Letters to the Editor.

Both Sides Are Besieged

Although Hanan Ashrawi ("Shame on You, Madeleine Albright," December issue) is one of the most significant and respectable politicians of this century, her version of the events in the Middle East is almost farcical. She paints an image of masses of Palestinian children sitting quietly as the evil Israelis fire anti-tank missiles down upon them. Nablus is no Soweto, and the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif is no Tiananmen Square.

Ashrawi mocks Madeleine Albright's use of the phrase "under siege," yet the facts seem to support that claim. It was Ehud Olmert, the mayor of Jerusalem, not the mayor of Gaza City or Ramallah, who was forced to dodge a hail of bullets on his most recent trip to Gilo. The more than 200 places of worship that have been desecrated recently were synagogues, not mosques (this is the most attacks since Kristallnacht). It was Palestinian snipers, not Israelis, who fired upon the convoy of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson as it passed through Hebron.

I'm not trying to prove that it is Israel, rather than Palestine, that is truly the victim. Instead, I am simply noting that both sides are besieged. Both sides have committed wrongs, and both sides have suffered greatly. For The Progressive to publish such a blatantly biased and misleading account is further evidence that even progressive mediums have given up journalistic integrity in this conflict.

Jonathan Grinspan Ardmore, Pennsylvania

When racism, hate, fear, and violence run deep on both sides, how can anyone say everything is the other side's fault? And it seems strange to be anti-anything when both sides have legitimate causes and both need to have an established country.

No one ever calls for the dissolution of America when discussing our army's acts of terrorism, and nobody ever discusses giving all of America back to the native peoples. Why is there a double standard?

Michael Levine San Francisco, California

No Dove

In her essay "An Israeli Dove Mourns" (December issue), Eetta Prince-Gibson says several times that she feels confused. Unfortunately, this is more true than she knows. Many, many people, including well-intentioned ones like Prince-Gibson, in both Israel and America, in both the mainstream and on the left, seem to share this confusion. The problem is that the state of Israel has been normalized in our minds.

Prince-Gibson writes of an Israeli "War of Independence." There was no such war. There was a...