Dear Editor:
Reading the first two sentences of the October 28 editorial, "Pulling Out of Gaza," I had hope for a reasoned analysis of a heart-wrenching process.
Those hopes were dashed in the third sentence with the stereotyping of every single Jewish resident of the Gaza Strip as a "militant." Apparently The Times believes that when an infant is born to a Jew in the Gaza Strip that infant immediately qualifies as a militant -- even before his bris or her naming.
Unfortunately, the divorcement of the editorial from fairness and reality only increases from that.
The plan of the Israeli prime minister to transfer Jewish residents should arouse mixed emotions, but for far different reasons than put forth by The Times.
The plan represents to a partial acquiescence by the Israeli leadership to the demands by the Palestinian Arabs for ethnic cleansing, for the removal of all Jews living in Judea, Samaria and Gaza from their homes. This may be a wise course for the Israeli government at this time, but human rights advocates should be appalled by the triumph of hatred over tolerance, while true peace advocates must be saddened by death of hope for peace on the part of a large segment of the Israeli public.
This plan was created because the surprisingly pragmatic Israeli prime minister came to the conclusion there was no hope for reaching any peace agreement with the Palestinian Arabs for many years (because it will take many, many years to undo the damage caused by Yasser Arafat's rejection of peace and vigorous promotion of terrorism) and, given the hatred instilled in the Palestinian Arabs it was just not feasible to live together with them in the Gaza Strip.
Clearly, as has been recognized by our own government, the same calculus does not apply to Judea and Samaria; leaving Gaza cannot possibly be a "first step towards leaving the West Bank." There are large blocs of Jewish communities in that area that are not isolated the way the communities in the Gaza Strip are and which will incorporated into Israel under the terms of any possible peace agreement. Anything that gives false hopes to the Arab rejectionists that Judea and Samaria will also be ethnically cleansed only encourages their fanaticism and effectively retards any efforts towards a future peace.
Sincerely,
Alan H. Stein