April 1996

Other People's Mail

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

Disney Should Have a Warning Label

To Mr. Joe Roth, Chairman, Walt Disney Pictures, 500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91521, Feb. 10, 1996

A recent production of the Cantigas de Santa Maria at the Folger Concert program in Washington, DC, contained an ancient song with lyrics that deeply offended many in the audience. The production was done after careful consideration of the piece it contained and with a program note that anti-Semitism was a regrettable fact of life all over medieval Europe. A number of people in attendance walked out and the Washington Post devoted significant coverage to the surrounding controversy.

Now, no one is ever going to accuse Disney of producing a classic in "Father of the Bride, Part II." However, the negative stereotyping of Arabs as rich, crude, and repulsive through the character of Mr. Habib carries on certain traditions in the worst and ugliest manner. Unfortunately, the movie will be seen by a much wider audience than the concert while having no pretension of being faithful to an original work.

I would hope that Disney would take a careful look at how this sort of caricature occurs in this day and age. Those responsible should be held accountable and efforts should be made to make amends with the American-Arab community. An apparently novel idea that might be worth pursuing would be to try to portray a positive Arab character or two in upcoming Disney movies.

In the meantime, perhaps a warning label should be tacked on at the beginning of "Father of the Bride II" alerting moviegoers that anti-Arab racism is a regrettable fact of life in contemporary American filmmaking.

A. Douglas Reeves, Alexandria, VA

How Low Can You Get?

To Mr. Joe Roth, Chairman, Walt Disney Pictures, 500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91521, Feb. 14, 1996

Many years ago (almost 50!) I attended the University of Southern California with Walt Disney's daughter, Diane. A fine girl and so was her family. For many years I've respected what the Disney studio produced.

I must tell you how appalled I was by your recent film, "Father of the Bride, Part II." Your stereotyping of Arabs is absolutely terrible. (You did it with "Aladdin" too.) I must protest this. Was it necessary? Would you have done this with Japanese-American or Hispanic-American characters? I think not.

You should apologize to Arab Americans in some way and refrain from this stereotyping in the future.

I lived in the Middle East for many years. The Arabs I knew were just wonderful. Our Arab-American friends here in the U.S. must be upset to have been made fun of again.

Shame, shame.

Jeanne M. Lloyd, Bethesda, MD

cc: Charles Shyer & Nancy Meyers, Filmmakers; Sandy Gallin & Carol Baum, Executive Producers; Richard Cook, President, Buena Vista Pictures Distribution; Michael Ovitz, President, Walt Disney Co.; Michael Eisner, CEO, Walt Disney Co.

Your Inaccurate Reporting

To the Washington Times , Dec. 21, 1995 (as submitted).

Your article on Bethlehem in the Dec. 18 issue reports that only 2 percent of the Palestinian people are Christians. That is totally inaccurate. Between 12 percent and 25 percent of the Palestinians are Christians, the overwhelming majority divided between Greek Orthodox and Catholics, with a sizable Protestant minority (among which are congregations of Presbyterians, Anglicans, Lutherans and others). Ironically, most American Christians seem totally oblivious to the existence of these Palestinian Arab Christians, whose numbers may well approach half a million, almost all of whom lived in the Holy Land until the second half of this century.

Sadly, only about 100,000 Arab Christians remain in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, where significant communities of Christian Semites, the forbears of today's Palestinian Christians, have lived for nearly 2,000 years. Up until recently Bethlehem, for instance, was almost totally an Arab Christian town, and still has a Christian mayor, Elias Freij. But there remain active Catholic and Greek Orthodox parishes in most Palestinian towns, with Protestant congregations as well in several. Among prominent Christian Palestinians, Yasser Arafat's wife, Suha Tawil, was Greek Orthodox and Hanan Ashrawi is an Anglican. The Christian Palestinians are highly educated. Given the situation in their ancient homeland, very many have immigrated to the Western hemisphere in the past 40 or 50 years, with some 100,000 now in the U.S. and 300,000 in Latin America. The ancient Christian communities in the Holy Land survived quite well under the Muslim Arabs and the Turks, but their situation today is such that many observers fear that before long there will be no native Christian communities in the land of Christ's birth.

Brother Isaac Melton, Editor of Doxa Magazine, Canones, NM

Israel's Denial

To The Economist, Nov. 25, 1995 (as published).

