Regarding "America supports Israel because it's right," the Aug. 4 letter by Dave Terry: Israel is like the spoiled brat of filthy-rich parents who are too engrossed in their indulgences to care what the little tyke is buying with his ill-deserved allowance.

Apparently turning up on the losing end of 2,000 years of tribal squabbles and regional land grabs between neighboring states, the area now called Israel had not existed since the Roman conquests in the First Century. In fact, history has stricken many geopolitical areas from the map. Is this one special in some way that it is artificially re-created 2,000 years later? What of the Meso-American, Australian Aboriginal, Khoisan and Native American civilizations?

When the T-Rex starts eating people in Jurassic Park, one gets the sense that some things are best left to their natural historical conclusion. I submit that the same applies here: An isolated man-made geographical creation that is out of time with the world can only lead to dire circumstances.

The Holocaust is a scar on our collective conscience (it is arguably the most important lesson mankind will ever learn), but it does not entitle Israel and the United States to make up their own rules on political ethics, military policy, and the logic of an evolutionary global history.

And terrorism is never justified; nor is it a winning strategy. On both sides, the money, time, and human lives are squandered on what this region can't be, instead of invested in what it can be.

EMLYN ADDISON

Providence