Palestinians know what is required for statehood Re: “Palestine should be a state,” June 2
Apparently the writer of the letter is totally ignorant of the history and the roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict, not to mention the Israeli-Palestinian one. The Palestinian Authority knows exactly what is required to have for the first time a separate state. They have never had one because of their refusal to acknowledge that a Jewish state exists and at the same time calling for a “right of return’ of Palestinian Arabs displaced during the 1948 Arab war to destroy Israel.
The Palestinian Authority knows exactly what is required for statehood, namely acceptance of facts on the ground, abandoning the violence (Hamas and the Martyrs’ Brigade of Fatah), acknowledging the Jewish state and educating their people to abstain from anti- Semitic propaganda.
Nelson Marans
Silver Spring
Democrats harness greed and ignorance for political benefit
Re: “Republicans still ‘Party of No,’ ” June 1
Democrats like Peter D. Rosenstein and Richard C. Kreutzberg (Letters, June 2) must be on the planet Mars when they criticize Republicans for trying to turn around the failed Democrat policies that have given us unprecedented deficits, public debt as far as we can see, and entitlement programs going bankrupt faster than anyone imagined. Democrat “solutions” to these problems are to simply tinker around the edges while attacking Republicans for trying to solve the problem, and their claims about Medicare are a perfect example. As Medicare (not surprisingly) rolls toward insolvency, Democrats continue to attack reformers like Rep. Paul Ryan for his modest plan to have future retirees pay a higher percentage of their own care.
Those over 55 would not even be affected by Ryan’s plan. Yet Democrats will try to harness this greed and ignorance for their own political benefit, even though they have already cut Medicare spending by half a trillion dollars under Obamacare and will begin Medicare rationing in 2015 because they know the current system is unsustainable. Too bad they don’t have the honesty to tell the truth to the American people.
David Lampo
Alexandria
Did Congress forget about debt ceiling during spending binge?
The pundits discussing the debt-ceiling issue seem to have missed one very important point: The existing debt ceiling was passed by Congress, who also passed every subsequent spending bill. Did Congress immediately forget the ceiling’s existence? Or did they foolishly assume that it could be ignored? One would hope that Congress would carefully consider such limitations, as well as the state of the economy, and our relations with creditor countries before incurring further debt. It’s not realistic, but one can always hope.
Paul Blase
Alexandria
