Flash! Non-Leftist at McGill University Discovered!

Call the Museum Curators! This item was sighted in the February 16, 2005 Letters to the Editor of Jewish Press:

Arab Land For Peace

Dear Editor:

As history has shown, peace summits can easily come to an abrupt end. During previous talks, Israel had to be the compromiser, while Arafat would reject every offer. After four years of bloody terror, a harder line can be expected from the Israelis. Land for peace has failed to materialize in the past, and there`s no reason to believe it will be otherwise this time. That is why more pressure must be put on Israel`s neighbors with regard to the Palestinian refugees.

After decades of allowing Palestinians to fester in refugee camps, Arab states must be the first to alleviate the suffering of their Palestinian populations. Jordan, whose population is 60 percent Palestinian, can transfer swaths of its land mass to a future Palestine. Egypt can do the same in the Sinai to allow the crowded Gaza Strip some breathing space. In Lebanon, home to nearly a million refugees, the occupying Syrians can grant Palestinians citizenship and access to labor, something denied to them for decades.

Israel cannot and must not always be the one to make the most painful concessions. Should Israel turn back to the 1948 Auschwitz borders or allow millions of Palestinians to settle inside its borders, it would spell the end of the Jewish state. This time, the Arab states should be the first ones to make a grand gesture, and land for peace on their part would only render a future Palestinian state more viable, something in everyone`s best interests.

Peter Subissati
McGill University
Montreal