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July 18, 2003/Tamuz 18 5763, Vol. 55, No. 47
Letters to the EditorJuly 18, 2003
You can have the Reagan legacyEditor:The right has deified President Ronald Reagan - a second-rate actor and a third-rate president - just as it has demonized the left. His greatest achievement was being in office when the Berlin Wall fell; he is no more responsible for the failure of the Soviet Union than President Franklin Roosevelt was for starting World War II. He is responsible for turning the world's greatest lender nation into its greatest borrower. The United States is now dependent on the largesse of Arab potentates and Asian entrepreneurs for investment, thanks to his vast increase in defense spending and coincidental tax cuts of the mid-'80s. The legacy? Vast deficits for others to pay off. He is responsible for the deaths of 246 American Marines in Lebanon, whom he sent to a war zone with rubber bullets. By extending "most favored nation" status to nearly everyone and exporting U.S. manufacturing jobs to undeveloped countries, he is responsible for our huge trade deficit and the fall of the dollar, Now President George W. Bush is following the same pattern: high defense spending, higher tax cuts and greater deficits that will fall to states. Then the old, indigent, unemployed and ill can fend for themselves. If that's the Reagan legacy, you can have it. Efrem Lieber Fountain Hills Not the same hard-line positionEditor:Steve Ames' latest letter ("Where were new strategies for peace," Jewish News, July 11) proves the success of the Arizona State University program on "After Oslo." He alleged that all he heard were the "old Arab demands as the sine qua non for a peace settlement." Namely: an apology to the Arabs for the formation of Israel, some element of refugee return, and some compensation for Arab property taken in 1948. Note what was not said: All Jews who came after 1914 are to leave or be driven into the sea; a secular democratic state must be erected in Israel that includes all exiled Palestinians. This Arab position marks a significant lowering of the bar. Clearly some sort of diplomatic language can be constructed apologizing to those Arabs who Israeli Television's "New History" program pointed out were forced out of their houses and off their land in 1948. By the way, Israeli high school textbooks have been changed to alter the myth that no Arab was mistreated in 1948. Some element of return for Palestinian refugees was already included in the offer by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and there have been discussions by our government and private foundations to establish a compensation fund for those refugees not permitted to return. What Ames heard was not the hard-line position adopted by the Arabs for the past 55 years. Gordon M. Weiner Professor Emeritus Arizona State University Tempe
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