January 1994, page 3, 90

Letters to the Editor 

Letters to the editor are selected and edited on the basis of relevance, accuracy, taste and available space. 7he editors do not have facilities to respond to individual letters, or to clear in advance published letters, as edited, with the writers.

A Humiliating Embarrassment

I am an Arab student, born in Saudi Arabia, studying for my Ph.D. in industrial engineering at Oklahoma State University. My wife is American, and my son is half American, so I decided to apply for a permanent U.S. visa to facilitate traveling from Saudi Arabia to the U.S. in the future.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service, which requires a general medical examination prior to issuing the permanent visa, referred me to a medical doctor in Stillwater, OK on July 26. At the physician's clinic prior to the examination, the doctor escorted me to the nurses' station. There, in view of all the nurses, he began to talk about how the immigration laws need to be changed. Then he threw my paper work across the nurses' station in a very disgusted manner and said to me, "we are not going to allow any more terrorists into this country.''

I have lived in the U.S. since 1988. I have never been in any trouble or even had a traffic violation. This surprised and shocked me. This was not just someone off the street expressing his views. It was a doctor in a small community who is supposed to be a professional able to treat patients with respect. I am not an American citizen, but I think I have the right to be treated with courtesy. That right was violated publicly.

Abdul Rahman Alturaigi, Stillwater, OK

We have deleted the physician's name from your letter, since he would not have the opportunity to defend himself in our pages. Nevertheless, we recommend you send a copy of this page with your original letter naming the doctor to the office which recommended him. The U. S. government is under no obligation to recommend this particular medical doctor. If the local office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service is receiving other complaints about this individual, who sounds like he's having a mental breakdown, it probably will drop his name from those recommended for the service. You are right to make your feelings known. One reason Arab Americans and Muslim Americans suffer such experiences is their tendency to think that when something goes wrong in normally tolerant America it must be their fault. When you know it isn’t, speaking out as you have can save others from similar humiliation.

European Indifference

Your executive editor in the November/ December issue once again points out the British/French indifference, indeed passive collaboration, in the Serbian defiance of all principles of U.N. Charter and international law.

Equally shameful has been Canada's role in this 1990s version of the Holocaust. Brian Mulroney (I am so glad he is history now) along with now notorious Gen. Louis MacKenzie have been shamefully shielding the Serbian warmongers under one pretext or another.

Indeed, Brian Mulroney used our tax dollars last summer jetting around Europe (Britain, France and Russia) as Canada's prime minister, urging them to sabotage the lukewarm American move to enforce several U.N. resolutions. However, three years earlier the self-same Mulroney was frothing with rage over the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

Lately there have been reports of Canadian peacemakers visiting Serb-run brothels (staffed by Bosnian Muslim women, who have also been used as comfort women for the Serb thugs). The notorious General MacKenzie, without a twinge of conscience, dismissed this as routine. Meanwhile he is reaping a rich financial harvest from his Memoirs.

Syed Naseer, Montreal, Canada

General MacKenzie also is reported to have traveled to Washington to lobby against Western intervention in Bosnia at the expense of a pro-Serb group. It also was he, we recall, who would punish the Bosnian government by cutting of food convoys from the Sarajevo airport to Sarajevo itself when Serb militias besieging Sarajevo lobbed shells at U. N. positions or fired on U. N. convoys. Perhaps he has an explanation, but during his Serb-financed foray into U. S. television talk shows he seemed, like his actions when he was commanding U.N. military forces in Bosnia, confused.

Can It Be Major's Letter?

As a citizen active in promoting awareness of the Bosnian crisis, a letter written by Prime Minister John Major concerning policy in the Balkans has come to my attention through the New England Bosnian Relief Committee. On a recent trip to Egypt I had seen this same letter published in a July issue of Al Akhbar. I cannot validate its authenticity and would welcome means by which to do this. As far as I know, it was leaked out of Parliament and subsequently published in the Middle East.

As a Muslim, and moreover as a human being, I find this letter deeply disturbing. Awareness is often the first step to ending injustice and as your magazine is paramount in this effort, I hope that you can find some use for this letter.

