I read with confusion the letter by Stephen Johnson, "People are often blamed for other citizens' actions" (Aug. 4). Correct me if I am wrong, Abu Ghraib is about America's hypocrisy and so was Fallujah. For the entire Arab and Muslim world, Abu Ghraib was the humiliation of Arabs and Muslims at the hand of westerners who could walk into their land, invade their country and abuse their men without impunity and still emerge as a superior civilization. It's about how powerless and broken Arabs and Muslims were as their men were stacked into pyramids and forced to engage in lewd acts as they were stripped of their dignity -- whatever dignity they still had.

On Palestine, Johnson argued that it was Arafat who refused to accept the peace treaty with Israel. He didn't explain further why Arafat rejected it. Why was it so? Does he think Palestinians are immune to reasons and too violent to accept peace and justice? Let's be clear here. One of the main reasons Arafat rejected the treaty was because it would create Bantustans in West Bank that would be deprived of their sovereignty and forever dependent on Israel. The chief Israeli negotiator and former foreign minister, Shlomo Bin-Ami, was on the record saying if he were a Palestinian he would have rejected the Camp David treaty offered by Israel. So why reduce the fault on Palestinians without examining the treaty in detail?

Simply put, it is illegal under international law to acquire land by force and shift your population to the occupied lands, which Israel is doing now and has been doing since 1967. Palestinians are now victims of colonialism, apartheid and military occupation.

Sammy Haddad

graduate-engineering