Letters to the Editor

Both sides must be able to live as equals

I really appreciated the piece on Gaza that was submitted to the Daily Bruin last week. Shaw, Kurwa, and Sheets were spot-on in “Israel’s acts of war poison peace prospects” (Jan. 6).

There can be no peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without justice, meaning that Palestinians’ right to self-determination and freedom from occupation need to be at the heart of any resolution to the conflict.

Indeed, Israelis have a right to security of life. But the actions of Palestinian armed groups over the last several years are not a justification for an occupation that has been ongoing since 1967.

It makes no difference if the Israeli army is out of the Gaza Strip when it continues to control all borders, air space and territorial waters.

Peace will only be possible once Palestinians and Israelis are able to live as equals.

Israel’s 18-month siege of the Gaza Strip has drawn widespread condemnation from several international organizations including U.N. groups.

This is to say nothing of the actual humanitarian crisis that has been insured as a result of Israel’s restriction of the movement of food, fuel and medical supplies into the Gaza Strip even before the cease-fire ended.

UCLA students need to continue educating themselves about what is happening in the Middle East, given that the United States has allied itself with Israel and supports its military occupation with American tax dollars.

Ziad Abu-Rish

Graduate student, history

Hamas responsible for situation in Gaza

In his latest column, Kia Makarechi does not mention decades of violence against Israel by Hamas and other terrorist organizations (“Unconditional support of Israel must change,” Jan. 7).

Israel has shown remarkable restraint in dealing with Hamas’ blatant hostility. No sovereign government in the world would be expected to stand by and allow its citizens to be under steady and heavy attack. Sadly, this restraint has not succeeded in stopping the lethal rocket attacks aimed at Israeli civilians.

Hamas bears responsibility for the current situation in Gaza. It is the Hamas Charter that expressly calls for the complete elimination of Israel. It is Hamas that perpetrates a reign of terror against Israel with attacks against Israelis in shopping malls, cafes, buses and hotels. It is Hamas that deliberately puts ordinary Palestinians in harm’s way by placing its terrorist infrastructure in the midst of homes, schools, mosques and hospitals. It was Hamas that used the shield of a “cease-fire” to smuggle in increasingly destructive weapons with the sole aim of killing as many Israeli civilians as possible.

Israel withdrew from Gaza in August 2005 in the hopes that the Palestinian leadership would govern Gaza responsibly and peacefully. Instead, four years later, the Hamas leadership has turned Gaza into an armed camp, creating and maintaining the conditions of a humanitarian crisis.

We invite students to visit our Web site, www.adl.org, where there is a special section called “˜Israel Strikes Back Against Hamas’ that can help students, faculty and others stay informed.

Nicole Mutchnik, UCLA “˜89

Board Chair, Anti-Defamation League

USAC should be focusing on students

The undergraduate student government’s recent passage of the resolution titled “A Call for the Immediate End to the Recent Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza” (“USAC calls for Gaza cease-fire,” Jan. 8) is a local demonstration of the greatest problem facing American politics: the triumph of ideologues over reason in politics.

On its Web site, USAC describes its own role as a group of members elected by the UCLA student body to “offer an invaluable service to the campus and surrounding communities.”

However, nowhere in this description is a call for USAC to conduct foreign policy. Indeed, UCLA students vote for members of Congress and presidents whose job is to be their instruments of foreign policy.

Thus, instead of USAC members doing the extremely important job for which they are elected, USAC is currently failing the UCLA student body.

The same principal that USAC is operating under ““ putting ideology over reason ““ is the reason that California is incapable of passing a budget, Social Security will not be available to our generation and the city of Berkeley is an object of national ridicule while having poorly paved streets and people in trees.

Thus, while there is no doubt that the situation in Gaza is taking a horrible toll, USAC officials must not lose sight of their mandate by passing meaningless and time-wasting resolutions motivated by ideology instead of the pressing needs of the UCLA student body.

Stephen Tye

Third-year, economics

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