January 1990, Page 4

Letters To (and From) The Editors

More on Wolf Blitzer

In your November issue, Wolf Blitzer's letter corrects you on his citizenship status, making note that he "has only American citizenship."

Blitzer's history documented in his own writing shows him to be a noted Zionist propagandist who wrote for Mideast Reports, AIPAC's main publication, and to be an ardent voice for Israel.

This status is exactly what got his article "Is TV News Too Tough-or Too Easy on Israel?" cover billing in the Sept. 19, 1987 TV Guide, then owned by Walter Annenberg. He was identified as the "Washington, DC, bureau chief for the Jerusalem Post."

Blitzer's final sentence in that article read, "Still, intentional anti-Israel bias—despite all the complaining—is not, the facts suggest, a problem on ABC, CBS, or NBC." The word "intentional" is italicized.

A few weeks later TV Guide printed two letters responding to the article. One was from a self-described "fellow journalist, committed Zionist and ardent Jew" praising the article. Another was from Matthew C. Hogan, Media Committee, National Association of Arab Americans, who wrote, "The pro-Israel bias of television journalism is best illustrated by the fact that TV Guide's article on American television coverage of the Middle East was written by an Israeli journalist."

TV Guide took the opportunity to throw the Arab representative into disrepute for his little technical faux pas by replying tersely that "The article's author, Wolf Blitzer, is an American journalist." Regardless of Wolf Blitzer's technical designation—American citizen, American journalist or what ever—he is, above all else, a committed Israelist.

Tom Moran, Los Angeles, CA

Praise and Criticism

Your periodical, the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, has opened a window through which the Arab cause has received some deserved attention. We applaud you for that. However, in your zeal to introduce the Arab side you tend to ignore the inconsistencies, injustices and outright crimes that some Arab governments have committed and are currently committing against their citizens (Arabs as well as non-Arabs). We believe that a truthful, unbiased presentation of issues will in the long run serve the human cause and will eliminate the need for artificial supremacy of any race over others.

In particular we direct your attention to the plight of the Kurdish nation under the iron claws of the Ba'athist government of Iraq. In a single day in March of 1988, over 5,000 Iraqi citizens were exterminated by chemical weapons and poison gases in the town of Halabja. Mr. Saddam dumped a good part of the chemicals, which he had stealthfully produced during the war, on the defenseless Kurds, forcing them to take refuge in another unfriendly country. The forceful expulsion of the Kurds from their villages and towns continues even to this day. When almost every other journal in the United States referred to this issue in one way or the other, condemning Saddam for the use of an internationally banned arsenal, we hardly noticed even simple news items in your periodical.

Mozaffar Partowmah, Kurdish American Fraternity, Westbury, NY

We have previously reported the attack on Halabja, then on the front lines, five months before the cease-fire in the Iraq-Iran war. We have also presented both the allegations and denials of use of poison gas after the war in or near Kurdish villages in rebellious areas of northern Iraq. Both are discussed again in this issue in an article on elections in the Kurdish autonomous area of Iraq.

Because we sincerely share your concern about fair play, we suggest you begin counting column inches in the US and European press about mistreatment of Kurds in Turkey, Iraq and Iran. We believe the results have much more to do with the current state Of Israeli relations with each of those three countries than with any media interest in the welfare of their Kurdish populations.

For example, Israel has had clandestine ties with Iran, both in the time of the Shah and, intermittently, under the current Islamic revolutionary regime. (That's what Iran scam was all about.) Such ties have been exploited, repeatedly, to pressure Iraq, but not R~ behalf of the Kurds. Less obviously, similar pressure has been exercised against Turkey. History shows that when the goals of foreign exploiters of Kurdish rebellions are served, further help is withheld, and the Kurds are left to flee or die. 7hat was the case with Soviet activities after World War II, and Israeli-Iranian moves in the 1960s. That certainly was the case in the just-concluded Iraq-Iran war, where Kurds rebelled on each side of the lines against the host countries and paid a bitter price. If Kurdish leaders had spent more time examining the credentials and motives of their "friends " (and we include the cynical US-Israeli-Iranian exploitation of Kurdish rebels in Iraq in the mid-1970s which set the stage for the outbreak of the Iraq-Iran war in 1980), we believe there would have been fewer tragedies of the kind you cite in your letter.

Petition Proposal

Several of us out here in the San Francisco Bay area (all readers of the Washington Report) have reached a real peak of frustration with the inability of Congress and the president to do anything constructive regarding the Israeli-Palestine conflict in all of its ramifications. We recently discussed the idea of starting a petition, or even a series of petitions, on a specific aspect of the problem. We liked the idea, but we felt that unless it were done on a national level and had some professional public relations input, it would not be effective.

We are hoping you at the Washington Report would consider the idea, refine it, and then if you think it has merits, either take up the idea yourselves or see if you could interest another group or organization with a national leadership or constituency to act on the idea. Here are some of the ideas we came up with regarding various aspects of a petition drive:

Organization: There must be a central office and address. The official sponsor could be either one organization, such as the Washington Report, or a coalition of groups. Since the aim is to affect the US government, the best location for an address and office would seem to be Washington, DC. Whether the sponsor is one organization or a coalition of groups, support for active signature gathering would be sought from the widest possible variety of other organizations: churches, human rights groups, and ethnic, peace, nuclear, etc. organizations.

Purpose: The main aim of the petition drive would be to pressure/lobby Congress and the Bush administration to take definite steps to end the Israeli- Palestinian conflict and regularize US relations with the countries and peoples in the Middle East.

