Sharon: Mr. Gorbachev, can I have these blocks?

Letter to Post:

Shame on Tom Toles (cartoon, 6/16/04, p. A26) for equating the Berlin wall and Israel's wall. Yes, they're both walls, but the purposes are diametrically opposite. The Berlin wall was to keep people IN and prevent them from escaping to a land of freedom. Israel's wall is to keep suicide bombers OUT and prevent them from attacking and destroying a land of freedom. The difference is like night and day, sin and virtue, freedom and tyranny - which is to say, immense.

The shame is that this kind of message, found all too often in your paper, tends to brainwash your readers into believing that Israel, in its attempts at self-defense, is actually the oppressor. Remember, if the Palestinians don't want the wall, all they have to do is remove its cause, i.e., stop their attacks.