Punishing good deeds

Sir, – May I respond to Andrew Carew-Morton? (”May I respond?” Letter, September 5).

The Left is correct that there is a cycle of violence, and that Israel can help end the cycle by stopping settlement-building and withdrawing more or less to the ‘67 borders, keeping (only, but still major) its large adjacent settlement blocs.

But the Right is correct that Israel has already tried most of the Left’s prescriptions – the Oslo Accords, the 2000 Barak peace offer, the Gaza withdrawal, including the settlements; and now there is Israel’s plan to withdraw from most of the West Bank, again including most settlements.

The Palestinians’ response to the Barak offer (including Jerusalem as capital of both countries) was neither acceptance nor a counter-offer, but the second intifada. And their response to the Gaza withdrawal and proposed “convergence” plan involving withdrawal from most of the West Bank was the 2006 Lebanon War and the Katyushas, and Gaza’s Hamastan and Kassams.

The Palestinian response to Israeli actions aimed at ending the cycle of violence has been, in essence: It will let no Israeli good deed go unpunished.

I agree with Carew-Morton that the Palestinians have been wronged, but they have got to get past allowing the feeling of having been wronged to guide the entirety of their political attitudes. They have an understandable human need to preserve an emotional place for their sense of victimhood, but they need to let go of its malignant domination of their every thought and action.

As for Israel, it has both a right and nitty-gritty obligation to defend itself from attacks on its civilians – individuals and families just like you and me and our families. As does every other nation and people.

Israel has, in short, adopted most of the Left’s prescriptions. But the Palestinians have not made any comparable move. It’s now their turn, but I’m afraid they’re too dysfunctional and trapped in their own sterile rage to do their part in helping to end the cycle of violence.

JAMES ADLER