Joanna Vogel, Medford, MA

The letter which has British Prime Minister John Major confiding to his foreign minister that it is necessary "to continue with the sham of the Vance-Owen peace talks '' until Bosnia's "Muslim population is totally displaced from its land " and that "we control ''the "Muslim governments of the world " is an obvious forgery designed to inflame Muslims against Christians. Aside from such statements, which would never be written by any veteran politician alert to how damaging they would be if they found their way into the press, there are three misspellings in seven paragraphs, and the punctuation follows no discernible logic.

Such forgeries by non-native speakers of English used to come from the basements of Communist East Berlin. This one smacks of Tehran, but it is so crudely done that one has to suspect someone sympathetic to the Serbs might have prepared it in hopes it would be blamed by the British on the Bosnian Muslims. The permutations are endless and it's a waste of time to carry them too far.

However, f or many years we have puzzled over the question of why, when international law, truth, justice, morality and the ethical values of every world religion so clearly favor a cause, as is the case with the Bosnians fighting to preserve their democratic and legally constituted multi-cultural government, their internationally recognized borders, and their very lives from the most depraved fascist regime to appear in Europe since the end of World War II, anyone would find it necessary to manufacture false evidence in their favor. The truth is enough to damn all the nations of Europe, who will never be able to wash the innocent Bosnian blood off their hands.

Let us say clearly that British Prime Minister John Major did not write the crude forgery you cite, which depicts him as a depraved and simplistic Christian bigot. But let us say equally clearly that we support the Bosnian charges that Britain is making itself an accomplice to Serbian war crimes by blocking international efforts to lift the arms embargo that keeps the Bosnians from obtaining arms to defend themselves. Further, in our opinion, any country that is not working actively and sincerely to lift the embargo is making itself an accomplice to war crimes, and that includes our own. God may forgive the American people for their fecklessness in the presence of genocide, but when our intellectually lazy, but morally sound public opinion finally becomes conscious of what we have done, or not done, will we ever be able to forgive ourselves ?

Unreported Horrors in Bosnia

Enclosed is an article on horrors in Bosnia not publicized in the Western media, written by Fahrni Howeidi, a moderate Islamist, and printed in Almajallah, an Arabic language magazine printed in London. I was outraged after reading the article. Mr. Howeidi is a very reputable journalist, and a member of a group that tried to mediate between the Egyptian government and some of its critics. The talks resulted in the discharge of the interior minister. Back to the article, which raises several serious allegations against a Canadian officer and some French and Ukrainian soldiers among U.N. forces in Bosnia. Why didn't the Western media report any of this?

To this day I have yet to see fair standards applied by the Western media! With the exception of the Washington Report, there is no single news source that applies equal standards to all news–whether it involves the Arab and Islamic world, Israelis and Jews, or the rest of the world.

I am not playing that old record that Jews are bad people. Larry King and Mike Wallace are Jewish and fair. I am simply saying that there is a double standard when it comes to Muslims. You yourselves have suffered and should know.

I also am enclosing a check for subscriptions to the enclosed list of recipients. I am happy to be able to do more than just tell my friends about your wonderful magazine.

I read in last month's issue that you may stop publishing. Are you serious? Whatever you do, don't stop publishing until 95 percent of your readers decide you should. That of course will only happen after there are no more problems in the Middle East or the Islamic world. I would be willing to pay even $ 100 a year to receive your magazine. You are the only candle we have, and now you want to just leave us in the dark? Please reconsider. If you go ahead with this decision, you will be signing our death warrant! For the sake of Arabs, Muslims and Christians around the world, don't shut down. You are the voice of TRUTH.

Another matter I wanted to bring to your attention is Mr. James Napoli's articles. He writes the "Cairo Communiquê." Sometimes he writes articles that are pro-government. Other times, he writes against the government! Is he for or against?

May God bless you all, and protect you from any harm.

P.S. 1. Please withhold my name.

P.S. 2. Did you read the lecture Prince Charles gave at the opening of the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies? He spoke the truth about Islam. I hope you may have the chance to publish it next month.

