Letters: Oct. 3, 1969

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Meir and the Middle East

Sir: I read your cover story [Sept. 19], "Middle East: Toward the Brink."

Having just visited the Middle East, I found your story to be biased, one-sided, and completely accurate. As an American Jew, I thank you.

ALAN KING Manhattan

Sir: I'm disgusted with the news of the attacks on the Arabs. I'm not overlooking the raids of Al-Fatah, made across the Israeli border, but I admire them for at least putting up a struggle to keep their country intact.

The Arabs are warm, kind, generous people. They do not wish to be the supreme power in the Middle East. They ask only for what belongs to them—that to which they are entitled. Their land, their country, their pride. Is that not the reason we are in the Viet Nam war, so that the Vietnamese may keep what belongs to them? BARBARA D. OWEN Columbus

Sir: The trouble with the Israelis is that they are too damn decent and moral. Arabs are without scruples, and where it suits their purposes they break cease-fire agreements, employ paramilitary terrorists, plant bombs in marketplaces, hijack and shoot at Israeli civilian planes, kill Jews and their gentile sympathizers in Europe and America, enlist the use of U.N. agencies in their cause, and generally ignore civilized conduct and international laws and norms. It is time that the Israelis also ignored international conventions and played the same immoral game.

J. Ross Johannesburg, South Africa

Sir: "A State Department official grumbled, 'When is Israel going to learn that it cannot shoot its way to peace?'" Ah! When is the U.S. going to learn that we cannot shoot our way to peace in Viet Nam? Considering our Government's reaction to a small war 10,000 miles away, one shudders to think of what our reaction would be if we found ourselves in Israel's position. Perhaps this unnamed official should be put in charge of our Viet Nam policy (if we had one).

BOB WOODSIDE Assistant Professor East Carolina University Greenville, N.C.

Sir: That is a very good portrait of Israel's Golda Meir, but there are two things missing: a broom to match her looks, and a swastika to show her true personality and ideals.

FRANCISCO J. PEGO Manhattan

Peace Now!

Sir: It has become increasingly apparent that President Nixon either ignores the fact or simply does not care that innocent Americans are dying by the dozens every day in Viet Nam.

I wish there were some way to force President Nixon to spend a few days at the overseas replacement station in Oakland, where he would have to watch dead Americans from Viet Nam in plastic bags being unloaded from plane after plane, day after day, week after week after week. Maybe he would then get the true picture and realize that he could stop the suffering with the stroke of a pen. Perhaps then this realization would prompt him to do what he should have done long ago: to bring all the troops home now, STEPHEN M. SNOW Salt Lake City

Black v. White in Viet Nam