A Bloody Battle

The deadly clashes in Gaza drew impassioned responses from readers on both sides of the issue. Arguing that Hamas is not solely at fault, one said, "Gaza has been made a prison by the Israelis." Another defended Israel's action, saying, "There is no moral equivalent between terrorism and self-defense."

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 that 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, Missouri

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, Tennessee

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, Wisconsin

The Gaza Strip has one of the highest population densities in the world. So how can Hamas terrorists use this area as a base to fire rockets at Israel, then complain about their own casualties? When Israel finally retaliates, after eight years of rockets, the cowardly terrorists hide, live and operate within their own population. Is it any wonder that many are killed? The children in Gaza live in a war zone, courtesy of Hamas. So do the kids in southern Israel, also thanks to Hamas. The difference: since the war began, Israel has shut all the schools in the south, which is fortunate, since rockets, fired randomly, destroyed three schools and a kindergarten. In Gaza, kids are used as human shields.
Amos Fabian
Ramat Gan, Israel

More than 1.5 million children from across Europe were murdered under the Nazi regime during World War II. Holocaust Memorial Day, in the U.K. on Jan. 27, is to commemorate these children and all who lost their lives during the Holocaust. In Gaza, over the last weeks, more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed, reportedly a third of them children. We must remember these children also, their lives brutally ended in a senseless battle that is now 60 years old. Holocaust Memorial Day was intended to ensure that the world never forgets and will never again witness such atrocities. However, this month we have witnessed unarmed civilian men, women and children being deliberately killed without mercy. Holocaust Memorial Day has failed in its objectives. We still kill one another and we still watch as others kill—and we remain silent.
Michael Halpern
Westbourne, United Kingdom

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 some measure of 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, California

The greatest impediment to Palestinian-Israeli peace is not only Hamas, as Daniel Klaidman so matter-of-factly states in his article. Israel must share the blame because of its chokehold on Gaza and the Palestinians. Gaza has been made a prison by the Israelis, who have for years limited the border passage of food, medicine and other essentials and even the freedom of people to come and go as they please. The intolerable conditions which Gazans endure as a result has led to the feelings of desperation and despair that allowed a group like Hamas to succeed. Imagine how Israelis would react if their borders, seashore and airspace were sealed and controlled by a foreign power as they have controlled Gaza's. Israel may destroy Hamas and hundreds of innocent people in the current battle, but it cannot destroy an idea whose time has come, a free and independent Palestinian state.
V. Albert Gieri
Albuquerque, New Mexico

Whatever Newsweek hoped to achieve with its Jan. 12 cover story on how to end the Israeli-Arab conflict, the effect is completely canceled out by the inflammatory cover image of an Israeli border policeman firing tear gas at Palestinian rioters. Anyone looking at the magazine sees an expressionless helmeted man, his eyes concealed behind sunglasses, producing an explosion with a terrifying-looking weapon. Of all the possible images of the current round of Iranian-directed terrorist war against Israel, your editors chose this one to demonize the victim. This is a disgraceful misuse of the power of photography and a setback to the cause of peace.
Martin Gidron
Silver Spring, Maryland

I was disappointed by your portrayal of the war in Gaza. Although Daniel Klaidman's article tried to be evenhanded in its analysis, subtler visual elements, especially on the cover, told a different story. Pictures of firing Israeli soldiers and assertions to "get tough on Israel" indicated that, if anything, Israel bears greater responsibility for the consequences of this conflict. There should not be a moral equivalency between terrorism and self-defense. Placing Israel on the defensive in this situation is damaging to its efforts to protect its people.
Shoshana Kaish
New York, New York

