To the editor:

Let me congratulate Neill Esquibel-Kennedy and her colleagues in KU’s GTA union for undermining KU’s $2.5 billion fundraising campaign, while angering the state legislators. She states that Israel (the only Middle East democracy) practices apartheid, which is a policy of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race. Twenty-one percent of Israel’s citizens are Arab; they vote, have businesses and own property. How many Jews live in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt, areas that previously had large Jewish populations? Almost none. Yes, those countries do not practice apartheid; they instead previously held pogroms to kill the Jews.

Israel has tried to make peace with the Palestinians, but Hamas insists on the destruction of the state of Israel. Schoolchildren learn from Hamas that all Jews must die. Egypt has also blockaded Gaza since 2007; maybe they are also tired of terrorists. Ms. Esquibel-Kennedy has not offered any long-term solution that would actually work, although, being a graduate student in American Studies, she probably knows more than all of the world’s post-World War II leaders. Palestinians have a terrible existence, mostly due to the continued self-destructive behavior of their leaders. Since Arabs could not abide Jews living in their lands, let the Jews have their tiny sliver of land for themselves. The U.S. and others have tried to help the Palestinians over the decades. At some point, they must choose something besides war.

Mark Osborn,

Lawrence