Mail Call: What Needs to Be Done in Gaza

In response to our cover story on the prospects for Mideast peace and the war in Gaza, most readers defended "Israel's right to self-defense." But others decried the seemingly disproportionate response, leading to "the loss of innocent Palestinian lives." With Israel on the brink of new elections and Palestinians divided between Hamas and Fatah, several wrote about the need for "more pragmatic leaders." One was optimistic for Obama: "Hopefully … his team will inject the 'toughness' needed to break up the stalemate."

On 'The Last Day of the Iraq War': "I flashed back 40 years to another unjust war and innocent civilians abandoned. We called it 'peace with honor.' My heart goes out to veterans who, like me, will likely be haunted by the senselessness and the faces left behind." Larry Bischof, Snellville, Ga.

Is Peace in the Middle East Possible?
In the Jan. 12 issue, both Daniel Klaidman ("A Plan of Attack for Peace") and Aaron David Miller ("If Obama Is Serious") suggest that a Palestinian-Israeli peace can be achieved if Barack Obama pressures Israel to make concessions, and if he takes an active role in negotiating a Palestinian-Israeli agreement. It is futile, however, to continue negotiations with moderate Palestinians while ignoring the real obstacle to peace: militant Islam. Militant Islam is a multimillion-dollar industry, which receives funds not only from Iran and Syria but also from charitable donations to prominent Islamic organizations in the United States and Europe. Additionally, Saudi Arabia provides $12 million a year to Hamas, as well as millions to other organizations and schools that advocate a militant Islamic ideology. If Obama wants to achieve peace in the Middle East, he must stop the flow of funds to Hamas and other militant Islamic organizations. Saudi Arabia is key to this initiative. If the United States can persuade the Saudis to support a Palestinian-Israeli agreement, to help improve the economic plight of the Palestinians and to stop funding radical, militant Islam, then we may actually see peace in the Middle East.
Galit Lev-Harir
Ballwin, Mo.

It is "biased" reporting when the pictures selected are of an uncovered dead Palestinian infant alongside a photo of a covered casket of an Israeli. Who is putting these children in harm's way? We can all agree that "war is hell" and that innocent lives lost are never acceptable. But you play right into the sympathies of terrorist organizations such as Hamas when you use the images of dead infants to show only one side of the conflict.
Robert Dempsey
Chapel Hill, Tenn.

As I looked at the two-page photo spread of mourners around an Israeli coffin, I strangely felt no sorrow. I am normally cursed with hyperactive empathy and shed tears easily at such images. Perhaps my empathy was squelched by the fact that an accurate representation of the Gaza situation would have required a photo of a dead Palestinian on every single page of the magazine.
Kristi Hart
Potosi, Wis.

The most critical impediment to long-term peace—the elephant in the room—is the Muslim educational system that inculcates hatred in children at an early age, in which Jews (and Christians) are castigated as pigs, monkeys and worse. As long as the next generation is brought up in ignorance and imbued with hatred for non-Muslims, there will never be peace. As long as the delusional West assumes that honest negotiation can exist in a so-called peace process with those in Hamas and others whose charter and modus operandi call for Israel's destruction, nothing meaningful will happen.
A. Fine
San Francisco, Calif.