Web Letters: Israel's Palestinians Speak Out

Nadim Rouhana is being a little disingenuous when he says that Palestinians living in Israel do not want to be incorporated into the Palestinian Authority because they do not want to abandon their rights. The real reason is that they enjoy a much higher quality of life in developed, democratic, stable Israel than they would under Palestinian rule. What is left unsaid is that those responsible for this quality of life are the very Jews whose state they refuse to recognize. As former Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharrett said many years ago in the UN General Assembly during the debate over partition, these Arabs wish to enjoy the state that the Jews have worked so painstakingly to build while rejecting it at the same time.

Michael Brenner

Woodmere, NY

Yet again, the Nation website has looked at Israel the other way.

Israel is committed to peace negotiations, however, there hasn't been any agreement or compatibility with the Palestinian leadership to offer the land Israel gave up in the Gaza Strip in 2005. There just doesn't seem to be much or any room for compromise with Palestinians when Israel is doing its utmost to negotiate peace, where they fail due to the past Yassir Arafat leadership and Hamas's violent rage against Israel and not recognizing it.

There was never a recognized Palestinian state, even before Israel declared itself Israel in 1948.

What the Jews have been through over the past 2,000 years is not the least of what Arabs have been through, let alone Palestinian Arabs and Christians. The Jewish bible states that Israel is the holy land, while the Quran has no mention of Israel or Jerusalem. This is the problem when there is such a split in biblical adaptation, because the Jewish bible is the direct word of God, and the Christian bible and Quran are just concentrated remnants of divisiveness. It is said that God doesn't change His mind, so why would it seem that one would say He said something, and then the opposite to someone else?

We all have our say in society, and it's between two sides and the truth to what is right. A two-state solution is possible as long as it is as diplomatic as possible without any extremism by either the Palestinians or Israelis. Simple solutions such as Israel giving up its land entirely for a Palestinian state is not a means of coexistence for Arabs and Jews. It would just reiterate the notion that Islamists want a monopoly in the Middle East and the rest of the world as world denomination. Moderation is a helpful remedy to overcoming extremism, because moderate people have always saved those from mediocre minds such as in the Holocaust during World War II, and moderate Arabs will help better negotiate a peace map for Israel and Palestinian land to make a two-state strategy.

Nicholas Rosen

Great Falls, VA

Deportation of Palestinian Israelis could pose international problems for Israel, so chances are they won't go that route. The land swap would probably be the way the Israeli government would seek to solve their "demographic" problem. I don't think Israel or the neoconservatives in the Bush Administration are serious about a peace agreement. They would prefer their tried and true incremental method of Illegal settlements. Seeking a Jewish state may be a method of stalling the peace process. When there are preconditions to talks, they are not serious about talking.

You may have seen some commercials on TV about persecuted Christians. Putting "persecuted" Christian Palestinian Israelis up front on this issue might be a good move. You would not be lying! Mohammed's comments about People of the Book during his "night visit" to Jerusalem would also be useful. You have to play hardball to get results.

Pervis J. Casey

Riverside, CA