Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

In seeking Mideast peace, demands always fall on Israel

Re: Leaving Gaza, editorial, Aug. 19.

For days, the front page of the Times has chronicled the heartbreak and agony wrenching the Israeli people as they voluntarily abandon their homes and lives in Gaza in the hopes of moving the Middle East conflict toward peace. So what does the Times editorial board call for as the next step: A determined effort by the Palestinians to rout out the terrorists who seek to destroy Israel? An invitation by their leadership to undertake meaningful negotiations? Even so little as an acknowledgment by Mahmoud Abbas of the significance of this step by Israel? No, for your editorial board, the next step is for Israel to make even more unilateral concessions, before anything is expected from the Palestinians.

It is just such perverse logic that has kept the Middle East mired in conflict for 50 years. Instead of demanding that each side make meaningful concessions to move toward peace - and leaving them to their own devices until they come to that inevitable conclusion - the conventional wisdom has determined that peace can come only after Israel has unilaterally conceded all the demands of the Palestinians, who will then graciously decide that it is time for them to make peace.

Can anyone still believe that? After the 1967 war, Israel offered to return all the captured lands in exchange for a peace treaty. The Arab world responded with the infamous three No's of Khartoum: "No peace, no negotiations, no recognition of Israel." Why should they change that position, if all they have to do is wait for Israel - at the urging of the Times editorial board and other fellow travelers - to give them all they seek?

Albert Einstein observed that to take the same action time and again, and expect a different result, is the definition of lunacy. The Israelis may be many things, but they are not lunatics.

Lessons not learned

Re: Leaving Gaza, editorial, Aug. 19.

This editorial correctly points out that the settlements being evacuated in Gaza should not have been built in that densely populated strip that the United Nations never intended to be part of a Jewish homeland. Our generous foreign aid allotment made it possible for Israel to build these settlements. Now Israel is asking us for $2.2-billion more to help in dismantling them.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says that Israel must continue and address the settlements in the West Bank that are an even greater obstacle to peace. But Israel is planning and building new settlements in the West Bank at the same time it is constructing a huge separation wall that slices through Palestinian land.

It seems we have not learned our lesson from the Gaza experience. Our foreign aid will assist Israel to continue building new settlements in the West Bank and this will continue until, once again, we are asked to pay Israel to dismantle them.

Anti-Semetic tone can't be overlooked

Re: A fracture in interfaith relations.

In his Aug. 20 column, Colbert King makes a number of excellent points. However, based on the fact that the Presbyterian Church is prepared to divest itself from certain companies doing business in Israel and only in Israel, its anti-Semitic tone cannot be overlooked or downplayed.

The church did not take a like action to divest itself of holdings in companies that support the Sudan, where people have been slaughtered by the thousands, or Saudi Arabia where so many of the 9/11 murderers came from, or in Syria which continues to funnel support to radical Palestinians bent on killing innocent Jewish children and women and opens its borders with Iraq to terrorists. No, the church's stand is only against Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people.

What is of even greater concern to me is the apparent lack of comment from members of the church. My hope is that concerned individual members of the Presbyterian Church will express their objection to this decision and it will be promptly reconsidered.

A people vs. a state

Re: Divesting from Israel.

As a person of faith and an observer of public policy and economics, I make a clear distinction between "the People of Israel" and "the State of Israel."

The People of Israel are people of the Book and are called to be judged by the "High and Holy One of Israel." The nation state of Israel is a contemporary political entity to be judged by international politics.

That distinction is so important that much of the analysis of churches' consideration (not necessarily acts) of divestment is irrelevant noise.

Protesters abuse rights

Violating city ordinances, which are rules to keep orderly conduct, is not an expression of freedom of speech. It is an abuse of a right. A right that men and women are fighting for you to have. BayWalk is one big violation of the noise ordinance. I'm glad to see someone finally received a fine for breaking the law.

There are stickers promoting the BayWalk chaos all over downtown. Improperly placed stickers are referred to as sniper signs, and we have to pay city workers to remove these signs. It is the same as graffiti.

This is causing more tax dollars to be spent on the chaos of the protesters. The inordinate amount of police presence downtown on Saturday nights I'm sure is costing the city a pretty penny.

This group of protesters is not interested in freedom of speech. They are interested in economic devastation. Whether it is the city of St. Petersburg's tax dollars or BayWalk revenue, they don't want to see you spend your money. They want to spend it for you.

Don't manipulate law for repression

To the management, merchants and patrons of BayWalk who raise such strong objections to legal, peaceful protests in a public area that is our current equivalent of the town square:

Please look honestly into your hearts and souls and ask: "Would I object if I agreed with the views expressed? If demonstrators appeared in support of an issue deeply important to me, would I want them to be harassed, restricted or removed from the public square?"

Objections to the weekly vigil at BayWalk are masked in transparently weak justifications of safety issues, crowded sidewalks and protection for supposed hypersensitive, timid patrons unable to enjoy shopping and socializing at BayWalk if exposed to a dissenting opinion. Please, is this the land of the free and the brave?

To our city officials and the St. Petersburg Police Department: Regulations and laws must be applied fairly to all, neither manipulated to repress those whose dissent may offend us nor relaxed to spare those with whom we agree.

The continuing enthusiastic crowds at BayWalk indicate a healthy vitality in the marketplace. Perhaps both commerce and citizens are not so fragile after all.

[Last modified August 24, 2005, 01:15:20]