David Lazar’s column (“Palestinians terrorizing peace process,” March 6) is yet another unfortunate example of pro-Israeli manipulation of facts. Lazar repeatedly suggests that the Palestinians have rejected “generous” peace offers proposed by the Israelis.
Therefore, it is necessary to highlight the detailed shortcomings of the two peace plans, namely the Oslo Accords of 1993 and the Camp David Accords of 2000.
First, as the BBC reports, “Israel continued to expand its settlements mightily during the 1990s, both during and after ““ and in spite of ““ the Madrid peace conference and the Oslo Accords.”
How could the Palestinians be expected to trust the seemingly peaceful hand stretched out to them? How could any logical individual put faith in a peace plan that is immediately followed by deceit?
Lazar is trying to take a vicious and unjust proposal and gift wrap it to the Palestinian people ““ something that is blatantly unacceptable.
Lazar also cites the Camp David Summit as a missed opportunity for peace on the part of the Palestinians, claiming that Israel offered to withdraw from 96 percent of the Palestinian territories.
If this claim is true, it still means that 4 percent of Palestinian land would have been virtually annexed by Israel, an illegal act under international law. Lazar is willing to overlook this fact, as if Israel is allowed to act outside of international legal restrictions.
Furthermore, the 2000 Camp David proposal did not even address the issue of the 4 million Palestinian refugees. To this day, Israel denies these refugees their right to return to their homeland ““ a right guaranteed by U.N. Resolution 194.
Finally, Lazar’s comment that “Palestinians are nearly entirely to blame for a lack of peace” is outrageous.
To place blame squarely on a population that has been under vicious military occupation for the past 59 years raises much doubt on the validity of any argument Lazar makes.
In addition, highlighting suicide bombings, which is the most common characteristic of any pro-Israeli argument, takes a complicated situation completely out of context.
Israel ““ and Lazar ““ should be concerned with completely removing the sources of violent reaction instead of pretending to be oblivious to its causes.
Saab is a fourth-year psychobiology student.