Blame the NYTimes Which Blames The Victims

To the Editor:

Re “Killing of 4 Israeli Settlers on Eve of Peace Talks Rattles Leaders on Both Sides” (news article, Sept. 1):

I am a proud former resident of Brooklyn who moved to Israel three years ago with my family. For some, the terrorist attack in the West Bank on Tuesday killed four nameless settlers. For us, the attack snuffed out the life of the loving special education nursery teacher who greeted our developmentally delayed son with boundless love and dedication every day for the last two years.

Kochava Even Chaim was on her way home to her own family after attending the nursery’s “welcome back” party at which her adoring special students, who are incapable of understanding hate, decorated new school bags with her just one hour before her murder. In Hamas’s cynical attempt to derail the peace talks, it wasted a life devoted to hope.

Jennie Goldstein
Neve Daniel, West Bank, Sept. 1, 2010

•

To the Editor:

Your account of the killing of four Israelis in the West Bank stresses the “disruptive role that the issue of Jewish settlements could play in the already fragile negotiations.”

Talk about blaming the victim! Settlements are an issue that must be addressed in the peace negotiations, but doesn’t this incident underscore that Hamas must cease its unprovoked violence if we are to have any hope of regional peace?

The disavowal by Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas lawmaker, of President Mahmoud Abbas’s peace-seeking efforts shines a sad light on the Hamas-Palestinian Authority schism; this divide, rather than differences between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, may be the ultimate obstacle to peace. Perhaps the West Bank killing was Hamas’s deadly way of making this point.

Amy N. Lipton
Greenwich, Conn., Sept. 1, 2010

The writer serves on the National Council of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

(Kippah tip: SoccerDad)
- - -