To the Editor:
Re ''The Price of Not Keeping the
Peace,'' by Arthur Hertzberg (Op-Ed, Aug. 27):
There is no parallelism between
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's policy of not dismantling Jewish settlements and
Yasir Arafat's policy of encouraging terrorism.
The Sharon settlement policy,
wrongheaded as it may be, is completely revocable. The murdering of innocent
civilians is irrevocable and morally indefensible.
Nor is there a parallelism between
the withholding of aid to Israel and the withholding of aid to terrorist
groups. The United States is capable of cutting aid to Israel, but it is
utterly incapable of cutting off the money supply to Palestinian terrorists or
insisting that other countries freeze the accounts of terrorist groups.
The impact of Mr. Hertzberg's
theoretical symmetry would be actual asymmetry: Israel would be punished for
pursuing a questionable policy that is entirely revocable, while Palestinian
terrorists would continue to receive financial support for immoral acts that
take innocent lives.
ALAN DERSHOWITZ
Chilmark, Mass., Aug. 27, 2003