Name withheld

Thanks for your kind letter and generous support. We will contact the governments of the soldiers accused in Mr. Howeidi 's article and give them an opportunity to respond before we decide how to deal with his charges in this magazine. We agree with you that these very serious charges should be investigated. As for our future, if we leave the publishing scene, it won't be voluntarily. Unfortunately, not all of our supporters can be as generous as you have been. In any case, we 'll try to continue. Our Cairo correspondent, James Napoli, teaches mass communications in Cairo and is highly respected by his students. He tries to report and interpret objectively without letting personal biases influence his writing. Your question, we think, shows that he practices what he preaches. thanks for calling our attention to the extremely thoughtful speech by Prince Charles, excerpts from which are on pp. 27-28 of this issue.

Why the Silence on Lebanon?

May I say I was very disappointed that you did not have an article on the Israeli attack on Lebanon in September 1993. I had heard that the IDF had razed three villages, killed 130, injured 300 and left 300,000 homeless. Then a few days later went to sign a peace treaty! My God! Your coverage on the Oslo agreement filled many pages, most of it was redundant.

By the way, what happened to the story about the National Geographic?

Did anyone ever write a book about the 1982 invasion of Lebanon by Israel? They put 700 civilians in camps so they would not be inconvenienced while they removed 4,000 truckloads of munitions from the caves filled by the Soviets. The part about the 700 civilians being held illegally was on a June 1985 Brinkley Sunday show. I sent for it but never received it. Also, they took supplies from hospitals and universities. Do you know anything about this?

Bernice C. Stevens, Hartstown, PA

Four answers to four questions:

1. The back cover of our September/October issue shows "Shi'i Muslim residents of the Lebanese market town of Nabatiyeh " taking shelter from "seven days of Israeli bombing and shelling throughout the last week in July " and reports that "more than 130 civilians were killed 500 wounded and an estimated 300,000 displaced from their homes in towns and villages throughout southern Lebanon. " A photo-story on the inside back cover of the same issue elaborates on the report, as did the story on page 7 of the same issue by Rachelle Marshall.

2. Without passing final judgment on the obvious merits and demerits of the Oslo agreement, which we examined at length, we believe it ranks with the Gulf war as the biggest Middle East story of the '90s, so far. (Bosnia we consider a "European " story, but with far-reaching Middle East ramifications.)

3. The National Geographic researcher who was "permitted to resign " with a cash settlement after the magazine apologized for its coverage of the Palestinians that had drawn heavy flak from the pro-Israel community, came to us with the report originally. We advised him to find another job first and then we would print his bylined story of the whole affair. He said he would prefer to do the story immediately and we promised him space in our next issue, so long as he understood we would give individuals he named a chance to respond to his charges. We're still waiting.

4. A very low-key but fact-filled book is Israel's Lebanon War by Ze'ev Schiff and Ehud Ya'ari. These two Israeli journalists can hardly be accused of being Israel bashers, but the book contains horrifying details of Ariel Sharon 's planning and brutal execution of the entire operation, and obfuscation throughout.

The Haifa Home Port

As a long-time, long-overwhelmed, ADC activist I don't have time to preach to the choir. I'm making an exception, however, to build on Patrick Flynn's noteworthy letter in your November/December issue, with some limited first-hand experience and possible courses of action.

I spent 14 years in Pensacola, FL, a Navy town. Although not directly affected when Corey Field base was closed, I thoroughly understand the co-dependent relationship between military personnel and "the locals" who are base employees or suppliers. Through the trickle-down effect restaurants, bars, real estate agents, car dealers, repair shops and department stores suffer when a base closes, creating a negative impact on all sectors of a local economy.

I am sending copies from your April/May issue of Paul Findley's article on Haifa home-porting to friends in Pensacola who might be induced to become active.

Exposing Haifa home-porting directly at businesses located near any military base should elicit a reaction. Additionally, call local radio talk shows, not to discuss the Middle East, but to discuss the economy. Once air wave access is gained, the presenter can inform the host about the impact of base closures, then question Sen. Daniel Inouye's reasons for wanting to create a very expensive home port for the Sixth Fleet in Haifa while our Navy is being downsized by 20 percent and bases are closing at home.

