated all of them — usually within a few weeks of the signing.
Both sides view the purpose of a peace treaty very differently. Israel sees a treaty as a covenant requiring both sides to make compromises that ultimately enable all to live in peace. The Palestinians view peace treaties as an interim step to weaken Israel and gain advantage for another war.
The Palestinian media say this all the time; so do Palestinian clergymen and Palestinian officials. I just wonder why The New York Times is unable to say this.
Jerry Levy
Aliso Viejo, Calif.,
The one bad:
To the Editor:
While you correctly take Israel to task for failing to stem settlement expansion and rein in violent settlers, your vague prescription for addressing this persistent problem — urging American Jews to publicly support the government — is absurd.
What’s desperately needed is an end to the unqualified American financial and political support for Israel that helps finance settlement expansion and rewards Israeli politicians who carry out policies that are inimical to peace.
Such a change in policy, however, will not come about until we start clearly identifying Israeli settlements as illegal under international law and begin holding American lawmakers accountable for supporting Israeli policies that are illegal, immoral and damaging to American interests.
Ken Galal
San Francisco
Now, Ken is a letter writer (and I appreciate that).
For example:
1.
Judea Pearl's history bookshelf must indeed be "worn and dusty" if a short journey through it leads him to conclude that "Zionists were both aware and respectful of Palestinian aspirations and made persistent attempts to reach reciprocal recognition and accommodation."
Rather than relying on selected quotes by Zionist leaders meant for public consumption, Pearl, should look to more current and iluminating historical works by so-called new Israeli historians such as Ilan Pappe, who draw on more recently released Israeli military archives and private papers of Zionist leaders in order to reach a vastly different conclusion about the motives of Israel's founders.
In his book "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine," Pappe quotes the following words of Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion from a 1947 speech to senior members of his political party: "There are 40% non-Jews in the areas allocated to the Jewish state. This composition is not a solid basis for a Jewish state. And we have to face this new reality with all its severity and distinctness. Such demographic balance questions our ability to maintain Jewish sovereignty … Only a state with at least 80% Jews is a viable and stable state."
It is this mindset that led to the deliberate expulsion of two thirds of Palestinians from what is now Israel.
Ken Galal
San Francisco
References:
See page 48 of "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine," by Ilan Pappe, 2006 for Ben-Gurion quote.
2.
...Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert missed a historic opportunity in Annapolis to initiate a process of reconciliation before assembled Palestinian officials, Arab representatives and world leaders. As with the late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat's visit to Israel in 1977, nothing would have done more to change the psychology of the region than had Olmert accepted responsibility for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 and pledged to work to reverse the injustices that Palestinians to this day continue to suffer under Israeli rule.
Only decisive U.S. leadership over the coming year can avert another wasted opportunity to find peace and bolster American security.
3.
To The Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 17, 2004
Helena Cobban is right to call for an end to the status quo of condoning and financing Israel’s 37-year occupation. The 9/11 commission recognized the high cost to American credibility and security that such blind support for Israel entails. Its recently published report warned: “America’s policy choices have consequences....American policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and American actions in Iraq are dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world.”
Unfortunately this understated message has not reached enough Americans to overcome political inertia and the role of special interests. Until more voters decide to weigh in on this critical issue, our counterproductive policies in the Middle East are unlikely to change.
Ken Galal, San Francisco, CA
And, to his credit, he even had one in the NYTimes a while ago:-
To the Editor:
Re ''The Stalled Middle East Peace Plan'' (editorial, Sept. 5):
The road to peace for Israelis and Palestinians parallels that which leads to peace in Iraq. The United States and the international community must persuade Israel to withdraw from occupied Palestinian territories to make way for a United Nations force that can provide security, begin reconstruction and help establish a democratic Palestinian state.
Instead, we continue to block the United Nations from playing a role, we condone further Israeli expansion of borders and settlements and we lavish the right-wing government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with a multibillion-dollar aid package.
It should be no surprise that the road map is leading us nowhere.
KEN GALAL
San Francisco, Sept. 5, 2003
and another one just the year before.
Ken may be an astrophysics trajectory expert involved in a project named "Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS)" but I can't confirm that. He may even be in this picture:
(Third Row: Rich Aros (dark glasses), Tony Ricco , Dana Lynch, Ken Galal, Jim Hanratty, Silvano Colambano, Darin Foreman)
and here:
If he is, that means he should be smart and intelligent. These letters don't display those qualities.
He comes across as a pro-Pal. activist who is immersed in ideology but without the proper facts. But that's okay, America is a free country and the Internet tolerates everything.
P.S.
Although his name is Arabic in orign, what really made me grin, though, is that in Hebrew, galal, גלל, translates as 'animal droppings'.
Well, you can't win it all.
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