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Dear editor:
Lisa Tremback is correct. (“The Risks of Continued Conflict in the Middle East: A Call for Peace” Boulder Jewish News September 26, 2024) The world would be a much better place if all disputes were settled via diplomacy, with discussions continuing until mutually accepted solutions, to be upheld by all involved parties, were reached. However, Israel’s enemies have shown no interest in negotiating. Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, takes the position that only Israel needs to make concessions; the Palestinians do not have to budge from their demands. The Hamas charter specifies that negotiations are futile; Israel will exist until Muslims destroy it. Such thinking has led to a long history of Israel’s being attacked and then accused of reacting disproportionately, with the world urging Israel to accept a ceasefire, which holds until Israel is attacked again and the news media report that Israel’s fighting back will lead to the escalation of the war. Didn’t the breaking of the ceasefire escalate the hostilities?
It’s also important to recall that Palestinian leaders have rejected peace proposals from Israeli leaders spanning Israel’s political spectrum (left-winger Ehud Barak in 2001, centrist Ehud Olmert in 2008, right-winger Benjamin Netanyahu who outlined his vision of a demilitarized Palestinian state at Bar Ilan University in 2009). Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas also rejected the Trump Administration’s Peace to Prosperity plan before its details were fully revealed to the public. The stumbling block has always been Israel’s insistence that the Palestinian state agree to co-exist with the world’s only Jewish state.
Instead of calling for a ceasefire, which will allow Israel’s enemies to regroup and fight again another day, perhaps even allowing Hamas to fulfill its vow to inflict a thousand October 7’s on Israel, people of goodwill should be urging Hamas to free the hostages and lay down its arms as a first step toward the demilitarization of Gaza and the deradicalization of the Palestinians who cheered the October 7 atrocities inflicted on innocent civilians and members of what military experts have called the most moral army in the world.
Toby F. Block
Atlanta, Georgia
