Dear Editor:
While reading Bayann Hamid's absurd commentary, published March 24,arguing that our government should exacerbate the mistakes that have ground to a halt any semblance of progress in the so-called "peace process." I couldn't help but thinking about the main thread of the Arab-Israeli conflict since the start of the failed Oslo Process in 1993. During that time, Israel has turned over significant portions of the disputed territories, including all of Gaza, to the Palestinian Authority, so now almost all (approximately 95 percent) of the Arabs in those areas live under their own, albeit corrupt, government.
Israel has at least twice offered a peace that would include the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state in virtually all the disputed territories, including parts of Israel's own capital, but been totally rejected without the Arabs even making a counteroffer.
For its part, the Palestinian Authority has yet to offer a single meaningful concession and, in violation of its written commitments, built up a huge terror infrastructure in those areas, indoctrinated its youth in the glories of shaheedism, and in 2000 launched a major terror offensive, including suicide bombings at such "military" targets as shopping malls, pizza parlors and discotheques, murdering more than a thousand Israelis, injuring and maiming thousands more, and prematurely
sending thousands of its own people into Paradise.
As Vice President Biden was leaving Israel in March, the Palestinian Authority demonstrated its true commitment to peace with the inauguration of Dalal Mughrabi Square in el-Bireh, honoring the commander of the 1978 Coastal Road massacre in which 37 Israeli civilians along with an American photographer, Gail Rubin, who happened
to be the niece of Connecticut Senator Abraham Ribicoff, were brutally murdered.
Israel is currently about half-way through a ten-month freeze in construction in the disputed territories, offered to induce the Arabs back to the peace table, Mahmoud Abbas/Abu Mazen, the so-called "moderate leader" of the West Bank Palestinian Authority still refuses to negotiate.
The Israelis have demonstrated they are far more interested in getting another Palestinian Arab state established than the Palestinian Arabs themselves.
That's the basic reality, a reality totally ignored by Hamid.
Our American government needs to start basing policy on that reality,
rather than continuing to ignore, excuse and even reward the
intransigence, rejectionism and terrorism of the Palestinian Arabs.
Sincerely,
Alan H. Stein
President, PRIMER-Connecticut
Promoting Responsibility in Middle East Reporting
www.primerct.org
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