January 1994, Pages 43-44

Other People's Mail

Some letters by or to other people are as informative for our readers as anything we might write ourselves.

History in a Handshake

To Time magazine, Oct. 18, 1993

As a Palestinian American with parents who grew up with Jewish friends, I am happy to see the new peace accord between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization [Middle East, Sept. 27]. But please give us a little credit! In his interview with Time, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin stated that we Palestinians have never before been " responsible for running a large community," including schools, hospitals, the economy and industry. My parents and family had schools, hospitals and industry in a safe and peaceful life before 1948. But maybe now, with the intelligent cooperation of both nationalities, we will see wonders.

JoAnne Nasrah, Woodside, CA

We Help Friends, They Help Themselves

To the San Antonio Express-News, Oct.24 1993

Re: the Oct. 14 story about the alleged sales of U. S. arms technology by Israel to Beijing:

I'd say the U.S. government had better stop giving (selling?) our technology to Israel or any other country which cannot honor the restrictions on that given technology.

Any country that cannot honor any agreement because of the call of the almighty dollar does not deserve aid of any kind from the United States.

Maggie Cullin, San Antonio

Shame on the Dallas Police!

To the Dallas Police, Nov. 15, 1993

Enclosed is a letter printed in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs describing appalling indifference by your department to an act of political vandalism in which an automobile window was destroyed because the vehicle was displaying a bumper sticker protesting U.S. aid to Israel.

What kind of police do we have in Dallas who would blame a victim of vandalism for a bumper sticker protesting the gift of 6.3 billion of our hard-earned tax dollars in 1993 to Israel and saying the sticker was anti-Jewish. Dear God, being for America first is not anti-Semitic! It is not even anti-Zionist–against Israel. Are you so brainwashed you don't know the difference? Is this not a hate crime against a victim with the ability to recognize truth, and care?

We have always supported the Dallas Police. In a condo of 76 units, our car is the only one with Support The Blue and Support Our Police bumper stickers. But, since "our police" consider bumper stickers acceptable grounds for vandalism, we shall remove them.

Virginia L. Oldham, Dallas, TX

Time for Israel to Support Itself

To Florida Today, Sept. 8, 1993

Regarding Seigfried Fleischmann's Sept. 4 guest column: The Likudist ululations he expounds are simply not true. Israel a democracy? A Jew just off the plane from Russia has more rights than a Christian or Muslim born in Israel. Israel is a socialist theocracy and has been one since 1948.

Israel a friend? Do friends hire pond scum like the Pollards to spy on the country of their birth? Do friends attack our Navy ships and murder our servicemen like they did to the Liberty in 1967? I think not.

Israel never attacked anyone or started a war? Everyone knows this is not true.

Fleischmann should subscribe to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, as I do. This publication will not only inform him about which wars Israel started, it also tells who in Israel initiated these incidents.

Israel never will amount to more than the parasite it is until it starts rowing its own boat and gets off the American taxpayer's back.

Forty-five years is enough. Ted Byrd, Merritt Island, FL

Don't Free Pollard

To the Chicago Sun-Times, Nov. 30,1993 Jonathan Pollard was a trusted employee in a highly secret document section of the United States government. He made copies of all American secret documents within his reach and gave them to agents of the Israeli government. After his arrest, he stated that the reason he spied for Israel is because "I am a Jew first and an American second. "

The damage done by Pollard was not only irreparable, but also cost American taxpayers more than $3 billion. Pollard pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Clinton administration has been deluged with calls and telegrams from Jewish organizations demanding that Pollard be released. Most recently, during a personal visit in which he was receiving the guarantee of additional tax money, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin asked Clinton to release Pollard.

Rabin's final statement, while he was standing next to Clinton, was, "Now Israel has a friend in the White House."

Raymond R. Knapp, Downers Grove, IL

The ADL's Blacklisting

To The Washington Post, Nov. 13, 1993

Jim McGee's news story on the San Francisco district attorney's criminal investigation of political spying by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith [Oct. 19] cited the considerable evidence in the prosecutors' hands. He noted that authorities have found confidential police information in ADL files, that the ADL has admitted reporting to police on the lawful political activities of a broad array of groups and that the ADL has admitted providing police officials with free trips to Israel.

