Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July 2008, pages 5-6

Letters to the Editor

Nakba Brochure?

I WANT TO thank you for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. I have just finished reading the special feature, “Voices of the Nakba, 1948-2008” (May/June Washington Report, pp. 16-43), and I wish everyone could read it. Would it be possible to print a separate 25-page brochure and make it available at a price of approximately $2? If you could do this, I would buy at least 25 copies and distribute them. If we could get this information into the hands of more Americans, it would wake up the uninformed public.

God bless you and keep up the good work.

Paul Wagner, Bridgeville, PA

We have had several similar requests—as well as to make a poster of the 1948 map of Palestine in the centerfold of that issue—and shall investigate all available options. Stay tuned.

Long-Lost Relatives

I just wanted to let you know that I received the copies of your May-June issue commemorating the Nakba. Thank you so much. I also want to let you know that Dawud Assad, whose article was right before mine, is actually related to my grandmother. I think that he is her first or second cousin—I’m not sure. And the picture of the mental institute on the same page is actually my great-grandfather’s house. My brother told me that, because he visited it with my grandmother. However, they were not allowed entrance.

Lubna Jaber, via e-mail

We thank you for contributing your family’s heroic story of defending Deir Yassin against the attack by Jewish terrorists (the state of Israel having not yet been created). As your letter also demonstrates, the Palestinian diaspora has separated extended family members who otherwise would be living together in their hometown, sharing memories and stories of their ancestors.

A Slow, Deliberate Process

I am a history teacher, and we have begun a slow, deliberate process of bringing some balance to our high school curriculum with regard to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In this process, I have been the chief learner, as my own regional specialty is China and the Far East.

It has been a moving, difficult, but rewarding journey: like so many Americans, I simply had no idea of the truth of Palestinian oppresssion. My personal educational mission has thus become to do what I can to “lift the scales from the eyes” of my students and my colleagues, who are captive to the tendentious environment created by America’s media today. Your publications, and your wonderful staff at the bookstore, who helped me purchase some terrific video materials (“Palestine is Still the Issue” and “The Iron Wall”) have, to say the least, been a great boon to students and faculty alike here.

Thank you for your efforts to bring the truth to America. I continue to remain hopeful that time is on our side, and that one day Palestine will be free, with the Palestinians’ long-denied dignity restored once again.

Charles Bergman, via e-mail

Have We Not Learned From History?

Last week saw a massive escalation in atrocities perpetrated by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people. Far from giving the Palestinians an incentive to engage Israel constructively, the Israelis have fueled the fire, and seeded further hatred that will generate further aggression toward Israel. As long as Israel continues its Reign of Terror in the occupied territories, there will never be an end to violence in the region. Palestinians are treated like second-class citizens both in Israel and in Palestine. The parallels with apartheid in South Africa are as numerous as they are shocking, and are unacceptable.

The Israeli government oppresses and persecutes the Palestinians. The Israelis bomb their hospitals and schools, bulldoze their homes, and kill their children, all on a scale utterly incomparable to Palestinian actions against Israel. Israel has created a concentration camp for Palestinians in the occupied territories. It has embarked on the systematic destruction of the Palestinian people. It denies the Palestinians independence, human rights, and justice; indeed, Israel denies the Palestinians the right to drinking water, education and medical care. Israel denies the Palestinians the right to a functional economy. It denies the Palestinians a safe homeland of their own. How much longer will the international community stand by and bear witness to the Palestinian Holocaust? Have we not learned from history?

Rory E. Morty, Giessen, Germany

We couldn’t agree more that the world’s passive acquiescence to, if not active enabling of, Israel’s continued ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in their own homeland will go down in history as a mark of infamy.

Re: U.S. Financial Aid to Israel

I am always surprised at the level of money we send to Israel, and wondered why we will not stop. The list of contributions by pro-Israel PACs (May/June Washington Report, p. 50) makes it clear that it is due to lobbyists and their use of the vulnerability built into our system for candidates to compete for donations. It is really frightening that this has gone on for so long.

