Letters to the editor – June 13, 2024

What two-state solution?

The mini news item (June 3) on Iran’s former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the comment about his previous “incendiary remarks on Israel” did not specify what exactly these remarks were.

During his presidential tenure, he is supposed to have “promised” Israel “another holocaust and its removal from the map”. 

Palestinians watch smoke billowing following an Israeli air strike in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip last Thursday, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Photo: Bashar Taleb/AFP

The leader of Hamas expressed similar views on BBC a few years ago. It’s not surprising that the feeling of most Israelis, after the latest (October 7) deadly assault from their neighbours is reported to be “it’s either them or us”. That does not augur well for a two-state solution.

For the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement to go ahead, the IRA had to lay down their arms. A prerequisite for the Egypt-Israeli peace treaty was Egypt’s recognition of the existence of the State of Israel. I’m not aware I’ve heard on any news medium that Hamas, Hezbollah and their backers, Iran, have accepted, yet, that they would recognise the existence of the State of Israel.

The Arabs didn’t accept the founding of Israel in 1948 and the fact that Palestinian “refugees” still dream of returning to the land they occupied in 1948, and which is now Israel, confirms they haven’t yet accepted the State of Israel.

Solving the problem of two peoples claiming the same land as their own boggles the mind. One can only hope that these two peoples may eventually come to some two-state arrangement, which would help resolve this human tragedy.

Albert Cilia-Vincenti – Attard

Jaywalking

I have just witnessed yet another accident at the busy intersection in Balluta Bay, near the Ċensu Tabone monument. To compound matters, numerous irresponsible pedestrians continually cross the heavily trafficked road at this point, to save walking a few metres to the nearby pedestrian crossings.

LESA should assign a warden to monitor this intersection and stop pedestrians from crossing the road, disrupting traffic and risking a serious accident.

Ideally, guilty pedestrians would be fined for jaywalking.

If a bye-law against jaywalking is not already on the books it should be enacted immediately.

Joseph Galea – Sliema