The European Union and the United States have both labeled Hamas a terrorist organization. So have various Arab states, for which nothing could be worse than an anarchy-based and murderous organization destabilizing the Islamic world. For years, Hamas has pursued the clearly terrorist activity of lobbing rockets at unarmed Israeli towns, causing casualties amid deafening silence on the part of so-called civilized nations. Hamas wants simply to eliminate Israel, a sovereign member of the U.N. Hamas should not be neutralized, it must be destroyed.
Jose Waechter
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Sarkozy Unbound
Christopher Dickey and Tracy McNicoll give a first-rate analysis in "President on the Precipice" (Dec. 22). Is Nicolas Sarkozy not a puppet, trying to mask a particular flaw? He is involved in many things, poking his nose into external matters while domestic problems continue to play havoc in France. Obviously he has not fully committed to the platform that has led him to the presidency. The fact of the matter is that Sarkozy is partly imitating the American model of democracy while constantly sticking to the same policy of the so-called pundits he has replaced and who have plunged the country into a big quagmire. Look at the huge debts he continues to build up to relaunch the economy while joblessness is on the rise. The funny thing about the French government is that it is always back to square one. Like his predecessors, Sarkozy is engaged in the politics of make-believe.
Dan Chellumben
Amboise, France

He Chose to Speak Up
I am appalled that Thomas Tamm, the Department of Justice whistle-blower who disclosed the Bush administration's illegal domestic-wiretapping program, is being harassed by the FBI for his part in disclosing the cover-up of a plan that originated in the Oval Office ("The Fed Who Blew the Whistle," Dec. 22). Tamm is a national hero who had the guts to do what he thought was right and wasn't intimidated by the power of the presidency. He is on a par with Deep Throat, among others. President Obama should pardon him, then direct Attorney General–designate Eric Holder to offer him his job back and instruct the DOJ to seek indictments against those involved in authorizing and carrying out the illegal program, including Bush and former vice president Cheney. Their actions in undermining and circumventing the protections of the First and Fourth amendments are perhaps the most egregious attempts to consolidate absolute power within the executive branch since the dark days of Richard Nixon.
Harvey Jay Goldstein
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

I commend Newsweek for high-lighting the example of a common man doing his job—upholding the Constitution of the United States and the rule of law. The Bush administration repeatedly held itself above the law and lived for the ends justifying whatever means it took to get there. In the wake of such political bullying, there are many who kept silent. Thank God for people like Thomas Tamm who spoke when no one else was finding a voice. How ironic that the FBI sent an agent named Lawless to try to crush Tamm's courage. This nation is made up of people like Tamm, and that is our strength.
Rev. Joseph Clark
Washington Grove, Maryland

Your story on Thomas Tamm illustrates the best and worst in our society. I am a World War II veteran who lost a high-school buddy in Belgium. Like so many others, we were fighting for the very things Tamm was willing to risk everything for. It is disgusting that this man is on the run when he should be receiving a medal for his actions. I am sure the majority of Americans fully support him.
Leonard Kliff
Lincolnshire, Illinois

No one who attended Landon school in Bethesda, Maryland, in the late 1960s, as I did, will be at all surprised to learn that Tom Tamm ended up risking it all to do the right thing. In his senior year, for instance, Tom, then the president of the student council, decided to turn himself in to the rest of the council for some minor infraction unknown to anyone else (and ultimately warranting no punishment). It showed the same character and a burgeoning morality that years later would compel him to do what he did.
Peter Craig
Chevy Chase, Maryland

So let me get this straight: Thomas Tamm decided not to follow established procedure but instead disclosed confidential information to the press, close to a presidential election. And you justify his actions? The guy is guilty. The end does not justify the means—not for Thomas Tamm, and not for the FBI, which was conducting illegal wiretaps. I feel sorry for his family, but he should go to prison.
Bob Spickelmier
Meadowlakes, Texas

When the government secretly breaks the law, dupes judges and violates the Fourth Amendment, what do you call Thomas Tamm? Whistle-blower. Hero. Courageous patriot. Defender of the Constitution and the rule of law. I am contributing to attorney Tamm's legal-defense fund.
Cynara Stites
Mansfield, Connecticut

India's Weakened State
Shekhar Gupta deserves credit for explaining the domestic political background to the Mumbai terror attacks ("The Problem Is Politics," Dec. 8). One can only hope that, come the May elections, a national antiterrorist consensus among the major Indian political parties will have been established. It's a question of national survival. It will also be a major test for the Obama administration's foreign-policy team, led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The U.S. can't afford yet another crisis in the Middle East and needs Indian and Pakistani support in the regional fight against terrorism.
Karl H. Pagac
Villeneuve-Loubet, France