Your editorial:{"Gaza: Start of withdrawal" Aug.19}, states it accurately :" It is long overdue. The settlements are on illegally occupied land, taken by Israel during the 1967 war." All the settlements in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are illegal and have been allowed to stand for 38 years, in defiance of international law and repeated Security Council resolutions. Withdrawal from all the illegally occupied territory must be complete and unconditional.

The call for negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis is unreasonable and uncalled for. We recall when Iraq illegally occupied Kuwait in 1990, a Security Council resolutions was passed and when withdrawal was not achieved within few weeks, a million troops were sent and complete withdrawal was accomplished and Iraq was subjected to a massive campaign of destruction, bringing it back to pre-industrial age. No one called for negotiations between Kuwaitis and Iraqis to withdraw from 60 or 90% of the illegally occupied territory.