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Rally Ignored the Humanity of Victims

To the editors:

Attending the "Rally for Israel" in Tercentary Theatre was among the most disappointing and depressing experiences I can remember. I have always hoped, believed and insisted that the Muslim and Jewish peoples would be able to coexist peacefully and harmoniously. We share a great deal of history and believe in many of the same prophets. In both Arabic and Hebrew, we greet each other with a phrase that means "Peace be upon you." And it is because we have so much in common that the partisan, accusatory and inflammatory nature of the rally was so disturbing.

To have a U.S. Rep. [Barney Frank '61] publicly declare that the mothers and fathers are responsible for their sons and daughters--some as young as 18 months old--being shot at by Israeli soldiers is an insult to our common humanity. Every one of us who has been loved and raised by our parents, and every parent who has sacrificed for the sake of his or her children should be outraged. To lay exclusive blame on the Palestinians for the current violence, after the United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, among others, have condemned Israel for the use of "excessive force" strains credulity.

The most disturbing statements centered around the myth that Israel has offered the Palestinians peace. This can only be considered true if you accept a demand for total capitulation as a legitimate peace offer. That "the most generous offer Israel has ever made" calls for Israeli military control over one of Islam's three holiest sites (the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem), the perpetuation of a system of apartheid where Palestinians and Arabs can aspire to be no more than second-class citizenship and the continued defiance of numerous U.N. resolutions says more about Israel's problematic commitment to peace than it does about the Palestinians.

I still very strongly believe that peace is both possible and necessary. A peace without justice in today's Middle East will have as much chance of success and perpetuity as did Chamberlain's "peace for our time."