Yet Mr. McGee never asked if the ADL maintains that its possession of confidential police information was lawful. Do San Francisco police deny that their receipt of information from the ADL violated city regulations against government political spying? And does the ADL deny that recipients of free trips to Israel included police officers who had furnished the organization confidential information?

The larger issue raised by the long-term, broad-scale, systematic exchange of information between police and private political intelligence investigators is of even greater importance. In cases of concealed government misconduct, a government employee's leak to a reporter of confidential information proving the misconduct may be morally justified. However, the ADL's alleged collaboration with police to create intelligence dossiers on the lawful political activities of thousands of persons and hundreds of groups is not in the same category. Further questioning of the ADL and cooperating police is warranted.

Also, an omission in Mr. McGee's article must be corrected. It is not only Arab Americans who have filed suit against the ADL and the San Francisco Police Department. Plaintiffs include former members of Congress, a former member of the Los Angeles City Council, a professor of Black studies, the Bay Area Anti-Apartheid Network, the International Jewish Peace Union, the American Indian Movement of Colorado, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, Global Exchange, the National Conference of Black Lawyers and the National Lawyers Guild.

As Mr. McGee noted, the ADL's target selection extended far beyond groups and individuals active primarily on Middle East issues. In fact, ADL files seized by San Francisco authorities report the political activities of more than l0,000 individuals and nearly 1,000 organizations.

Rick Best, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild, New York, NY

Through the Looking Glass

To the San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 22, 1993

"When I use a word, " Humpty Dumpty said, " it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less."

"The question is, " said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many things. "

"The question is, " said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master, that's all."

—Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll

In 1947 a subcommittee of the House of Representatives in Washington, responding to complaints about the hiring practices of the Civil Service, discovered that thousands of American citizens had been blacklisted by the Civil Service and thus denied job opportunities. Investigation showed the major contributor to this illicit list was the ADL. The notation accompanying these contributions read as follows:

"The above was copied from the subversive file in the possession of Attorneys Minster and Levy . . . NYC. Their files were made up in cooperation with the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League. The sources of this information must not be disclosed under any circumstances, nor quoted.”*

Early this year it was discovered that for years the San Francisco police, federal agencies and the ADL (Anti-Defamation League), which hired private eyes, had been infiltrating and monitoring organizations and spying on thousands of citizens. This information was shared with the FBI, CIA, Israeli intelligence, police bureaus nationwide and with the police in South Africa. Police chiefs around the country were given free trips to Israel to brainwash them into this illegal network.

On Nov. 16, Arlo Smith, San Francisco's DA, made a deal with the ADL saying a prosecution ''would be expensive and time-consuming. " The ADL "promised" to stop illegal spying. A civil suit filed by persons allegedly injured or at risk from the ADL's activities is in progress.

Political pressure has obviously denied the average citizen access to information which may directly affect both his job access and even his personal safety. ADL politicking has also created significant anti-Jewish sentiment, thus undermining ADL's proclaimed purpose. Humpty Dumpty was correct, power determines the meaning of a word. Spying is really just "journalistic fact-finding. "

*Subcommittee Report, 80th Congress, Oct. 1947.

Edward W. Miller, San Rafael, CA

A Troubled Arab American

To the Orlando Sentinel, Oct. 27, 1993

I was very troubled to read your report about a 14-year-old Palestinian youngster who was recently released after spending five months in an Israeli prison for "stone throwing." Imagine!

To uproot a child from the warmth and protection of his family, friends and teachers to rot in a dark and dirty cell for five horror-filled months, is inhuman and universally unacceptable.

Personally, I believe Mr. Rabin is bluffing. He has transferred the enslaved Palestinians from one occupation to another. The poor Palestinians, under the unjust, unbalanced and highly intimidating "big fish eat small fish" Israeli-PLO accord, are more enslaved now–and with international approval!

If I were Yasser Arafat, I would have refused all this demeaning, unfair and unfinished unclear business. It must be total withdrawal of the Israeli army from all the Palestinian occupied territories, and a final end to all occupation and human bondage.

