The message of "cautious hope" that Israeli consul Ido Aharoni brought presented a rosy nuance of his choice ("Israeli consul brings message of hope," Feb. 21). However, the consul's ideological propositions actually throw on certain conditions of coercion and injustice the cloak of "hope," itself reminiscent of the groundbreaking "vision" that George W. Bush had for the Middle East.
The "controversial security barrier" as mentioned in The Spectrum is reason for hope, as it functions to guarantee Israel's protection and future. What The Spectrum erroneously labels as "controversial" is technically illegal to start with: the International Court of Justice ruled on the illegality of the "barrier" in 2004 and called on Israel to immediately take action to reverse its construction plans.
If there were any hope to emerge, there should be recognition of the most basic fact of occupation and denial of rights as source of the problem. It is precisely in struggling against these that the Palestinians have managed to force Aharoni and others to propose, even when only superficially, what used to be taboo: the need for a Palestinian state.
