Dear Editor,
Gregory Eow and Brian Simpson [Israel Must Give Up the West Bank Settlements, April 11, 2009] must have missed the part of their West Bank tour which explained that Israel won the West Bank –not from the Palestinians, but from Jordan in the Six Day War of 1967 after being attacked. Since then, Jordan relinquished any interest in regaining the West Bank. Saying it is Palestinian land or for Palestinians doesn't make it so. An agreement needs to be reached.
More importantly, Israelis living in the West Bank present no more difficulty to the creation of a Palestinian state than did Arabs living in Israel prevent Israel from becoming viable. As a test case to see if removing Jews will lead to peace, consider Gaza: The Jews were removed by Israel and the rockets still are being fired.
For there to be peace, the Palestinians need to accept just slightly less than the 100% of everything they want - and who gets everything they want in negotiations anyway? Certainly not those that sided with the losing side of a war.
