To the editor:
Dana Dyer, writing in the Journal-World of April 22, criticized what she called the "one-sidedness" of us Jews who have the "attitude that Israel can do no wrong, and everything is the Palestinians' fault."
There's some truth in what she said. Jews one-sidedly agree that life is precious, that hate never provides an excuse for murder, that terrorists' deliberately targeting civilians is murder, and that there is no moral equivalence between "suicide" bombers and the attempts of a sovereign nation to defend itself against terrorist attacks, be it the United States attacked by al-Qaida or Israel attacked by the Palestinians.
But her claim that we Jews are "one-sided" is pretty funny, because we see ourselves as disagreeing on most everything other than the illegitimacy of murder. Israel lurches from one minority government to the next because its citizens disagree on fundamental issues.
Because Chairman Arafat rejected former President Clinton's peace plan, because Palestinian terrorists keep blowing up Israelis, because Chairman Arafat's gang (the word "government" doesn't fit, somehow) directs and funds the bombers, we Jews are coming to agree that the Palestinian goal is to destroy what they call the "Zionist state." Were Arafat to sign a peace treaty, it would be only a tactical step toward his ultimate goal of destroying Israel.
The Palestinian tragedy is that they prefer to kill themselves in order to destroy Israel rather than to live in order to build their own country.
John Rosen,
Lawrence
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