I hope others will enlist friends in military towns in similar projects. Together we can defeat Senator Inouye's latest attempt to pander to Israel while betraying the American worker.

Yasmena Samahy, Houston, TX

Don't Abandon the Struggle!

In your November/December publishers' page you wondered whether the present management of the Washington Report should abandon the struggle to keep it going. You asked some questions of your readers which presumably will affect your future decisions on this matter.

I am dismayed that you have even considered ceasing publication. For at least 20 years before I first encountered your magazine I had felt alone and discouraged in watching the juggernaut progress of the Israel lobby in this country, as well as of Israel itself in the Middle East. I was one of your early subscribers, and I must say that for the first time I then realized (1) that others felt as I did and (2) there was at last hope, because you were now getting out factual information on Israel and the Middle East, as opposed to the sophisticated (and often very unsophisticated) pro-Israel hogwash that was flooding almost every media avenue in this country.

None of this latter is going to stop, no matter what happens in regard to the Palestinians and to the PLO's desperate agreement with the Israeli government. I think it is very important that you continue to publish, in order to bring at least a sliver of practicality and of concern for U.S. national interests into a debate that has been almost totally dominated by the Israel lobby's overriding concern for the interests of Israel.

As for the Israel/PLO agreement, I too hope it will turn into a just peace settlement. But I am extremely skeptical. For 50 years and more the Israelis have made agreements and broken them, always with the Zionist dream of King David's Israel in mind and always closer to their dream's fruition as the years passed. None of this would have been possible without the active support and collusion of the United States, whose political influence, treasury, and armed forces were brought to the service of Zionism by Israel's American lobby. How it was able to accomplish this would make probably the greatest political science study ever written–though it will undoubtedly not be written, and if written would almost certainly not be published.

The Israel/PLO agreement gives the Palestinians a promise of self-rule in Jericho, whose boundaries are already being intensely disputed and which contains perhaps two percent of the West Bank Palestinians; it frees Israel of Gaza, which the majority of Israelis have desperately wanted to be rid of; it allows Israel to retain control of roads, water and military security in the areas being given "self-rule"; it leaves Israeli West Bank settlements and Jerusalem in Israeli hands; and it makes no provision for return of exiled Palestinians to their homeland. Perhaps most bizarre of all, it gives the Palestinians responsibility for closing down the intifada (which probably more than anything else brought Israel to the bargaining table) and for policing Arab dissidents in the occupied territories. It also appears to open the way for Israeli control over decisions on how to spend the money in restoring the Palestinian economy.

Israel has given up little more than a qualified promise for better behavior. Yet already Israel and the United States demand immediate tangible returns for Israel such as abolition of the Arab boycott. Israel meanwhile reserves the right to re-establish formal control of the occupied territories at any time and to blame the Palestinians for failure of the agreement.

Now is not the time even to consider ceasing publication. Please use the enclosed check, in any way you see fit. If David Broder, Richard Cohen, Stephen Rosenfeld, Rep. Frank Wolf, and Sen. John Warner are not currently receiving copies of the Washington Report, it seems to me they should be high on the priority list.

John K. Moriarty, Fairfax, VA

Any of those named who are not already subscribers have just become recipients of opinion molder donated subscriptions thanks to your generosity. The remainder of your donation will be used to fund subscriptions to libraries which have indicated they will circulate the magazine if they receive a subscription.

The Dynamics of the Conflict

In reviewing Syria and the Middle East Peace Process for this issue of the Washington Report, it occurred to me that some of your readers might wish to donate copies of this excellent book to libraries throughout the United States. If some Washington Report subscribers or other committed persons were to donate funds specifically for this purpose, they would be doing a tremendous service by providing thousands of Americans with a true understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the region's geopolitical dynamics from the Syrian vantage point. I found the book a refreshing and accurate departure from the arrogant and presumptuous musings by pro-Israel writers on the subject.

