Letter: Israeli charade

Sir: The leader "Baseless optimism for the Middle East" (30 September) doesn't go far enough. The sorry truth is that current negotiations, as well as all speculation over whether Yasser Arafat will declare a Palestinian state on 4 May next year, are essentially meaningless.

Two weeks ago in the West Bank town of Bitunia, a Jewish settler from Dolev shot two Palestinian teenagers, one of whom died. The settler was arrested and released - placed under "house arrest". As one Israeli journalist put it, he is now "vacationing at a youth hostel" in Jerusalem. In April, another Dolev settler had shot a Palestinian and been acquitted.

The Palestinian Authority is under enormous, unrelenting pressure to safeguard Israelis from Palestinian violence while Israel does virtually nothing to curb the violent settlers. Israel will never achieve meaningful peace with its neighbours until the underlying assumption of Jewish superiority has been at least weakened.

JIM RISSMAN

Madison, Wisconsin, USA