To the Editor:
Re “Palestinians Must Have Hope for a Brighter Future,” by Bernie Sanders (Opinion visitor essay, Nov. 23):
Senator Sanders states what has been apparent for many years to all who help two states residing in peace, prosperity and dignity: The violence should finish. The query is, how?
Every act of brutality radicalizes the opposite aspect. On this lengthy battle, extremists on either side scuttle each hope for compromise and make sure the countless cycle of homicide and retaliation.
The U.S. can stress Israel by curbing or attaching situations to help. Who or what can stress Hamas and its allies? What, particularly, can disempower the Islamic radicals, defang the Israeli settlers and supply a path towards a dedication to peaceable coexistence on either side?
Those that declare that Hamas’s battle is in some way justified by Israeli actions (heinous as they could be) ignore its acknowledged purpose of eradicating Israel and killing Jews. In the end, this can be a regional downside that requires a regional resolution.
Senator Sanders and different peace-loving Individuals should name on these Arab states that help Palestinian extremists to finish their help and work towards real transformation.
I help Senator Sanders’s imaginative and prescient, however he doesn’t suggest a concrete path ahead, with out which nothing will change.
Ellen W. Kaplan
Raleigh, N.C.
To the Editor:
Whereas Senator Bernie Sanders affords what he believes to be constructive steps for Israel-Palestinian rapprochement, his prescription locations practically the entire obligations upon Israel. Of the 1,517 phrases within the senator’s essay, solely these 13 phrases — “new Palestinian management might be required as a part of a wider political course of” — are demanded of the Palestinians. Not sufficient, in my view.
Listed here are only a handful of steps the Palestinians may take to show seriousness and good religion: As soon as and for all acknowledge Israel’s proper to exist as an unbiased and sovereign Jewish state; maintain free and truthful Palestinian elections to place into place the brand new management Senator Sanders requires; demand, with out equivocation, Hamas’s everlasting removing from Gaza and reject its political ideology dedicated to Israel’s destruction; stop offering monetary compensation to the households of people who commit acts of terror towards Israelis; take away antisemitic and traditionally inaccurate propaganda contained in textbooks utilized in Palestinian colleges; reject the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (B.D.S.) motion focused towards Israel; and, lastly, show a willingness to just accept the peace proposals supplied by Israel in earlier rounds of failed negotiations, proposals that had been frequently rejected by the Palestinians underneath Yasir Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas.
Senator Sanders has articulated what Israel should do to advance peace in his view, however with the intention to stability the peace equation there may be clearly a lot that the Palestinians can and should do to finish the perpetual cycle of violence.
Mark S. Freedman
Parkland, Fla.
The author is the North American board chair of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Research, based mostly in Jerusalem.
To the Editor:
Senator Bernie Sanders’s essay was properly balanced, academic and pragmatic.
I want the senator would have accomplished his comparability of deaths thus far within the Gaza battle. Whereas the equal of 1,200 Israeli deaths on a per capita foundation in the USA can be a surprising 40,000 lives, Senator Sanders didn’t say what the equal of 12,000 Palestinian deaths can be.
Maybe he did the maths and didn’t need to write down the unimaginable determine of virtually two million.
I hope for a decision of this battle so there aren’t any extra unnecessary civilian deaths on both aspect.
Harry Irwin
Cambridge, Mass.
