As a bona-fide member of what Thomas L. Friedman terms ''the lunatic Israeli settler movement,'' I find his strident tone illogical (''Fathers and Sons,'' column, May 11). 

Unless Israel completely disengages itself from the Arab population living in the country's pre-1967 borders, in the future, Israel may still yet be faced with binationalism. 

With Israel existing in more restricted borders, that would invite Arab aggression, as in 1967, when Israel had not one Jewish community in the disputed areas of Judea and Samaria. If ''settlements'' did not exist then, why should dismantling the communities solve anything today? Will Arab enmity be less? 

YISRAEL MEDAD
Shiloh, West Bank, May 11, 2003

"West Bank" wasn't written by me, of course.


Another one:

Arafat and What Might Have Been

Published: November 10, 2004

To the Editor:

Thomas L. Friedman writes that if Yasir Arafat had ''ever adopted the nonviolence of Gandhi,'' he would have had his Palestinian state -- ''Israel's reckless settlements notwithstanding'' (''Footprints in the Sand,'' column, Nov. 7). Mr. Friedman places the cart before the horse.

Yasir Arafat adopted the path of terror and violence years before any Jewish community had been built in the disputed territories, indeed, years before those territories came under Israeli administration in 1967.

Yisrael Medad
Shiloh, West Bank, Nov. 8, 2004

And one more, all before I began blogging:

   
For Mideast, Blueprint or Illusion?

Published: December 3, 2003

To the Editor:

Yossi Beilin and Yasir Abed Rabbo, in seeking to justify their virtual diplomatic negotiating exercise, point to ''hard-liners in Israel'' who ''have criticized the details of the agreement'' (''An Accord to Remember,'' Op-Ed, Dec. 1).

The portrayal of hard-liners is self-serving. The scathing criticism of the method and the results of their efforts is across the board, from left to right in Israel.

Its impracticability, its yielding to terror, its dissolving of Israel's raison d'ĂȘtre, its vacating of crucial security needs and the forced abandonment of portions of the Jewish people's historic homeland without reciprocal demands on the Arab population all combine to nullify the relevance of the festival in Geneva.

YISRAEL MEDAD

Shiloh, West Bank, Dec. 1, 2003

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