Laura Drake, Director of Research, Council for the National Interest, Washington, DC

It's up to our readers. The tax-exempt AET Library Endowment can make the' book, which lists at $16.95, available at $12.95. For donors who don't have a specific library recipient in mind, we also have a very large list of libraries that have agreed to put donated books received from AET into general circulation.

An A + Editorial

Enclosed is an editorial from the Seattle Times which might fit into your "Other Voices."

I'm especially pleased because the Times has been quite pro-Israeli with the usual bias, although not as bad as the Seattle Post lntelligencer, which is a Hearst paper. I started writing them in February because of an especially blatant article, and it has developed into a weekly report card grading their weekly news articles about Israel/Palestine separately for news coverage and even-handedness. Their grades range from A + to E. I think they are paying attention. To start, I was writing in terms of Journalism 101, the headline giving a different slant than the story, etc. No more of that. And they seem to be trying to be a little more even-handed. But the enclosed editorial is a watershed!

John S. O'Connor, Seattle, WA

We thank you for the editorial, definitely an A+, which we hope to reprint when space permits.

Our Congressman's Israel Visit

Our new representative in Congress, first-time Congressman Ken Calvert, has conveyed a sincere interest in maintaining an open-minded and objective position on the Palestinian/Israeli issue. We are enclosing a copy of his recent letter to us regarding the Palestinian/Israeli issue.

He was recently a guest on the "Indoctrination Tour" of Israel that AIPAC finances and conducts for all new members of Congress. He met with "key" Israeli politicians and military personnel, looked down on Syria from the Golan, was escorted to the standard emotion-primed influence maker sites within Israel, and "driven through" part of the occupied West Bank.

Congressman Calvert has received additional invitations to the "Holy Land" (by non-Israeli Jews) so that he may meet with the Palestinians who continue to live, suffer and struggle to survive under military oppression and brutality, visit Christian and Muslim holy sites and observe the theft of Palestinian homes, land, resources and denial of their legitimate rights that the Congress of which he is now a part continues to so generously support and finance. We sincerely hope that Congressman Calvert will be motivated to accept the invitation to "hear the rest of the story."

The Richard Bacons, Corona, CA

Congressman Calvert, who also was one of three Southern Californian Republican House members to accept NAAA invitations to brunch with constituents concerned about the human rights of Palestinians (seepage 70) has written you a letter that reveals his growing awareness that he has active and concerned constituents against the no strings U. S. aid that Israel is using to sustain a brutal military occupation. Responses to polls show that the higher the education level of respondents, the lower the approval rating for Israeli actions in the Middle East. Actions like yours show members of Congress that informed Americans haven't given up, but increasingly are working to neutralize the bigots and know-nothings mobilized by the Israel lobby to bribe members of Congress through deceptively named political action committees to vote against the wishes of their own informed constituents.

We'll print Representative Calvert's cautious letter when space permits. Meanwhile, we believe that just as members of Congress have discovered that taking donations from the tobacco and gun lobbies increasingly can be the kiss of death with concerned voters, accepting donations from pro-Israel PACs henceforth will be exposed (by this magazine) and will cost them dearly with informed voters who recognize that there is no excuse for voting more aid to a rogue Israel which is undercutting U. S. interests all over the globe.

You're a Lifeline for Muslims

I have been receiving your magazine for about a year and look forward to each issue. You are an invaluable tool in teaching awareness to the American public. My friends and I are constantly telling people to get your magazine.

Therefore I must respond to suggestions in readers' letters in your November/December issue that you cut costs by reducing your coverage of Islamic subjects and by restricting your coverage to a narrower definition of the Middle East.

As an American Muslim I consider your magazine a lifeline on Muslim-related issues. Yours is one of the few publications that actually reports the facts. I cannot stress enough how much we need you. Please continue your excellent work and we will (God willing) continue to spread your name.

Islam is so misunderstood in America today that we need everyone we can get to help clear up the misconceptions and fallacies that most people are fed. Since yours is the most authoritative voice on Middle East issues, I feel that it is very important that you focus your expertise on Muslim issues as well.

I think that it is safe to say that Christians and Jews do not face the stereotypes and hostility that most Muslims face in America. So, I ask our Christian and Jewish brothers and sisters to be patient and to be fair in sharing the information resources the Washington Report provides.

