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The Facts of Israeli Peace Efforts

(Baltimore Sun) Eric Rozenman - The writer of an anti-Israel letter ("U.S. should cut Israel off," Dec. 17) erroneously charges: "Israel doesn't want a peace settlement with the Palestinians, today or ever." In that case, why did Israel propose a West Bank and Gaza Strip state, with eastern Jerusalem as its capital, to Palestinian leadership in 2008, 2001 and 2000 - only to be rejected, with no counter-offer each time, and with violence on the earlier two occasions? "All Israel wants to do is continue stealing Palestinian land and water in the West Bank and East Jerusalem." If so, why have water sources and per capita usage among Arabs in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem increased under Israeli development? Why has Israeli settlement construction taken less than 5% of the West Bank, virtually all of it state land under the Ottomans, British and Jordanians as well as the Israelis, and designated by the League of Nations, upheld by the UN for "close Jewish settlement"? Should Arabs be able to live in western Jerusalem, as some do, but not Jews in the eastern part of the city? Israel maintains a "strangulation blockade of the Gaza Strip, referred to as the world's largest prison." If so, why are plentiful consumer goods smuggled back to Egypt, where they fetch higher prices? Why have new beach clubs and shopping malls opened, and how do hundreds of truckloads of humanitarian goods, including food and medicine, enter regularly? The writer is Washington Director of CAMERA - Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America.
2010-12-24 08:29:31
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