Middle East

The Berkeley Planet
Wednesday June 01, 2011

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Letters to the Editor
Tuesday May 31, 2011 Tom Roberts, the Puppet Man; A Matter of Mattresses; Flute Concert; Peace; UC Berkeley: Chancellor Treats Cal as Fiefdom; Take Care of the Children; Safety Net; Geography; Middle East; Disfunctional Government Middle East
In a major speech on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and on the Arab Spring, President Obama said a Palestinian state must be based on the 1967 borders, the first time a U.S. president has explicitly taken this position. The Israeli government immediately rejected Obama’s comments, calling the 1967 borders "indefensible." President Bush, over three years ago, made a similar speech. He said that "There should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967. [An] agreement must establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people, just as Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people." The Camp David summit of July 2000 was the latest in a long line of attempts by Israelis and Palestinians to attain peace in the Middle East. Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion unilaterally declared Israel a nation on May 14, 1948, following the UN partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. And the list goes on and on. So the World is fed up! And they have voted unanimously against further occupancy of the Palestinian lands by Israel. "The war crimes and occupation, oppression and inequality that Palestinians are suffering from must end. And it was absolutely despicable to see our Congress pandering to Netanyahu as if he was the president of the United States." --Rae Abileah, a Jewish-American activist.
Ted Rudow III, MA