Letters: Only one side wants peace in the tensions between Israelis and Palestinians

Storer H. Rowley’s op-ed calling for a two-state solution between the Palestinians and Israelis suffers from one little problem (“Extremists on both sides of Israel-Hamas War are determined to kill a two-state solution,” Dec. 17). Based on 75 years of evidence, only one side — the Israelis — actually want a two-state solution. When this conflict started 75 years ago, Israel said yes to a two-state solution, whereas the Palestinians responded, “No Jews.” When the shout “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free,” they mean “free” of Jews. The rest is noise.

If there’s any doubt, just ask Bill Clinton. He devoted much time to a two-state solution only to learn the Palestinians don’t actually want one. Instead, as judged by actions — not sound bites — the Palestinians are clear in what they want.

Why sugarcoat it? Peace in the Middle East reduces to sincerity. One side has shown for 75 years it sincerely wants it, while the other has not.

— William Choslovsky, Chicago

Antisemitism is rampant

I am not Jewish, and yet I feel the rampant antisemitism. Other groups get sympathy and protections on college campuses for just microaggressions, real or imagined. But Jewish people endure the worst macroaggressions — with people chanting, “Death to Jews,” and even denying the recent mass atrocities in Israel captured on camera — and people don’t seem to care. Even Ivy League presidents allow for such conduct.

The double standard and hypocrisy are sick. As a non-Jew, I now understand the rampant, sad antisemitism better, and I am sickened by it.

— Shawn Jenkins, Flossmoor

Aldermen’s misplaced priorities

How nice that some Chicago aldermen think that a resolution encouraging a cease-fire in Gaza is something they think they should spend their time on while the city is imploding with crime and a migrant crisis.

Talk about misplaced priorities and a lack of focus on what’s really important to the citizens of Chicago.

— Kevin Garvey, Chicago

The value of elite education

I was a special-education teacher in Chicago Public Schools for 27 years followed by 18 years as a professor of special education at National Louis University. Regarding elite programs, almost every high school has at least two: the football team and the basketball team. Here, the best-qualified students are selected and vigorously trained during and after school hours and often at great expense. No one objects. In fact, the members are honored for their accomplishments.

In most schools, there are other elite sports programs also treated in this manner. This elitism often extends to music programs and perhaps programs in theater and other arts. In these areas, the term “elite” has a positive connotation.

This changes when it comes to academics. I thought, and taught, that each student should be taken at the level he or she is at and moved forward as much as possible. This requires each student be challenged and requires the school system and the teacher to meet each student’s need to excel as much as they can. When this happens, some students achieve more than others. We call this “elitism” with a negative connotation.

The Chicago Board of Education takes a contrary view. It wants each student to reach a certain minimum level of achievement. This requires the teacher to put more time and effort into those students who progress more slowly while leaving the higher-performing students to their own devices. At times, higher-performing students are used to help the lower-performing students to reach this minimum level.

Which is better? When you are being wheeled into the operating room, which system would you prefer your surgeon come from?

— Jerome C. Yanoff, Chicago

Selective enrollment issues

In response to Thomas Vincent’s letter (“Selective enrollment,” Dec. 18) and an earlier editorial (“Be very afraid for city’s stellar selective-enrollment schools,” Dec. 14), the following are taken from my firsthand participation and observations and Chicago Public Schools data and Board of Education reports. In theory, selective enrollment means “exceptional” education for “exceptional” students. As a CPS student, I was in selective-enrollment programs from fourth grade through high school (1961-69). My programs were housed in my neighborhood schools: (then) Kenwood Upper Grade Center in one classroom with mostly the same classmates for four years and in Hyde Park High School’s honors and double honors “track” program. My baby brother graduated from Whitney M. Young Magnet High School in 1984.

I have two concerns with the premise for selective enrollment. A large portion of the exceptional nature of the students in these programs and schools appears to be class (middle and upper middle) and/or race (white). Second, I am concerned that as presently designed, this exceptional education may come at other students’ expense. Examples: Whitney Young, a disproportionately white middle-class high school, and Oscar Mayer Magnet, a Lincoln Park elementary school, where the non-neighborhood resident student population has declined from my 2009 observations to recent years.

Nevertheless, I am not recommending taking anything away from anyone. I just want all CPS students to receive exceptional educations, to help make them the most skilled and productive adult citizens of the United States of America possible. Producing skilled and productive adult citizens is, after all, the reason for our country’s public education system.

— Muriel Balla, Chicago

Give schools proper funds

Enough with the whining about scrapping selective-enrollment schools in Chicago. We need to end the “Hunger Games” of school choice. Full funding for all of our schools will do that.

I suggest calling your state legislators right now to demand that they make full funding of our schools a nonnegotiable priority. They must do much more than simply pay lip service to the idea.

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Putting cops in harm’s way

I just read Elliott Fredland’s uninformed letter concerning police officers getting out of their squad cars and interacting with people (“Fixed posts,” Dec. 16). Fredland doesn’t say where he served as a police captain, but it certainly wasn’t in Chicago.

He may have never had a rock, bottle or tree branch thrown at him from a coward hiding within a crowd. A shattered windshield is much better than an officer’s shattered face.

— Michael C. Flynn, retired Chicago police officer, Chicago

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