The Real Fiction of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Negotiations

Sir, - The article "The fiction of negotiations" by David Newman once again clearly establishes the absence of any correlation between the title of Professor or Dean of a Faculty with intellectual integrity or an aptitude for rigorous analysis. Perhaps it is the academic milieu within which he operates that makes Newman feel compelled to obfuscate and distort facts in order to give the impression of his being non-partisan and evenhanded.

Newman attempts to describe the two sides to the Israel-Palestinian conflict as starting from the same line, a line from which each side must be prepared to make concessions of equal weight and importance. He insists that both sides need to demonstrate confidence-building measures in order to send a positive message to the other side.

Hold on a minute Professor! The two sides are not beginning from the same line at all! One side and one side only, Israel, has already made a gigantic concession to the other side, agreeing to the release of murderous terrorist prisoners, causing awful pain and suffering to our bereaved families as well as doing violence to the moral conscience of our people. Newman perversely chooses to discount this entirely and goes on to describe the two sides as being equally not serious, thus distorting the agonizing reality of the negotiations. He is indeed guilty of creating his own fiction.

ZEV CHAMUDOT
Petach Tikva