So Self-Centered

Here's from a NYTimes letter-to-the-editor:

To the Editor:

...While the Israeli government may want to minimize its culpability for the recent events involving Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and characterize the uproar as a disagreement among friends concerning building permits, the fact remains that the American people were insulted and the peace process was threatened by the timing of the announcement.

Nothing that Mr. Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, has said in Israel’s defense has contradicted this or given us any hope that it understands what we are truly angry about.

Michael Scott
San Francisco

Dear Michael,

Have you any idea how insulted the Israeli people and the Jewish people are? That we are appalled at the naked political exploitation of a minor act? How angey we are?

And a Yitzhak Bronstein writes there:

With the social, economic and political divisions between the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza as apparent as ever, it is time to reassess the viability and desirability of a two-state solution.

It is time that the moderate Arab nations of Jordan and Egypt are offered incentives by the international community to annex territories in the West Bank and Gaza, respectively, and to finally reach a sustainable status quo in the Middle East.

Now, there's a challenge.