I believe this letter expresses the true feelings and concerns of most of America's Arab-American community. Nuha Marchi, Orlando, FL

Olympic Massacre Facts

To The Washington Times, Nov. 24, 1993 Your story on the "massacre" of Israeli Olympic athletes in 1972 bore the identification of the Associated Press. Unfortunately, AP didn't "get it right! " The following is based on my 1973 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica's article on the "Olympics":

The plan of the terrorists/guerrillas (Britannica uses both terms) was to seize the Israeli Olympic team for two purposes: 1. to 'trade' them for Palestinians held (some without trial) in Israeli jails; and 2. to call world attention to their 'cause.'

In the initial 'capture,' a wrestling coach and a weightlifter were killed. (Both, perhaps, overestimated their ability to overcome the attackers–or were not used to being pushed around.)

After all-day negotiations with German authorities were unsuccessful, the captors demanded an aircraft and safe-conduct, with their captives, out of Germany and to an unspecified "friendly" country, where negotiations would continue.

The captors and captives were driven to a military airport near Munich. To quote Britannica: "At the airfield, German authorities attempted a rescue which failed. All nine hostages, five of the terrorists, and a German policeman were killed."

Golda Meir was prime minister of Israel at the time, and it was Israeli policy (since reversed) that there would be no "trading" of hostages–in the belief that to do so would merely encourage more hostage taking! I suspect, then, that Mrs. Meir pressured the Germans to attempt a rescue!

In other "hostage-taking" incidents the hostages were taken to countries "friendly" to the Palestinians without further bloodshed! I believe the same could have been the result in this case–but, saving lives would have had to have been the highest priority, which it apparently was not in this actual event.

Also, I suspect that Mrs. Meir's subsequent assassination-pursuit of the associated "terrorists" may have involved considerable desire to "save face"! (That is, to stick with the policy that led to the deaths of the nine captives and one policeman.)

Distortion of the facts of the so-called "Olympic massacre" can lead to the entirely false impression that the aim of the "terrorists" all along was the senseless slaughter of the Israeli athletes. If so, what took them so long–at least 12 hours?

Roger D. Leonard, Bowie, MD

Discouraging Settlement

To Newsday, Melville, NY, Nov.13,1993 I agree with Sherna Berger Gluck's article ["Israel Aid Mocks the Palestinians," Viewpoints, Oct. 14]. Yes, the Israeli promise of $25 million in aid is a mere pittance.

Yes, "the revenues that Israel collected from the Palestinians over the course of its occupation, coupled with the effects of its commercial and monetary policies, have netted it a great deal of money." The imbalance can also be seen when one compares the $12,000 per capita income of Israelis with the $1,200 of the Palestinians.

Gluck noted the gross economic disparities resulting from exploitative occupational policies. Since the occupation of 1967, the Palestinians have also witnessed the confiscation of more than 50 percent of their land. As an American Palestinian told me last summer in Jerusalem, "Israel does not have enough money to repay the Palestinians for the land they've stolen from us."

Common sense dictates that settlement activity is an obstacle to peace. With the historic signing of the peace agreement on Sept. 13, continued settlement activity is counterproductive because it feeds the illusions of the fanatical fundamentalists among the settlers who still see the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as sacred land that can never be returned to the Palestinians, even though the Palestinians were and are the indigenous people of that land.

Cheers to Clinton for his willingness to keep the Israelis on track in the peace process. Loan guarantees were included in our 1993 budget because Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin campaigned on the promise that he would reverse Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's settlement policy.

It is to be hoped that Congress doesn't meddle in those issues because it has a more consistent record of losing a sense of American interests when special-interest lobbyists put on the pressure. Richard Gallo, East Islip, NY

To President Arafat

To President Yasser Arafat, Sept. 13,1993 Only a few minutes ago I had the pleasure of receiving you into my home via TV. What an honor! And how I thank God for the first fruit of the long tortuous peace accords.

I have to express two major concerns:

1. Be twice as alert now against possible assassination as you have ever been before. The Palestinian people have had enough martyrs! You are needed more than ever to negotiate with the Israelis and keep your people from destroying each other before a Palestinian state can be firmly established.
   
