I often read the letters to the New York Times editorial page not necessarily for what they say, but too see how disparate the ideological balance is on the page. I'd love to know if the Times overwhelmingly receives letters from the left/liberal end of the spectrum or if the mix is a little more ideologically balanced and they skew the letters based upon their own editorial views.

Today's letters on the President Bush's press conference earlier this week are a case in point -- not a single one supports the President.

But that's not the letter I want to talk about. The letter I want to talk about was written by Bernice Hecker of Texas:

To the Editor:

As a Jew who has been following the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for many years, I was amazed by Irshad Manji's article, which suggested that the purpose of Israel's wall is to keep suicide bombers out.

She writes, "Before the barrier, there was the bomber." No, Ms. Manji, before the bomber, there was the occupation. Before the bomber, there was the relentless annexation of Palestinian lands that is continuing today.

Israel has made no secret that the wall is to be the new border and that its purpose is to carve the West Bank up into noncontiguous "statelets."

While the world is focusing on Hamas and its intentions, Israel is foreclosing all possibility for a Palestinian state. And the international community stands there with folded arms doing nothing to stop Israel while Palestine burns.

Bernice Hecker
Austin, Tex., March 18, 2006

First off, you know that any letter that starts out with "As a _____" means that the writer is either attempting to insulate themselves from charges of bigotry or racism because what follows will be particularly odious or claiming some special authority on the subject at hand. Bernice is doing both.

Ms. Hecker is woefully misinformed and should be pointed and laughed at whenever she appears in public. The only reason the fence exists is to prevent murderous attacks on Israeli civilians. The "occupation" is a result of those wars -- you know, the ones Arabs started and lost? Let's also ignore the recent abandonment of a settlement in the West Bank after which the Palestinians moved in and torched now-abandoned synagogues.

Though it is not the stated policy of any world government -- including Israel -- are non-contiguous Palestinian statelets necessarily a bad idea? It worked for Germany for nearly 50 years. Maybe the Palestinians need a similar cooling-off period.

Is "Palestine" really burning? Seriously. Burning?

The Palestinians have no one to blame but themselves. If Ms. Hecker is so confident of their goodwill, maybe she'll volunteer to go to Israel and man one of the checkpoints that routinely get blown up by suicide bombers. It's really easy to preach from thousands of miles away.