Yitzhak Rabin (Nov. 11) was unprotected in a country where every Jewish adult has access to guns and knows how to use them, yet Israelis were shocked that their prime minister could have been murdered by a Jew. When one Arab commits a crime, all Palestinians are guilty. Where was the curfew on all Jews after Mr. Rabin was murdered, as there would have been on Arabs? A Jewish killer is an unbearable exception, an Arab one a racial stereotype.

Desmond Hicket, Surrey, England

The Right of Return

To The Economist , Nov. 25, 1995 (as published).

In your leader on the post-Rabin peace process, you write that many Palestinians "believe they still have a right to old homes that are now part of Israel." The Palestinian refugees' right of return is more than a belief or an example of "fundamentalist thinking." It is an issue of international law and natural justice, as well as the foundation of any lasting peace in the region.

In 1948 "ethnic cleansing" took place, with war and expulsions emptying more than 400 Arab villages and towns. Over 600,000 Palestinians lost their homes and property. Now three million Palestinians live in exile. Under General Assembly Resolution 194 in December 1948, the United Nations supported the Palestinians' right to return. This position is rooted in the concept of restitution in international law, under which property is restored to victims of illegal acts.

You claim that Palestinians "cannot" return to Israel. Why not? It is only because Israel refuses to let them come home. This refusal arises from the political belief and constitutional claim that Israel is the "state of the Jewish people." A state without this ideological and racial baggage would not have this problem.

Underlying your analysis is the assumption that returning lands occupied in 1967,or even only some of these territories,would solve the conflict over Palestine. Unfortunately, the conflict began before the occupation. Rabin's successors must think the unthinkable and consider righting the wrongs of 1948.

Rob Kent, Birmingham, England

"Protesting the Prospect of Peace"

To the San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 26, 1995 (as submitted).

"Protesting the Prospect of Peace": What a cheap shot for the Chronicle so to caption the photo (World, Sept. 23) of a frightened looking young Palestinian writhing in a choke-hold by an Israeli soldier in (illegally) occupied Hebron. Would this boy really oppose peace if he'd ever known it, instead of a brutal childhood of daily terror, beatings or shootings by trigger-happy Israeli soldiers, along with insults, bullying, threats and more beatings and shootings by fanatic, Uzi-toting settler/thugs (also there illegally).

What does the latest "peace agreement" forced on the abject PLO by the Clinton administration and Israel promise the people of Hebron except more of the same imprisonment by force of arms? If you were there with this for your future, mightn't you want to resist with whatever puny means you had, even a stone?

Ken Scudder, San Francisco, CA

Choosing Words

To the Riverside, CA Press Enterprise , Dec. 21, 1995 (as published).

Language is instructive. When ski-masked Israeli Leon Bor,Press Enterprise, July 30,seized a German tour bus, held the passengers hostage, and selectively murdered an elderly female passenger because she was German, he was called a "gunman," and described as appearing "mentally disturbed."

When a 23-year-old Palestinian who has lived his entire life under a brutal military occupation that has de-humanized and dispossessed his people and deprived them of all human, legal and civil rights, commits an act of violence against the colonizers of his homeland, he is called a "terrorist" and "opposed to the peace process", a euphemism for permanent occupation and cantonization with surrogate Gentile enforcers.

Joyce Bacon, Corona, CA

Samiha Khalil Had Many Supporters

To The New York Times , Jan. 23, 1996 (as submitted).

On two separate days (Jan. 18 and Jan. 20) two Times reporters, commenting on the election for president of the Palestinian Authority, referred to Arafat's opponent as a "veteran of the political left." In addition, one of them deemed Samiha Khalil "electorally impotent" and the other called Mrs. Khalil "he."

Mrs. Khalil is no leftist. Moreover, she undoubtedly knew she could not win against Arafat, who controls the purse strings and media,in short, the political machine. But the fact that she won 10 percent of the vote in a male-dominated traditional society demonstrates that she is hardly "electorally impotent." She is a woman of tremendous courage.

For more than three decades she has been remarkably successful in organizing Palestinian women in the El Bireh-Ramallah area to gain some economic independence, together with greater security and dignity for their families. In 1965 she established Nourishment of the Family, a self-help organization that develops productive enterprises for women. After the 1967 occupation, the Israeli authorities approved it.

When we met her in 1988, these enterprises were particularly important, for a great many men were in prison for taking part in the freedom struggle.

A few examples of these initiatives: 1) a bakery, which in the early 1990s was making a profit of $18,000 per month; 2) a dress embroidery factory; 3) a training facility for sewing, weaving and hairdressing; 4) the Arab Union Society, which became a large business employing some 200 women, including the handicapped; 5) a nursery school; 6) workshops to train women to care for the family farm while their men were gone. In addition, she helped women work to preserve their remarkable traditional arts and crafts.

