[Peace] I'm intrigued by your arguments

[Michael Zukerman]

Mr. Green,

I read your letter in the Tribune today and found your arguments intriguing.  I would like to be objectively informed.  Do you have any objective literature that you could share with me, and please tell me your views about how to bring peace to that troubled land of Palestine.

M. Zukerman
mzukerman at buildersbank.com


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Israel's power
David Green
September 22, 2003

Champaign -- Thank you for allowing Tribune readers the chance to read two alternative views of the Israel/Palestine conflict in the Sept. 12 Commentary section ("10 years after the Oslo peace accord"): "What the future holds for the Mideast," by Ali Abunimah, a political analyst based in Chicago, and "The right agreement, with the wrong people," by Eran Lerman, director of the American Jewish Committee's Israel/Middle East office in Jerusalem.

As a Jewish-American, I feel that Abunimah provides us with both a realistic context for understanding the cycle of violence and a realistic path to peace and understanding. Lerman simply demonizes Yasser Arafat while ignoring the long-running context of Israeli settlement expansion, land confiscation and checkpoints that provide the background for the suicide bombings that invariably result from Israeli assassinations of Palestinian militants. It is clear to anyone who becomes objectively informed that Israel's use of overwhelming power is at the heart of the problem, and that its illegal and immoral actions continue only because of U.S. support--in terms of both dollars and dispensation. This support must end before any change can occur.