Finding Extremism on the Road to Peace

Why is Amos Oz so mystified as to what happened to the Israeli peace camp (“Put the Extremist Goals to Rest,” Commentary, Feb. 7)? It’s obvious. It got bombed into oblivion.

The Israeli majority that endorsed the Oslo land-for-peace accords under the Rabin/Peres government was shellshocked when the return of six major Palestinian cities was not met with peace but with a spate of suicide bombings and scores of dead Jews. A terrorized electorate voted out Shimon Peres and voted in the hard-line Benjamin Netanyahu. After a short time, the peace-seeking majority once again decided to give Yasser Arafat a try and voted in Ehud Barak and his peace platform. His groundbreaking (though far from perfect) proposal was met not with a counterproposal but with a pre-planned violence campaign and more terrorist bombings aimed at Jewish civilians; in particular, Jewish youth. Once again, a terrorized Israeli electorate turned right and voted in Ariel Sharon.

Arafat and the Palestinians have no one to blame but themselves for the rise of Sharon and the demise of the Israeli peace camp.

Joseph Gold

Torrance

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After reading Oz’s commentary, one gets the impression that the existence of a “dangerous equivalent” extremist attitude on the Israeli side (i.e., a greater Israel) is a recent development provoked by Arab terrorism. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.

In 1977, when Anwar Sadat came to Jerusalem, he offered the two-state solution to then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin. The offer was soundly rejected. Instead, an extensive Jewish settlement program was undertaken in the West Bank, which continues to this day. Later, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir bitterly criticized then-President Bush for refusing to underwrite loan guarantees to build these settlements. More recently, the requirement of the Mitchell commission report to freeze the West Bank settlements has not been agreed to by the Sharon Cabinet in principle, in spite of public noises to the contrary.

Unfortunately, Israeli extremists are now and have in the past been running the government in Jerusalem.

Irwin Grossman

Los Angeles