PUBLIC FORUM : COLUMNIST'S CRITICISM OF NETANYAHU REBUTTED.

Anthony Lewis' recent column, ``Leadership in agitated Mideast underwhelms,'' was itself quite underwhelming. He dealt with the subject simplistically and stated, among a cluster of partisan assertions, that ``(Yasser) Arafat has his profound faults as a political leader.'' He adds that ``Israel is the dominant party,'' and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ``wavering and weakness . . . have been devastating'' and ``have left the hopes for peace in limbo.'' I am dumbfounded by his logic.

So, suicidal fanatics who die murdering innocents near them have nothing to do with the tragedies they inflict; the Israelis, symbolized by Netanyahu, really murdered the victims. Arafat, of course, merely ``has his profound faults as a leader.'' With this twist of logic, Lewis clings to his own myopic agenda.

What I would like to know is how the Daily News - the only large newspaper in Los Angeles that does manage to present views that do not always coincide with Democratic central headquarters - can permit this flagrantly upside-down point of view without simultaneously presenting an opposite position.

- Robert Weisman

Valley Village

Immigration cap needed

Re ``Is L.A. bad for kids?'' (Daily News, Aug. 27):

Let's try to be honest, just once. For a quarter-century we've allowed and accepted very high legal and illegal immigration levels of very poor, uneducated or barely educated, non-English speaking people.

And what's the next thing we do? We scratch our heads and wonder why we're becoming such a poor society, with high dropout rates in public schools, high poverty rates, etc.

The cool, typically middle-class Los Angeles we knew in the 1970s was nothing like the mess we have today. It was a very tolerant, integrated city for the most part - the historic rate of immigration had been such that the society was not overburdened, and just about everyone had a chance to fit in, to find a decent place in the accepting society.

God bless all the immigrants who are here already - let's do all we can, fairly and realistically, to help them help themselves. But let's cap it. I think the true meaning of the statistics is that we're grossly overburdening our society and our tax base with an unrealistic, insupportable immigration burden.

The problem is not race; it is the rate, coupled with the socioeconomic appropriateness, of the immigration burden.

- Stan Bass

Montrose

`Strip club politics'

I thoroughly enjoyed the excellent article by Wendy Dager (``Strip club politics could portend slide for town like Simi,'' Opinions, Aug. 1).

One man, Philip Young, has tried time and again to get permission to open a strip club, employing about 30 strippers. Due to being constantly turned down he filed a lawsuit, which ended in mistrial, and then went to the U.S. District Court, where Judge William J. Rea advised in his eight-page opinion that because there were relatively few sites for adult-entertainment businesses and too many restrictions on those sites, there is an unconstitutional limit to applicant's right to free expression.

Why didn't Rea consider the ``free expression'' of all the people of Simi Valley who signed petitions, attended a protest meeting at Madera Plaza and held candlelight vigils at City Hall against the establishment of such a club in Simi?

Why doesn't Young apply his ``free expression'' in the San Fernando Valley, Oxnard, Camarillo, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark or wherever? Why is he so insistent on Simi Valley when he knows the people do not want his club?

Simi Valley has long been known as a bedroom community with lots of children and people who are trying to protect their rights to raise their families and/or live in this lovely, beautiful and tranquil city. We pray the appeal by the city of Simi Valley is successful.

- Rosemary J. Currier

Simi Valley

Council too generous

Despite legal advice that Los Angeles police did nothing wrong, City Council members agreed to settle a 6-year-old police brutality claim by paying $325,000 to 28 gay rights demonstrators. That's what the Daily News reported Aug. 26 in ``Brutality claim settled.''

This is just another example of the council's expensive sense of humor. If we pay off the ones we don't owe, and we pay off the ones we do owe, which ones don't we pay off?

Prophetically, Councilman Nate Holden stated, ``I think some of the cases you have to fight to prevent others from filing frivolous lawsuits.''

The frivolous lawsuit to which Holden referred must have been the one threatened by former Police Chief Willie L. Williams, who similarly did not have a legal leg on which to stand and who was rewarded with another council-approved treasury raid exceeding $300,000.

These folks are way, way out. I think they're all on something.

- Bruce Jones

Eagle Rock

Co-existing with coyotes

Oh dear me, lock up your women and children: The coyotes are out in West Hills.

Leave the coyotes alone. They get blamed enough already. If the people in West Hills are losing their cats to the coyotes, why don't they take their cats in at night? If you move into an area where there are wild animals, you obviously need to take some precautions.

It is possible to live side by side with coyotes. Coyotes are opportunistic predators. They will kill things smaller than themselves. They will kill cats and small dogs if they are left outside at night without a shelter.

They do a great service for Southern California. They keep the rodent population under control. They eat road kill and dead animals that have died in the desert. They are scavengers.

Use a little common sense. Take your animals in at night and for heavens sake, hopefully you do not leave little children out at night - never mind the coyotes, what about the human predators?

Keep your garbage covered so they cannot eat it. Take all food indoors at night. I guarantee if you take these measures, the coyotes will go elsewhere.

- Virginia E. Taylor

Lancaster

Hold the bureaucrats

Re pollution controls for charcoal broilers in restaurants:

I think that the power of South Coast Air Quality Management District personnel has gone to their heads. Their brains are generating more pollution than fast food restaurants.

Perhaps we should put a catalytic converter on their heads to solve our pollution problems. Just wait, backyard barbecues will be next. Why don't they work on problem areas that will result in real change, like cleaning up diesel trucks and buses?

- Richard Kinsman 

Chatsworth

`Who can we blame'

Here I am - 78 years old and thoroughly disgusted with the political scene as it exists today.

As good citizens, we vote for measure after measure and either the courts strike the voice of the people down or our elected representatives in city government do nothing to follow the vote of the people and act in a sane manner following public opinion.

There was a time when elected officials were tarred and feathered for not heeding public needs, but today politicians seem oblivious to public trust. Every day some new item is exposed in the Daily News involving misuse of public funds or wasteful spending.

I have been a public servant, teaching 24 years at a college level. I have done my best to prepare young people for the real world with almost 100 percent placement of students in industry.

And now look at the total mess we have each day with the freeways and bus and rail system. We were able to put men on the moon, and we still cannot solve such seemingly insignificant problems as people movers, or clean up the educational system, which is also ineffective.

Who can we blame? Where shall we start? Or has governing an area such as Los Angeles become too large and too complex for our simple minds?

- Sam Anslyn

Northridge

UPS settlement

These are additional letters on Saturday's Public Forum topic - whether the settlement in the Teamsters union strike against UPS is likely to reinvigorate the labor movement.

I hope the win by the union against United Parcel Service will help bring back the unions who the government tried to destroy by deregulation of the trucking industry and the airlines.

The nonunion trucking companies put drivers on the road after six weeks of training. It took six years on a bobtail truck before I could train on a tractor-trailer with a union company.

- Larry Goldberg

Rosamond

I believe the people of this country again have lost sight of the truth. We have to learn to listen to what's being said to us. UPS is willing to give 10,000 people full-time jobs, but because of the strike they must lay off or cut back on jobs.

So the Teamsters union now says in order to get your full-time hours you will work part of the day doing one job and then go across the street and load air carriers so you can get a full day. So does that mean you get paid for doing two jobs or is UPS getting two jobs done for the price of one?

And the Teamsters union gets to be in charge of your pension funds. This is what's happening to working people.

Corporate America is hiring part-time workers who are expected to do two or more jobs without any benefits or a future for their family, yet the economy is great.

Maybe this is why our jobs went to Mexico. And the rich say they are not getting richer.

- Robert Waynick

Sunland