Editor,
I am fed up with reading about the so-called generous offers given to the Palestinians and that Israel had to occupy Palestine.
In 1947 the United Nations General Assembly recommended, no decided, that Palestine - Israel did not exist then - be "provisionally partitioned" into a new part Arab, part Jewish state.
The Jewish population of mostly immigrants to Palestine who owned only 7 percent of Palestine was given 55 percent of the land by that recommendation. I wonder why the Arabs who owned the rest of the land did not accept that then.
The Ehud Barak offer keeps 69 settlements in the West Bank, where 85 percent of the settlers live. What appears to be territorial Palestinian continuity is actually split up by settlement blocs, for Jews-only bypass roads and roadblocks.
The Palestinians have to relinquish land reserves essential for their development and absorption of refugees.
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Barak's offer gives Israel control over all the border crossings of the Palestinian state.
No country in the world would accept that.
As for the statement that the 1967 war by Gil Greengross resulted in Israel occupying the territories, and was "forced on Israel by its neighbors that wanted to put an end to the existence of an Israeli state," it is sufficient to read the statements of some Israeli generals to find out the truth.
Menachem Begin, prime minister of Israel, said, "The Egyptian Army concentrations
in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him."
General Peled said, "The thesis that claimed genocide was suspended above our heads in June 1967, and that Israel was fighting for its very existence, was only a bluff."
Peace in this world cannot occur without justice.
Israel should end its occupation, and Palestinians should have their own state.
Reema Zeineldin
Biomedical sciences
graduate student
