The article, "President touts 'rare opportunity'" (May 23), describes remarks by President Donald Trump that are totally divorced from reality. President Trump stressing prospect of peace between Israel and the Palestinians is a farce because Israel doesn't want a peace settlement with the Palestinians, today or ever. All Israel wants is to continue stealing more Palestinian land and water until nothing is left while maintaining its brutal occupation that includes home demolitions, targeted assassinations, hundreds of humiliating road blocks and check points, daily Jewish settler violence against Palestinians and their property and a strangulation blockade on the civilian population of Gaza. In 2014, Israel invented another excuse to invade Gaza, murdering 2,200 Palestinians, three-quarters of whom were civilians, including over 500 children.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is making a fool of President Trump, telling him one thing while telling his extremist settler followers the opposite. If Mr. Trump really wanted to resolve this conflict, he would give Israel an ultimatum: Either agree immediately to a two-state accord based on pre-1967 borders and East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital, or the U.S. ends all financial, military and diplomatic aid to Israel. Without U.S. support, Israel would become a third world country and its tough-talking prime minister would be forced to come begging for peace with his neighbors. This would benefit all parties involved — Israel, the Palestinians and the U.S.
Ray Gordon, Bel Air