Issues and Interest Groups: There are many specific issues a petition drive could tackle. Some of them are: Stop US aid to Israel; the Israel/South Africa military/nuclear alliance; Palestinian human rights; Israel's use of torture; and Beit Sahour. Support for individual politicians could even be expressed through petitions when they come out with significant positions—like Sen. Dole's statement on the pro-Israel lobby during his interview on "Meet the Press." Other issues could be: US support for building homes for Russian Jewish immigrants to Israel while there are so many homeless in the US, or the issue of influence of pro-Israel PACs on Congress. All of these issues have broad natural constituencies since they involve contradictions and conflicts with American needs, interests and values, and also inordinately powerful foreign interests.

Format and Time-Scale: The petitions should be in a standard petition format with a simple, effective petition statement and numbered lines for signatures and addresses. They would, of course, carry the name and address of the sponsoring organization(s) and include a deadline date for return of the petition. A tear-out petition suitable for duplication could be included in the Washington Report. Other magazines and newsletters could also be requested to include it. A flyer that expanded on the ideas of the petition could be issued with the petition or even printed on the back. It could be in the form of a brief statement of facts or a historical summary with a sharply focused short bibliography. A major petition drive could be undertaken over whatever time necessary to organize and enlist support from as many groups as possible, or if, say, the Washington Report decided to do it alone and depend solely on interested readers to gather signatures, periodic petitions, maybe quarterly, or half-yearly, could be issued in the magazine.

Addressees: Generally the petitions would be addressed to the US Congress and/or the president. If a petition were directed at a specific piece of legislation, a congressional committee might be addressed. It might also be possible to request that petitions be gathered by congressional district and sorted for presentation to individual congressmen. Completed petitions could also be used as proof of support for issues before other government agencies, such as the State Department or the Justice Department, or even to private organizations and the media, as appropriate.

We have a strong sense of the situation that opposition to current US-Israeli policies is reaching a critical mass. Petition drives are one way of focusing support or opposition.

Please consider doing something like this, and please let us know what you think.

Richard Hill, Richmond, CA

All good ideas which we would be happy to publicize. We can only add that ad hoc coalitions work well on a national basis, since different groups have differing appeal and organizational strength in different parts of the country; that organizing petitions by congressional districts would be particularly effective; and that petitions should be quite specific so that they can readily be translated into legislation: for example, a petition aimed at reducing economic aid to Israel by the amount the government of Israel and its quasi-governmental institutions spend on the illegal Jewish settlements in occupied territories. Others might call on the US government to enforce its own restrictions on economic and military aid to countries that violate human rights or nuclear non-proliferation agreements, or use US weapons for other than defensive purposes. We're happy to serve as a clearing house for ideas, so long as those who submit them are prepared to volunteer their own time. Our tiny staff of only six full-time employees is stretched to the limit editing a weekly and two monthly publications and distributing thousands of books. We can provide the information, but it's up to our readers and their organizations to act upon it.

Thanks for Findley's Book

Thank you very much for sending me a copy of Congressman Findley's book and the October issue of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Whoever paid for my introduction to your organization should also be thanked.

I have long been opposed to the manner in which the United States has operated in the Middle East. I feel very strongly that the interests of our country are being damaged because of the undue influence and pressure tactics of Israeli forces.

As a conservative Republican, I find very few people who share my political philosophy who are willing to stand up to the likes of AIPAC. While I know from many personal discussions that Israeli actions in the occupied lands are opposed by many senators and representatives, they will continue to support AIPAC demands until a counter political force develops. I sincerely hope that you are part of such a counter force.

In the near future, I'll be sending a list of individuals to receive the same packet that I recently received.

William A. Wilson, Fairfax, VA

The person who paid $5 for the information packet, consisting of one copy of Congressman Findley's They Dare to Speak Out and an introductory copy of the Washington Report, was an individual like you who shares your belief that when one special interest gets out of hand, the only defense is for the American people to develop a counter force. Paul Findley's Council for the National Interest (CNI) is certainly intended to be-a part of that force, and the Washington Report plans to keep its readers informed concerning every activity CNI and likeminded groups undertake. We're looking forward to receiving your list for similar introductory packets.

L.F. Stone Obituary

It has taken me forever to bring this to your attention, but I had some problems with the I. F. Stone obituary in the August Bulletin Board section. You note, "After his retirement [presumably from L F. Stone's Weekly, as he hardly retired from his writing and other activities] he became a critic of Israel and advocated a bi-national state."

Actually, Izzie publicly advocated a "bi-national Arab-Jewish state" as early as 1946, when he published Underground to Palestine, his account of participating in one of the illegal boat trips to Palestine with young Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. It was in fact his refusal to delete a one-sentence reference to this view that led a group of prominent American Zionists to abandon their plans to advertise and disseminate the book widely and, in effect, to boycott it, To this day the book is almost impossible to find in bookstores.

Hilda Silverman, Washington, DC

Library Sub Appreciated

Thank Mr. James M. Saghi of San Francisco, CA for the one-year gift subscription to our library. Our readers will be able to keep up with news not otherwise at their fingertips with this publication.

Thanks for sharing this information with our community in this way.

Betty S. Arnett, Librarian, Blanche R. Solomon Memorial Library, Headland, AL

Yours is one of 200 library subscriptions donated by Mr. Saghi in 1989. At the end of 12 months, we will ask your library to choose whether or not to continue the subscription at its own expense.