Readers React: Netanyahu’s remarks don’t change the fact that Israel is an egalitarian, democratic state

To the editor: In your editorial criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, you express hope for a secure Israel that will make peace with its neighbors.

Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula and made peace with Egypt. It signed a treaty with Jordan and withdrew from most of the West Bank. It unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005 and has been met with a barrage of rockets, incendiary devices and terror tunnels.

It has made numerous peace proposals and offers to withdraw from almost all of the disputed territories on which the Palestinians can create their state. Every single attempt has been rejected.

How about, for a change, suggesting that its neighbors make peace with Israel?

And, for the record, the political rhetoric of its embattled prime minister notwithstanding, Israel is an egalitarian and democratic state. It is not perfect, but it stands heads and shoulders above all those surrounding it on human rights, freedom of speech and more.

Pauline Regev, Santa Monica

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To the editor: Netanyahu insists that Israel is a state only of its Jewish citizens, thereby trashing the one in five Israelis who are Arab. Netanyahu even cites the new nation-state law to back up his comments.

That would be like an American president saying America is a state for only its white, Christian citizens.

American politicians claim shared values in gifting Israel more than $3 billion each year, defending Israeli soldiers killing more than 200 Palestinians in Gaza in the last year, and accepting the occupation of Palestinian territory for more than 50 years, denying them civil, human and economic rights.

What shared values?

Jeff Warner, Los Angeles

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