On June 5 President Bush held summit talks with Mideast leaders, mainly about disarming terrorists, halting aid to them and taking away their arms.

On June 10 Ariel Sharon ordered the killing of a Hamas leader whom he said he had targeted for some time. The next day resistance fighters set off a bomb in Jerusalem that killed 16 Israelis. Why would Sharon do this? No political leader in Israel who agreed to dismantle the settlements could stand. The “road map” was dead on arrival.

They all ought to dust off U.N. Resolution 242. It starts by emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war. It goes on to order Israel to withdraw its armed forces from the territories occupied during the 1967 war and respect the sovereignty of its neighbors. The Israelis, with the support of this country, have ignored Resolution 242 and every other resolution the United Nations has passed since then.

One senator suggests that the United Nations send troops into Palestine to take over the government and suppress the resistance. If Bush puts our troops into Palestine with the U.N. forces, he may lose the election next year when the body bags start returning. The same could happen if he drops the Israelis.

Bush and Powell should read the history of the British experience with the Jewish terrorist group called the “Etzel” during the 1940s. After the British lost many of their soldiers to Jewish terrorist groups, it pulled out of Palestine and turned the problem over to the nascent United Nations.

We should shut down our support of Israel and turn both the Iraqi and Israeli problems over to the United Nations, something that should have been done long ago.

Paul Hanson

Argyle