To the Editor of the New York Times:
What fools Ahmed Yousef apparently believes these mortals be.
Even if we are foolish enough to ignore history, there is even less to Youssef's proposal for a ten year "hudna" than meets the eye. He clearly preconditions any truce on an end to what he calls the "occupation." In other words, Israel must first give all the disputed territory to the Palestinian Arabs, uprooting hundreds of thousands of Israelis from their homes. Meanwhile, Hamas, Islamic Jihad (maybe), the Al Aksa Martyrs (maybe) and countless other terrorist groups would reserve the "right" to resume their war if Israel doesn't concede to all their other outrageous demands shortly afterwards.
If the Palestinian Arabs really want a long-term truce, all they have to do is end their campaign of suicide bombings, shootings, stone throwing, stabbings, kidnappings and murder. All the violence in the Arab-Israeli conflict, for the nearly sixty years since the reestablishment of Israel and for decades before that, was initiated by Arabs unwilling to live in peace with the Jews in Eretz Yisrael and could have been ended at any time unilaterally.
Sincerely,
Alan H. Stein
Alan H. Stein is president of PRIMER-Connecticut www.primerct.org, a media monitoring group whose name stands for Promoting Responsibility in Middle East Reporting.