Ehud Barak

Re”Will Barak Really Make a Difference?” Commentary, Aug. 1:

Henry Siegman is doing what so many commentators before him did: painting Israel as a mighty monster, hoping to extract some more sympathy for the poor, poor Palestinians. Enough already! Everyone is sick of it. No one is going to forget and ignore years of horrible terror inflicted on Israel and Europe and America by those poor, poor Palestinians.

Worse yet, Siegman lashes at Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak before the true dance of finding an arrangement good for everyone has begun. And this guy is supposed to help the Palestinians? Barak wisely asked President Clinton to stop being the voice of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat. Now Arafat should ask all these criers to get out of the mourning tent. Only he and Barak should be talking. Only they will have to live with the Middle East they will create.

BATYA DAGAN

Los Angeles

* “Report Accuses Israel of Expulsions” (July 29), on the war crimes committed by Israel in southern Lebanon, failed to mention one important fact. When Yugoslavia expelled the native populations from Bosnia or Kosovo, the U.S. and the rest of the world answered with bombs; when Israel commits the identical atrocities in Lebanon, the U.S. answers with money and military support.

It is racism and ethnic cleansing in both cases, pure and simple, and it needs to be stopped.

EDWARD SAADE

Poway