Please keep up your coverage of Bosnia. This is a genocide that must not be ignored. I commend you for insisting on covering Bosnia even though it may be "stretching the definition of the Middle East."

Your magazine is fantastic. Keep up the excellent work. And, again, please keep supporting Bosnian awareness. We desperately need it!

Michelle Metrano, Malden, MA

Letters like yours turn lapdogs into lions. We'll be here for you so long as we're here for guy one.

Our Slip Is Showing

In your November/December issue's report (p. 79) on RAND's August 1993 Middle East conference, I am credited with the "prediction" that Syria and Egypt will be admitted to the Gulf Cooperation Council in the near future. I made no such prediction.

In response to a question from the floor on the GCC, I stated that one could not see how Syria and Egypt would ever become members of the Riyadh-based organization.

Rather, and with the passing of time, I believe that proposals like the GCC +2 appear to be less realizable because of divergence of opinion between the Gulf states and their Arab brethren.

Your reporters may have misheard me, or an editing error may have twisted what they originally wrote. A clarification would be appreciated.

Joseph A. Kechichian, Ph.D., International Policy-2, RAND, Santa Monica, CA

We 're sorry about that. We hope your letter will clarify the record for our readers.

Like Losing a Friend

I would again like to express my deep gratitude for the gift subscription I received from Jean L. Baker of Lombard, IL.

I am writing to inform you that I will be unable to subscribe to the Report, as our financial condition has worsened rather than improved. For a reader and lover of books and informative magazines, it is rather like losing a friend. I shall miss it very much.

However, I shall continue to spread the world about the Report as I'm able, and will send the book from the American Educational Trust to other friends. Thus, although AET's association with me, via its Washington Report will, alas, discontinue, mine with it shall not. I shall go on spreading the word, as opportunity presents itself.

Mrs. M.B.C. Prokopchuk, Nutley, NJ

We're sending you a donated subscription from a volunteer who saw your letter.

It's Wrong to Trust the Israelis

The Palestinian leaders are wrong to trust the Israelis. They do not keep the agreements they sign. Shortly after the Camp David accord was signed, Menachem Begin broke his promise to Jimmy Carter by establishing new settlements on the West Bank.

There will be no peace in the Middle East until the Israelis give the Palestinians back their land and the Golan Heights to the Syrians and to the Lebanese the so-called security zone in Lebanon. Jerusalem must be the capital of a free and sovereign Palestinian state.

Before there is peace in the Middle East, Israel must be made to keep its word.

Ray F. Dively, Baden, PA

My Letter to Florida Today

I hope you will print my letter clipped from Florida Today in the "Other People's Mail " department. It is quite difficult to get anything in this paper critical of Israel. Note that I even managed to get in a plug for your excellent magazine. Keep your great work going. People out here in the boondocks really need you.

Ted Byrd, Sr., Merritt Island, FL

It seems to us you got something very critical of Israel printed by Florida Today. In fact the language is a little stronger than anything we normally run, but a plug is a plug and your letter now is in our "Other People 's Mail "section, too. Well done! In reprinting your letter, however, we'll state that it's the first and last time anyone will be called "pond scum " in our pages. It's demeaning to the primary denizens of the food chain.

Mixing Politics With Religion

Your answer to a reader asking you to become involved with his church stated: "We believe mixing religion with politics only complicates the necessary search for just solutions to political problems. " It was an excellent response with which I really agree. But why don't you follow your own advice? In another article your writer states that "the seeds of secularism have yet to be accepted by most Muslims."

I feel this is resurrecting tired old "orientalist" assumptions about Middle Easterners being hopelessly theocratic, fatalistic, obscurantist, etc. Your writer seems to think that secularism is somehow opposed to true religion. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Secularism is not atheism. Secularism means protecting religion from the corrupting influence of politics. The vast majority of Middle Easterners do not want to see their noble faiths turned into political parties or the newest "ism. " This is simply a fact! Secularism saves the faiths of the East from degenerating into militias and/or political factions. Secularism is a powerful, vital and growing force in the region, practiced by intellectuals as well as the typical "man in the street." The typical "orientalist" who states that "Islam and secularism are incompatible" understands neither Islam nor secularism.

