To the editor:
I agree with Eitan Hersh's viewpoint ('Waiting for peace' April 29, 2002) saying that suicide bombers in the Middle East are 'unacceptable.' I do not, however, make any distinction between a man with no other weapon than his body blowing himself up and an armed soldier going in to a widow's house, ransacking it and shooting her children as part of a so called war on terror. Both aggressive sides are barbaric. Israel began their latest invasions of Palestine with the intention of attaining security for her people, the army has failed; they have put the security of thousands of Palestinians at risk.
The viewpoint says that 'no legitimate Jewish leader in the world is happy about those things.' Prime Minister Sharon is a warmonger and should be tried for a multiplicity of war crimes; he is a terrorist protected by the United States. The Palestinians are seeing their homeland slowly taken away from them and are so desperate that some no longer value their lives, and use it as a weapon. This is sad. The Israelis continue to steal Palestinian land.This is illegal. Every industrialised country round the world except Israel and the United States agrees with me.
The viewpoint goes on to plead the case of Israelis as a peaceful, praying people. If that is so, they are also hypocrites - olive leaf in one hand, gun in the other, ready to establish another 'settlement' or armed colony outside land which is rightfully their own, which, they should remember, was given to them. If one reads a timeline - all one will see is continued Israeli seizure of Arab land.
The viewpoint asks if a peaceful doctrine is taught in Palestinain schools: the answer is no because there are no schools; they have been shot at and crushed along with houses, statues, mosques and churches. Only people with good hearts can bring about peace. A change of leaders, a stop to the theft of land and tolerance on both sides is the only way. As Churchill said - to jaw-jaw is better than to war-war.
Christopher Dungan
LA '04
