Dear Editor:
RE: “Enough is enough,” Oct. 24.
Sandra Solomon seems to feel that the war in Gaza would end if not for Israeli PM Netanyahu and the IDF; she also blames Israel for the Hamas attack in the first place.
Should she also blame Israel for the wars in 1948, in 1967 and 1973? Should she also blame Israel because the Oslo Accords, which were supposed to usher in peace, instead began a period of renewed and intensified Palestinian violence against Israelis?
Does she know anything about the history of the Jewish state? She should read about the UN partition of Palestine in 1947 and the creation of a Jewish state and a Palestinian state. Israel accepted the partition and the Arabs and Palestinians did not.
In 1948, with a small army comprised in part by Holocaust survivors, Israel was attacked by five different countries: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt. Israel, again, had to prepare itself for war in 1967 against the Egyptians, Syrians and Jordanians. And yet again in 1973.
And now, in 2023 and 2024, Israel is fighting not just Hamas but a war on seven fronts by organizations and countries that want nothing more than to rid the Middle East of Israel. Yes, Israel has had enough of war; we all want peace.
But Sandra Solomon is asking nothing of Hamas or Iran or Hezbollah – for them the liberation of Palestine can only be achieved through armed struggle (and the liberation of Palestine means the elimination of the Jewish state).
There is no greater hindrance to peace than Palestinian terrorism.
Barbara Cooper,
East Garafraxa