312: Letter to New York Times, 1997

312.

Published letter to New York Times by Lurene K. Helzer, January 26, 1997. I’m encouraging the building of an “economically viable Palestinian infrastructure with a modern educational system.” I mention the Yitzhak Mordechai, then the new Israeli Defense Minister.

I still think the Palestinians need to build a stable economy and focus on their schools. They would make genuine progress because their neighbors would be eager to take part. World charity and sympathy, which is what they tap now, is unreliable, unpredictable, and has encouraged continuing bloodshed and instability in the territories up to today, February of 2009.

If they were able to make some kind of stable non-aggression pact with Israel, they would have direct access to fantastic economic and educational opportunity on virtually their own terms, in their neighborhoods. Peace would develop on its own.

This can be said regarding many of today’s adjacent nations, however. Compare the difference in relations between the United States and Canada, and the United States and Mexico. It largely lies in the respective educational standards and economic systems of the societies, however flawed they may be.