Dear Editor:
          William Safire's column "Israel's defenders of the
     fence" (N&O, Other Opinion, August 1) offers another example
     of this pundit's cynical sophistry. I have yet to find
     Safire recognize anything wrong with Israel no matter how
     outrageous its behavior toward Palestinians. A wall that
     divides Palestinian properties and farmland is now to be
     called a "refined wire fence," even if miles of it is made
     of high and thick concrete barriers taller and thicker than
     the Berlin Wall.
          By the same token, Israel's defenders urge us to call
     the Palestinian territories by their Biblical names "Samaria
     and Judea." Occupied and ravaged territories are considered
     "disputed" territories, and Jewish settlements or colonies,
     built on confiscated land, are Israeli "communities,
     villages, or suburbs of Jerusalem." "Illegal outposts" imply
     that the many settlements of the West Bank and Gaza are
     legal, flouting UN resolutions and U.S. forgotten
     pronouncements. Recent contracts to build 22 homes in Neve
     Dekalim in Gaza, in flagrant violation of the Road Map's
     total freeze on settlement activities, is defended as a
     "natural outgrowth." Tragedies like the killing of Rachel
     Corie and the mutilating face injury of Brian Avery are
     dismissed as regrettable accidents. And the list of
     deceitful euphemisms and tendentious distortions goes on and
     on.
          What is far more serious that the misuse of the word
     "fence" and of other indefensible sophistries is that our
     voter and money-hungry politicians, including President
     Bush, will follow Safire's drumbeat as the next election
     approaches.
    
     Sincerely,
    
     Henry A. Azar
     1700 Old Oxford Road
     Chapel Hill, NC 27514
     (919)967-8763