YOUR VIEWS / MIDDLE EAST PEACE

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Is the time ripe for President Bush’s push for a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians? Neither side really wants peace now While peace in the Middle East is a nice dream, the reality is that it will never happen.

The reasons are many — religion, greed, racial hatred and lack of leadership, to name a few — and while there are many people in the Middle East who want peace, there are more who want chaos. Both the Israeli and Palestinian governments have been accused of corruption and both lack a plan.

The antagonism between the Jewish and Palestinian people has been festering for generations with no real solution in sight. There are also factions in both the Israeli and Palestinian armies and militias that are extreme to both the left and right.

Finally, the Middle East has always been a breeding ground for zealots, fanatics, war lords and others who want to recreate the world. The best thing for the United States to do is back off and let both sides make their own destinies. — Michyle S.

Glen, Columbus Israel expands; Palestine bleeds Our lame duck president has no more chance of furthering a peace agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis than his predecessors. Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians want peace. Both do everything possible to derail peace talks and pursue their goals of territorial expansion.

Not unlike the American Indians, the Palestinians lost their territory and were confined to reservations (refugee camps) with no recourse but to fight for their homeland.

Though Israel has every right to defend its United Nations-sanctioned borders, no country since World War II has had a government that confined a million people in a ghetto and withheld basic necessities of life to achieve their goal of domination and territorial expansion. — Gerald F.

Miller, Lake Mills First U.S. must respect Palestinians For peace to prosper anywhere, there must be some measure of justice perceived by all. At no time over the last eight years has there been anything resembling even the pursuit of peace through justice for the Palestinians.

Following the Clinton administration’s failed attempt at a peace accord, incoming Prime Minister Ariel Sharon upped the ante with his “visit” to the Dome of the Rock, for centuries one of the holiest sites to Arabs. What followed were years of effort by President Bush, his advisers and Sharon to divide and conquer the Palestinian will.

Despite our arrogant view of what the Arab world should think, it’s important to know what they do think. First, there was the notion that the centuries-defunct Israel should be re-established; then, that a limb of the Arab body should be severed for it.

And after swallowing U.N.-dictated international law, the Arab world has witnessed 40 years of lawbreaking by Israel, with its occupation of Palestine and other U.N.-condemned aggressions, all occurring with U.S. support. The choice of Forum commentators, Avi Shaked and Lawrence Haas, is a good indication of why peace is not probable.

How this transcription was made

Date and publication rest on the collector's slide label; no masthead, folio or printed dateline appears on this clipping.

Context added by this archive

Directly answers the ‘where is the sharpest language’ question: it is in the reader letters, not the wire copy or the op-eds. Two of the three letters are responding to the Shaked/Haas point-counterpoint also in this batch (slides 48, 52, 53), which means this paper ran the syndicated pro-Israel pair and then printed readers objecting to that choice.

Note also that the two signed letters both open with a ‘neither side wants peace’ framing and then diverge sharply in what they go on to say.

Cite this clipping

"YOUR VIEWS / MIDDLE EAST PEACE," Wisconsin State Journal, 9 March 2008. Covering Palestine archive, CP-2008-027. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-2008-027