S. Shabaz, Washington, DC

The writer is not an "Orientalist " writing about another culture but a Muslim writing about Islam. We have to assume he is just as well qualified in his subject as you would be writing about Christians and Christianity in the U. S. or Iraq. Unfortunately, the fact that, we, personally, hope you are right about the increasing willingness of citizens of countries with populations of varied religious backgrounds, such as Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Egypt, India, Malaysia or Indonesia, to try the U.S. solution totally separating religion and politics doesn't necessarily make it so–as Christians in either Israel or Egypt would be quick to tell you.

A Congressional Conversation

Recently I met personally with Rep. Rosa DeLauro from the 3rd congressional district in Connecticut to express my great concern about the amount of annual aid which our government gives to the state of Israel every year without any strings attached. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I have understood this annual aid amounts to $3 billion.

I also expressed my concern to her about the enormous deficit which we simply must reduce and about the power of the political action committees (PACs) which put so much pressure on our representatives to influence legislation.

Could you please tell me how much money, if any, my two senators (Dodd and Lieberman) and Representative DeLauro received from pro-Israel PACs? Thank you very much. I will continue to support your efforts in every way I can.

George Walko, Hamden, CT

Making your concerns known to your three representatives in Congress is a very good way to support our efforts. Paying for their three subscriptions to the Washington Report (at $12.50 each) is another way, if you can. Combined U. S. military and economic aid to Israel was $4.321 billion in fiscal year 1993, plus $2 billion in loan guarantees, bringing the total to $6.3 billion (see table on page 33 of his issue). U. S. aid to Israel in fiscal year 1994 (starting Oct. 1, 1993) will be about the same. Following are the amounts donated through 1992 by pro-Israel PAG to senators and representatives from Connecticut, according to our current tabulations of PAC filings with the Federal Election Commission. Congress members not listed have not accepted pro-Israel PAC donations.

Career Total Contributions

$152,678

$55,758

$227,554

$31,100

$5,350

$14,000

(Totals through December 1993 for all candidates will  be in  the fourth edition of Stealth PACs, to be released by AET in February 1994.)

Please Acknowledge

For at least three years I've been an angel. The first year I gave $100 for library donations. I never had any type of acknowledgement. I wrote twice and finally sent a list of the libraries–beneficiaries of my donation.

The second year, 1992, I gave $500 but am listed as a $250 donor. This year I have already given $500. I am not interested in seeing my name in print. Rather, I am interested in receiving assurance that my donations are used for library subscriptions as I requested. Is it possible to receive a list of the libraries which received subscriptions from my donations?

Mitchell Namy, Carnegie, PA

It's not only possible, it's our duty to supply it. The problem arises when donations come in installments rather than with one check. In any case, we've tried to program our computer, which registers more than 30,000 individually paid subscriptions and tens of thousands of book transactions annually, to give us a total of the portions of each transaction that are donations, or gift subscriptions, as they accumulate. A list of the 40 libraries receiving gift subscriptions from you now has been mailed to you. Thanks for your generosity and for making us try harder.

A Holiday Greeting

From a Palestinian family that does not wish to become refugees for the third time in 48 years, best wishes to your executive editor for a merry Christmas and a happy new year. We came to know him through the Washington Report since August of 1992, but we feel as if we have known him for a long time. He speaks on behalf of all the people who are depressed, humiliated and forgotten. Good luck and God bless you.

Ahmed Alkhatib, San Marino, CA

He 's also from pretty close to your present home town. God bless us all!

Don't Question the Genocide

I am writing to you in regard to the article written by Michael Collins Dunn titled "Turkey Loses Ozal At a Crucial Moment." In the article Mr. Dunn questions the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the government of Turkey in 1915-1916 by calling it the "great Armenian deportations. " I have sent you a paper written by Dr. Dennis Papazian entitled "Misplaced Credulity: on Temporary Turkish Attempts to Refute the Armenian Genocide." I hope you will have the opportunity to analyze this and in the future print what this tragic time was, the Armenian genocide.

