Mideast’s Best Hope May Not Be That Great

Re “Abbas Keeps His Eye on the Big Picture,” Commentary, July 14: Dennis Ross should get a prize for his piece about Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, better known by his guerrilla nom de guerre, Abu Mazen: Best Whitewash.

Ross paints Mazen as a man with “a sense of dignity” and “a wry sense of humor” who, as a “devout” man himself, is “deeply touched” by a Jew saying a prayer. Sounds like a real swell guy -- unless you happen to know that Mazen is a Holocaust-denier and author of the book “The Other Side: The Secret Relationship between Zionism and Nazism.” That he allegedly participated in the 1972 Munich Olympics mass murder as the financier, according to the crime’s mastermind, Abu Daoud, in his 1999 memoir, “Palestine: From Jerusalem to Munich.” That he has consistently supported the murders of Jewish children in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, except where he perceives such murders as harmful to his nationalist cause. That he has been arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat’s lieutenant for 40 years.

Ross can gush and fawn all day. The truth remains that a terrorist in a suit is still a terrorist.

Steven Zak

Sunland

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“Poll on Right of Return to Israel Provokes Furor” (July 14), reporting that furious Palestinian refugees trashed the office of the pollster whose survey showed that most refugees did not want to return to relinquished homes in Israel, left out some very revealing figures. Only 10% of the refugees represented in the poll stated they would want to return to homes in Israel rather than go to Lebanon, Jordan or a new Palestinian state. But 13% said they would rather stay in the refugee camps until Israel is destroyed.

The overwhelming majority -- 77% -- of refugees are prepared to live with the reality of Israel as a Jewish state and finally move on with their lives. But 23% refuse to make any compromise with reality; their cognitive dissonance is at the heart of the intractable conflict. It is the view echoed by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and the other terrorist groups. This dissident, inflexible, irredentist minority dooms any peace plan, unless the Palestinian Authority similarly comes to grip with reality and forces that minority to end the conflict.

Carl Pearlston

Torrance