Diplomacy gridlocked in Middle East

Mr. Joseph Avesar’s letter of Dec. 9 regarding the problems in the Middle East was very comprehensive and appreciated by me. However, it did miss certain factors.

First of all, though the physical circumstances as he described are certainly true, with Israel and erstwhile so-called Palestine (Israel’s biblical core, actually) being physically interwoven, it is a sad fact that even though they are related to each other, culturally and religiously, the two peoples are not interwoven and never will be.

The tragedy of the situation is that those who would be willing to have a country alongside of Israel will never be allowed to do so.

The intransigence of their leaders basically guarantees that the existence of a Palestine is veritably antithetical to the existence of Israel, so that a Palestine’s raison d’être would forever be to eradicate its neighbor.

It is indeed a tragic situation when you have one group taking the stance that there has to be an "either/or," but never an "also."

Kathryn Durfee

Agoura Hills