Mr. Dunn further states that "In any event, it was the long-dead Ottoman Empire which carried out the deportations [genocide]." I beg to differ. This is quite relevant for today! How can the world community trust and believe the current Turkish government if the Turks cannot recognize the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians committed by their past countrymen?

It is with great fear as I watch the U.S. government and news articles speak of the "Turkish model of development" in positive terms. Until Turkey can come to accept its past it should be viewed with skeptical eyes. Just as the Kurds who live in Turkey! Steven Mousesian, Dearborn, MI

We assume your last sentence refers to allegations concerning the role of the Kurds in what you referred to as "the Armenian genocide" and Michael Dunn's article called "The Great Armenian Deportations. " We doubt that anyone still seriously denies that this tragedy occurred, but obviously there are bitter disputes as to why, how many and perhaps who, since Turks speak so passionately of Turkish victims. Meanwhile the principals are deployed for another round of slaughter in eastern Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia. All are arguments, we think, for Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's conclusion that secular states are appropriate when major population segments are of different religions. We don't have all the answers, but we fear that in parts of the Middle East the old adage has to be turned around to say that those who don't forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

The link, a Dependable Source

I just read an article by Colin Edwards, a correspondent, broadcaster and lecturer for over 40 years in The Link, a paper published by Americans for Middle East Understanding. It is an amazing expose of the Zionist repression of free speech in this country, Canada, Great Britain and Europe. Mr. Edwards had a difficult time finding a publisher, even for a Jewish anti-Zionist, Moshe Menuhin, Yehudi Menuhin's father.

You should contact the Americans for Middle East Understanding and get permission to reprint the article. It is a rare look at the power of the Zionists in suppressing news that shows them for what they are, UN-Americans, in denying freedom of the press for anyone opposing their views.

John Mahoney is the executive director and the address of The Link is Room 241, 475 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10115. They give permission to reprint their articles as long as credit is given them.

J.T. Elias, Tunkhannock, PA

We'll do better by printing your letter and letting our readers contact Americans for Middle East Understanding at the address you've provided to subscribe to The Link at $25 per year.

Wrong About Reagan

You are flat-out wrong when you say Reagan tilted toward Israel.

Read his autobiography. He's against Zionism and called Israel's persecution of the Arabs "Holocaust-type" acts. He's the only one who has had the guts to say this to Israel's face. Please read his best-selling autobiography. May God bless your work.

Emil J. Walcek, Mission Hills, CA

We will read his autobiography (right now we're reading George Shultz's). Meanwhile, however, we would rank Ronald Reagan right up there with Lyndon Johnson and just a shade above Harry Truman among the three presidents most totally enamored, or intimidated, by Israel or its U. S. Lobby.

By contrast, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George Bush all showed public lashes of anger at Israel and its persistent U. S. advocates and impatience with their importuning and mendicancy. We really would welcome evidence that we are wrong about the three pro-Israel presidents, but for every idle criticism of Israel you can find that they made, we believe we can come up with an action that devastated the cause of peace and undermined the credibility of Americans seeking to establish a truly evenhanded U. S. Middle East policy consistent with traditional U.S. support for human rights, self-determination and fair play.

As Racist As It Can Get

The enclosed cover of the New Yorker for July 26, 1993, showing a child wearing an Arab headdress jumping on other children's sandcastles, including two resembling the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center, is about as racist as a magazine can get.

I no longer subscribe to the New Yorker although I was a faithful addict for years when it was truly a quality magazine. I recall my most admired professors at college walking around with copies of the magazine sticking out of their jackets. But, sadly, Mr. New house now owns the show. No comment needed.

Dorothy M. Weaver, Portland, OR

Pen Pal Corner

Please include this in your Pen Pal Corner: Arab Muslim family wishing to "emigrate" to Dearborn, MI area from Indiana wishes to hear from Dearborn Muslim Arabs and others who can answer our questions about living there.

Durra Adeeb, P.O. Box 2, Waldron, IN 46182