Letter: Palestinians denied peace by U.S., Israel

Carl Zimmerman’s succinct, precisely balanced and on-point lament regarding currently diminished hopes for viable peace and reconciliation in the Holy Land was met by Peter Glick’s hasbara-laden account of events selectively chosen and easily refuted (“Mideast peace now harder to achieve,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Sept. 13; “Palestinians refused offers of peace,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Sept. 17). Curious and discerning readers can verify that:

>> At the Camp David meetings in mid-2000, President Bill Clinton assured Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat that blame would not be part of the dynamic. But Arafat was presented with terms regarding Jerusalem and the U.N.-mandated Palestinian “right of return” to homes and towns from which Palestinians had been driven in 1947-49 that no leader of any victimized polity could accept. To whom did Clinton assign blame for failure of the talks? Arafat.

>> Glick omitted the proximate-cause reason for the Palestinians’ resort to the late-2000 Second Intifada: Zionist terrorist-cum-Prime Minister “Bulldozer” Ariel Sharon’s brazen invasion, accompanied by 800 “security” forces, of Jerusalem’s holy Haram al-Sharif Compound that houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.

Robert H. Stiver

Pearl City

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