   
2. See that your Executive Council members also are kept from all harm. Like you, they are very brave in making the stand to go forward for peace with the Israelis despite the unequal struggle in the past.

Yours is the high moral ground.

As but one American, I pledge my support for all political and financial aid to the Palestinian entity now taking form. My representatives in Congress will hear from me repeatedly in the long struggle. God bless you all.

George Vantubergen, Claremont Vantubergen College, Upland, CA

U.S. Hurting Civilians, Not Saddam

To The New York Times, July 5, 1993

While I was enjoying a few hours of weekend leisure on June 26, 23 United States cruise missiles were launched at the intelligence complex in a residential area of Baghdad. My house happens to be a couple of hundred yards away from the complex. I was fortunate to get through to my family in Baghdad and was comforted with the news of their survival of yet another attack. Some of my neighbors were not so fortunate; they don't need to worry about future attacks.

After a turbulent night, I woke up to Vice President Al Gore's account of the accomplishments of this raid. None of his arguments or those of Secretary of State Warren Christopher made much sense to me or to other Iraqis, some from the leftist extremes. This attack will only demonstrate to President Saddam Hussain that provoking the Americans is very fruitful. It supports his propaganda when Americans bomb the Iraqi people, not the regime.

The West has to understand the sentiment of Iraqis. The common Iraqi has seen nothing but hardship from the West, and the pro-West intellectual class is gradually shifting sides, provoked by actions such as the June 26 attack.

When the vice president was asked about the innocent people who died as a result of the attack, he said that the raid had killed only a few civilians, compared with the "thousands and thousands" who would have died if the Iraqi terrorists had been successful in Kuwait. Has it eluded Vice President Gore that such a comparison equates the American raid to the terrorists' acts? Apparently, Dan Quayle set a trend for other vice presidents to follow.

Another point made by Mr. Gore was that the building was chosen because it was where the alleged Iraqi attack on former President George Bush's life was planned.

My common sense tells me that the building could not have planned this attack alone without the officials, none of whom were at the site at the time of the American raid. Has this administration stopped to think about all the documents stored in this building? They are of vital importance, not only to the Iraqi people but also to humanity, as they were evidence of the atrocities committed against humankind by the government of Iraq.

It is about time the West realizes that the sanctions imposed on Iraq are biting, but they are not biting at the right spot. The sanctions are not hurting the Ba'thist establishment, but starving the Iraqi people. And while the people are killing and robbing one another for food and the mere essentials, the regime, untouched, is happily watching from its ivory towers.

The people of Iraq are so hungry, sick and frightened that they cannot think about higher ideals, such as freedom and democracy. Even the middle and upper middle classes, which could think about the virtues of democracy, are too poor to aspire to such distant dreams.

The West has to start looking at us as people, as a nation, and not as a regime. The United States administration ought to stop considering Iraqi lives as tools to boost its popularity whenever the president slips in the polls.

This thing has been going on too long, making the cries of the malnourished babies of Iraq too loud to be ignored by civilized nations. Please help us.

Ahmed Toutinchi, Washington, DC

The Passionate Attachment

To President William Clinton, The White House, Washington, DC, Feb. 4, 1993 George Washington in his farewell address warned of dangers when a "passionate attachment" existed with any foreign nation.

The enclosed book review by Andrew Killgore, publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs of George and Douglas Ball's book, The Passionate Attachment: America's Involvement with Israel 1947 to the Present outlines some of the consequences of such a relationship.

The result is Israeli interference not only in our political process, but in every area of American life. Disinformation, suppression, distortion of the truth and assassination squads are not what America is all about. Israelis and their U.S. supporters, pushing their own ideological agenda and using the Holocaust as a club, cannot be allowed to undermine our democratic principles, or to prevail. In sending billions of American tax dollars to Israel, U.S. Leaders, past and present, are guilty of selective justice and selective implementation of U.N. Security Council resolutions. The double standard in defense of Israel is reprehensible and inconsistent with international law and universal human rights.

I trust the enclosed review is an introduction to the above-mentioned book and to further enlightenment about the subversive "shadow government" in our midst.

Katherine Aliferis, Franklin Square, NY
cc: Speaker Thomas A. Foley, Richard A. Gephardt