Israeli Settlements

In Cairo this month, President Obama urged Israel to stop settlement construction in the occupied territories. "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements," he said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his own policy speech soon after, ardently defended the communities and the people who live in them. "The settlers are neither the enemies of the people nor the enemies of peace. Rather, they are an integral part of our people."

Uan Rasey Trumpet player in 'Chinatown' and other films Uan Rasey, 90, a first-call trumpet player for MGM and other studio orchestras best known for his evocative solo in Roman Polanski's 1974 film "Chinatown," died Sept. 26 at Kaiser Permanente Woodland Hills Medical Center, said his grandson Tristan Verstraeten. The Studio City resident hadheart problems. Besides soloing in composerJerry Goldsmith's Oscar-nominated score for "Chinatown," Rasey played trumpet for many other film soundtracks, including "An American in Paris," "Ben-Hur," "Bye Bye Birdie," "Cleopatra," "Gigi," "How the West Was Won," "My Fair Lady," "Singin' in the Rain," "Spartacus" and "West Side Story.

President Obama asserts, seconded by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, that "America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements" in the West Bank. Both have praised the 10-month freeze on new residential building -- excluding eastern Jerusalem -- that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced late last month. Netanyahu now calls for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to resume negotiations or take the blame for lack of progress when the "one-time-only" freeze expires.

Russia's strongman Re "Putin's back, unfortunately," Editorial, Sept. 28 Vladimir Putin's right to run for a third term as president of Russia is highly questionable. Such an idea would have never visited Bill Clinton, since the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says: "No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice. " When a group of legal scholars was preparing a draft of the Russian Constitution adopted in 1993, they were looking at the 22nd Amendment as an example.

Eric Rozenman's Dec. 11 Op-Ed article , " Israeli settlements are more than legitimate ," is legal nonsense that disregards history. He is correct in his observation that Article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine permitted "close settlement by Jews on the land, including state lands and waste lands not required for public purposes," but the conclusions he then draws are flatly wrong. Rozenman fails to acknowledge that since its inception, Israel has never claimed legal title to all of the territory of the former British Mandate of Palestine.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak today in a move to rescue shrinking Middle East peace prospects and regain the confidence of Arab nations angry that Washington has not pressed Israel harder to stop building settlements. The meeting with Mubarak was the latest in a series of sensitive talks Clinton has held with Israeli, Palestinian and Arab leaders during a six-day visit to the region. Arab capitals have grown exasperated over Israel's settlement activity and are expressing doubt whether the Obama administration can create grounds for a new round of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.

The Obama administration, opposing 14 other United Nations Security Council members, exercised its veto power for the first time Friday to kill a resolution calling for Israeli settlements to be condemned as illegal and seeking to halt construction. Though the resolution largely echoed long-standing criticism by the U.S. and international leaders about Israel's construction on land seized during the 1967 Middle East War, the Obama administration rejected the proposal, saying the U.N. is not the proper forum and the dispute should be handled during peace talks.

Even before last weekend, the news from the Israeli-Palestinian peace front was not good. The most recent round of talks fell apart months ago. The Palestinian Authority is weakened and unsure where to turn; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with terrorist incidents down and the economy growing, has little incentive to move forward. Defense Minister Ehud Barak has ripped apart the opposition by leaving the Labor Party. Prospects for near-term solution: low to none. The weekend's news just added to that sense of stalemate.

The Obama administration's abandonment of a failed strategy for Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking has sparked a debate within the White House about what kind of approach ? and how much energy ? America's overbooked national security team should put into the Middle East effort. The focus of that debate sharpened Thursday as top officials jockeyed to shape a highly anticipated policy speech that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will make Friday night. Some officials say her speech should be ringing but largely devoid of details.

Young victims of war Re "A family of mourners," Column One, Nov. 11 The Veterans Day story about Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery brought tears to the eyes. Each Sunday, I read The Times' military deaths column and think of those young people and their families and loved ones and how they must suffer. Normally the ages of the fallen are between the ages of 19 and 26. These are people who will never attend a high school reunion, watch their children graduate or again sit at the dinner table with family for Thanksgiving.

Israeli settlements and Middle East peace are incompatible. This has been stated many times, most recently by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak , who is cohosting U.S.-backed negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Another oft-repeated and equally true statement is that peace is not possible without guarantees of Israeli security . What frequently gets lost in these assertions is another truth: Israeli settlements in the West Bank do not increase Israeli security. Rather, continued construction undermines security by inflaming tensions, sowing mistrust and threatening the success of negotiations.

Amnesty? No Re "Bashing 'them' again," March 21 Whether Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner's anti-immigration position will drive "thousands of Latino immigrants . . . into the arms of the Democratic Party" is irrelevant in the discussion of whether the present level of immigration, legal and particularly illegal, is good for the United States. Peter Schrag's implied solution is another amnesty for the 12 million or so illegal immigrants estimated to be in our country.

Israeli forces killed a Palestinian teenager and critically injured another Saturday after a clash between Jewish settlers and Palestinians over a West Bank water well, officials said. It marks some of the worst such violence in more than a year and comes at a time of heightened tensions over Israeli settlements. Feuding between Palestinians and Jewish settlers over a spring at Iraq Burin village near the city of Nablus has occurred almost weekly. Palestinians accuse the settlers of trying to take control of the spring.

Eric Rozenman's Dec. 11 Op-Ed article , " Israeli settlements are more than legitimate ," is legal nonsense that disregards history. He is correct in his observation that Article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine permitted "close settlement by Jews on the land, including state lands and waste lands not required for public purposes," but the conclusions he then draws are flatly wrong. Rozenman fails to acknowledge that since its inception, Israel has never claimed legal title to all of the territory of the former British Mandate of Palestine.