MIDDLE EAST
Palestinians need to
accept compromise
Isn’t it strange that Tom Friedman always turns Palestinian rejectionism into an onus for Israel to make more concessions (“Critical Choices Loom for Israelis over West Bank,” Opinion, Feb. 14). In his latest piece, he sidesteps Palestinian refusal to accept any part of Israel as a Jewish homeland, instead turning it into predictions of internal Israeli conflict.
I suspect Friedman never asks anything of the Palestinians, because he knows too well their immutable and intransigent position: They refuse to accept a permanent Israel, no matter how small. Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly said that a Palestinian state in the West Bank will not end the conflict, but instead will be used for hostilities against a more vulnerable Israel. Abbas’ demand that Palestinian refugees be resettled in pre-1967 Israel, and not the West Bank, emphasizes this threat. How refreshing it would be if Friedman called for Palestinian compromise, and in particular for their acknowledgement of Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
DORON LUBINSKY, ATLANTA
CLIMATE CHANGE
Cartoon truly shows
fossil fuel influence
Mike Luckovich certainly got to the heart of the matter in Friday’s cartoon depicting members of Congress being in the pocket of fossil-fuel interests. The latest polling from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication finds that 83 percent of the American public say the U.S. should make an effort to reduce global warming, even if it has economic costs. This overwhelming public support, unfortunately, is no match for the money and influence of coal, oil and gas lobbyists.
People are already seeing that the economic cost of climate change — wildfires, droughts, floods and weather on steroids — is much greater than the cost of transitioning to cleaner technologies. The good news is that such a transition will have minimal economic impact with a tax on carbon that refunds revenue to households. It’s time for a public conversation about this market-based solution, and a good place to have it would be a hearing in the House Ways and Means Committee, where Georgia Reps. John Lewis and Tom Price sit.
STEVE VALK, DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS, CITIZENS CLIMATE LOBBY
EQUALITY
‘Everybody knows’
doesn’t mean it’s true
I go to the first sentence of the Mary Sanchez Opinion column (“Women advance in pay, but still have a way to go,” Feb. 11) and see a lack of credibility. The first sentence states, “Everybody knows that women commonly get less than their male counterparts to do the same work.” This is a false statement and cannot be proven. In this day and time, it is much more common that women make equal pay with the male counterparts for “doing the same work,” and this can be proven. “Everybody knows that!” — whether true or not — is a typical feminist statement that they have used for years. I think Mary Sanchez knows the statement is not true, because I do not think she is ignorant of the facts.
GARY BLAND, CONYERS
