Art Linkletter; France’s effort to ban full-face veils; the Lebanese prime minister’s plan for peace in the Middle East

What did I say?

Re “ Art Linkletter, 1912 - 2010,” Obituary, May 27

I was sorry to see that Art Linkletter died.

Long ago in the ‘40s, I was called out of a third-grade class and bussed with some pals over the hills to Hollywood, to appear on his radio show.

This fellow was to ask us questions — that’s all we knew. We sat on a row of folding chairs, facing an immense audience of women, all of them dressed like my mother.

Linkletter got down on one knee, smiled and asked me a question.

“Well, Ben, what does your mother do?”

And I said, to this female audience:

“She doesn’t do anything, sir. She’s a housewife.”

Gosh, it was quiet. Maybe I said something wrong? Then came the laughter.

Still, sorry to see the affable and smart Linkletter go.

Thanks for the fine story.

Ben Peters

Balboa Island

Covering the veil issue

Re “ France’s veil threat,” Editorial, May 24

If I were to walk into The Times’ offices wearing a ski mask, sunglasses and garments that totally concealed me, I wouldn’t get past security. My religion is immaterial.

Allowing me, or men, or even women to conceal our identities alarms an immediate threat. It would surely, in time, manifest a real threat to the common defense, domestic tranquility and general welfare.

The crux of the matter has nothing to do with Islam.

Stefen Malone

West Hollywood

Your editorial notes accurately that only full-face veils would be banned under a law being considered by France’s Parliament, in contrast with headscarves or Islamic veils, which are admitted everywhere in France, apart from public schools and for government officials.

Burkas are worn in France by very few women but are promoted by religious extremists as a challenge to our values of openness and equality. It is a pre-Islamic tradition used as a rallying symbol for radicalism. That is one of the reasons why the comparison with bans on minarets is unfair.

One can argue that religious freedom implies the ability to cover completely one’s body in public, but in many countries, including Muslim countries, this is open for debate.

France just held an earnest debate that raised specific concerns that you recall in part: human dignity and women’s rights, integration, security.

Saying that such a law is incompatible with the “freedom of thought, conscience and religion” is simply wrong. France guarantees these rights, as provided by the 1789 Declaration of Human Rights. It tries to strike a balance in defending these values in the face of growing pressure from extremists. This is an issue for any democracy.

Pierre Vimont

Washington

The writer is French ambassador to the U.S.

Thank you for striking just the right note in your critique of France’s burka ban. As one who studies Muslims in Europe (as well as Asians and Latinos in the United States), I am consistently impressed by the knowledge and good sense with which The Times approaches these issues. It is a rare quality these days.

Paul Spickard

Santa Barbara

The writer is a professor of history at UC Santa Barbara.

Regarding France’s proposal to ban “concealment of the face in public,” which would primarily negatively impact ultra-observant Muslim women, my belief is that all people should have the right to wear whatever they want, in private or in public, including nothing at all.

Stephen Seiferheld May

Los Angeles

No consensus on Mideast peace

Re “A get-tough path to Mideast peace,” Opinion, May 25

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s justification for a final peace settlement between the Palestinians and the Israelis to be determined by an arbiter has a hollow ring.

First, he refers to the 2002 Arab peace plan that called for, in part, Israel’s withdrawal to the so-called 1967 borders. In fact, those are the 1948 armistice lines, which deprive Israel of the secure borders it is entitled to under U.N. Resolution 242.

Next, Hariri describes Lebanon as a country of “hope, tolerance, democracy and coexistence.” Yet it is a country where Palestinians are denied citizenship and where a few years ago some of their communities engaged in armed conflict with Lebanon’s army. Today, Lebanon is a country dominated by Iran’s proxy Hezbollah and Iran’s ally Syria.

To use the prime minister’s words, “The parameters of a sustainable peace settlement … are well established.” But not on the terms he has offered — rather, it is whether Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas can accept the Camp David offer that Yasser Arafat rejected.

Robert C. Gusman

Calabasas

What’s so magical about 1967? The premise is that territories seized by conquest are illegitimate, and nations created from the territory of others are a violation of international justice. If this principle is true for Israel’s actions of 1967, it should also be valid for conquests made in the early 20th century and be applicable to non-Zionist states.

Therefore, let us choose 1908 as the reference year and fold Arab states back into Turkey, requiring a right of return for the descendents of all the Turks who were expelled from these lands when the Western powers helped break up the Caliphate.

When the Islamic nations cede their nationhood back to Turkey, I will have some sympathy for Hariri’s argument to get tough with Israel.

Joseph Helfer

Topanga

If Hariri believes that Middle East peace will prevail when the “main sources of tension and conflict in the region [are] removed,” why not begin by removing Hezbollah from Lebanon?

Israel withdrew its forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000 to help promote peace and stability in the region. In the summer of 2006, Hezbollah militia based in Lebanon launched Iranian-supplied Katyusha rockets indiscriminately from its civilian-populated strongholds in southern Lebanon into Israel. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians, both Arabs and Jews, were threatened by this assault.

If Hezbollah, operating freely under the tacit consent of Hariri, cannot be controlled, how can moderate Israeli leaders further peace between her neighbors?

Charles K. Briskin

San Pedro

I am skeptical of Hariri’s suggestion for a settlement to be imposed on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by the world community through the U.N., or by the world’s major powers.

Arbitration only works when both sides in a dispute are close to a settlement. But that is not the case in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, which is characterized by a mutual lack of trust, and at least on the Israeli side, there is no opening for compromise.

No matter how wise and objectively fair an imposed settlement, it will not last if the parties feel the settlement is unfair. And that will surely be the case among Israelis, who a new poll shows overwhelmingly believe that they, and not the Palestinians, have exclusive rights to the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Jeff Warner

La Habra Heights

Hit-and-run injustice

Re “Maximum terms in USC hit-and-run,” May 25

There’s certainly something wrong with justice when the maximum sentence for the heinous crime that Claudia Cabrera and Josue Luna committed is eight years for Claudia and seven for Josue.

If either of them is contrite, it isn’t for the victims and their families; it’s clearly only for themselves.

After driving without a license while under the influence of alcohol and then running a red light, Cabrera still has the audacity to say that it was “a terrible accident that nobody could have prevented.”

This is ludicrous. Killing and maiming with an automobile while drinking and driving is no accident; it’s manslaughter, and it should be treated as such. And the callousness of pulling an injured Marcus Garfinkle from the hood of the car and speeding away points to something more than manslaughter: murder, plain and simple.

Kenn Morris

Los Angeles