As a baby-boomer I am well aware of the horrors I have heard of the Holocaust—in fact my generation has been fed a healthy dose of it daily to remind us. But I have always thought that the increase in media coverage of those years has been somewhat of a deterent to the current issues that in fact turns our eyes/ears away from the treatment now of the Palestinians by the Zionist government of Israel. We have formed an attitude of sympathy toward the Jewish people in general without looking critically at their current actions, which appear to be to divide the Palestinians and virtually imprison them, making it easier for them to control or destroy.

I have always thought it was wrong to displace people who lived there before. I heard somewhere that the Jewish people were considering a settlement in Africa, but claimed Israel as a holy homeland from the Bible. People go there from all over the world as tourists because they feel some sense of holiness connected to that area. So I suppose it was a more rallying cry than Africa. The fact that people already lived there was not relevant to their cause.

Just letting the taxpayer know the wasteful amount of money we are giving away, that we do not even spend on our needy here in the U.S., should not be that difficult—most people listen very carefully to this. Why are we really not stopping the overfunding of a country that is not in need?

Christine Biedul, via e-mail

Once a majority of Americans realize that their tax money is being spent to support a foreign apartheid government, rather than addressing vital needs here at home, the next step is to vote the rascals out!

A Call to “Civilized” People

Thank you for sending me Mohammed Omer’s report on Gaza (“Israel’s missiles kill children,” March 1 e-mail action alert).

It’s all very, very sad. It’s absolutely unbelievable that in this day and age when we think we have left behind us the age of medieval barbarism such things can still happen. All I can say, absurd as it may sound, is please for God’s sake let us all “civilized” people work together to get all these Gaza residents out of Gaza and have them all live in some other parts of the world until the problem of Palestine is resolved. Another million-plus Palestinian refugees should not be too much of a burden on the coffers of the United Nations. It will be only moral for the U.N. to take charge of these hapless people since the problem of where they should go and safely live has been festering for 60 years under its own unkind auspices!! May God help us all, Amen.

M. Habib Quader, via e-mail

Alas, that would suit Israel just fine (as long as it keeps getting its U.S. stipend).

A Modest Proposal

In answer to Mike Huckabee (“Presidential Candidates’ Views on Israel and Palestine,” April 2008 Washington Report, p. 31):

He believes a Palestinian state should be created—but that it should be moved away from Israel. Why not in his state of Arkansas, or in New Jersey or New York?

Just think of all the money we would save.

Peter Grasso (85-year-old WWII Veteran), Bernardston, MA

Enlightened and Inspired

I am writing at this time to let you know how much I appreciate the subscription extended to me, to your most informative publication—the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Your publication keeps me grounded, and, I believe, well educated and enlightened about some of the most extremely important issues facing the world.

I must say, I like the brief profiles on all of the writers that appear along with each article. I’m comforted by the fact that the majority of the writers are people who are directly involved in the stories they’re reporting on; and even those who are “free-lance” writers present their pieces with overwhelming clarity and accuracy.

There are very few publications, books, news stations, etc. that I feel enlightened and inspired by—the Washington Report falls into that select group (also, “Democracy Now!”).

Kamil Ifriqi, Smyrna, DE

Setting the Bar Too High?

During the last years of the George W. Bush “presidency,” it is time to start thinking of the GWB legacy.

Others have written extensively about fraudulent elections, erosion of the constitution and Bill of Rights, and an unprecedented U.S. economic disaster. However, readers of this magazine should be especially concerned with the GWB legacy in the Middle East.

Over one million innocent Iraqis have died (estimates vary) as a result of the George W. Bush invasion. Several million Iraqis are now homeless refugees (again, estimates vary), the al-Qaeda terrorsts have become firmly established in Iraq, women’s rights have been set back centuries, the Iraqi infrastructure has been severely damaged, and many formerly quiet neighborhoods have now become killing zones.

Will George W. Bush go down in Middle Eastern history as “the man who made Saddam Hussain look good”?

Lloyd Guderjohn, Colville, WA