These activities were closed down periodically by the Israelis, and she often landed in jail. She has been a tremendous threat to the Israelis, and now to the traditional authoritarian male Palestinians with whom the Israelis are negotiating the peace process.

Mrs. Khalil accompanied Hanan Ashrawi and others to Washington on the early peace negotiations. An advocate of family planning and women's rights, she warns that unlike women after the Algerian revolution, Palestinian women who have fought beside their men for freedom will not consent to return to lives of mere household drudgery. She is a symbol of the new emerging Palestine.

Marjorie Hope Young and James Young, Wilmington, OH

If Deir Yassin Victims Were Jews

To Prof. Elie Wiesel, Boston University, Boston, MA, Feb. 13, 1996

Although over the past year I have written four times asking you to join our Board of Advisers and although you have never replied to these invitations, I shall try again.

I have come to understand your reluctance to remember Deir Yassin. Your conviction that "Israel is something I must serve and help, but not criticize; I will not say bad things about Jews" has suppressed the call to memorialize the victims of Zionism. You have chosen to hide the memory of 254 innocent men, women and children who were systematically slaughtered at Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948, not because they were Palestinian, but because the terrorists were Jews from the Irgun and Stern Gang.

Since you worked for the Irgun during the very time of this massacre, it must have torn you to pieces. And since you undoubtedly read the wire service dispatches and military reports, I am sure you knew the details of this bloody event even before they were published in the The New York Times on April 10 and April 13, 1948. And yet, even as a journalist, you kept silent and just followed orders. Like the ever-obedient soldier, you did what you had to do. Having lived through the Holocaust, maintaining this silence must have been excruciating.

It must also have been difficult for you to have heard Martin Buber, the Jewish spiritual thinker and scholar for whom you have written that you have the greatest respect, tell David Ben-Gurion: "In Deir Yassin hundreds of innocent men, women and children were massacred. The Deir Yassin affair is a black stain on the honor of the Jewish nation. The Zionist movement, the army and our government of the time (the Jewish Agency Executive) all felt this acutely and most unequivocally condemned the deed."

Did you talk to Buber about Deir Yassin? Have you ever written of the tragedy which took place there, a tragedy perpetrated by the organization in which you were employed? Have you ever tried to distinguish between the Irgun's patriots of purity and those who committed butchery at Deir Yassin?

When Buber and others called "for some act in Deir Yassin, an act which will symbolize our people's desire for justice and brotherhood with the Arab people," did you discuss this with him? Did you endorse his idea or oppose it, or simply remain silent?

Did you ever visit Deir Yassin? When Yad Vashem was being built in the 1950s did you walk from it to Deir Yassin? Did it haunt you to look north from the museum and know that you were looking directly at Deir Yassin? Did Buber or others tell you that to build Yad Vashem near the site of Deir Yassin was a mistake? Did the planners of Yad Vashem purposely locate it within sight of Deir Yassin or did they simply believe that the memory of the atrocities committed by Jews at Deir Yassin would be forgotten? I beg you to tell me. You know the answers to these questions; you were a part of this history, you were there.

Dear Professor Wiesel, I still want you to join our Board of Advisers of Deir Yassin Remembered. Ours is a noble project. To build a memorial at Deir Yassin is the right thing to do; and it is long overdue. If the victims had been Jews, I know you would agree. It should not matter that they were non-Jewish Palestinians. The victims were Menschen, innocent Menschen.

Join us. Support us. Help us to design the best memorial based on an international competition open to all artists and sculptors, including Israelis. Help us to secure a site at Deir Yassin where this memorial can be viewed and visited by all people.

I shall send you four pictures of Deir Yassin. I took them this past December. Two of them were taken from Yad Vashem.

Daniel A. McGowan, Director, Deir Yassin Remembered, Hobart & William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY 14456

Muslims Do Revere Jesus

To Mr. Carter Maguire, Vice President, Turner Cable Network, 1 CNN Center, Box 105366, Atlanta, GA 30348, Dec. 26, 1995

On the 24th of December, Sunday evening, watching "Headline News" and your correspondent Walter Rodger's report on the enthusiastic celebration of Christmas by Palestinians in Bethlehem unhindered by Israeli military surveillance, I was taken aback to hear Mr. Rodgers stating that Muslims do not revere Jesus as the Messiah. This is totally incorrect, as indeed, the opposite is true, i.e. that Muslims do revere Jesus as the Messiah, they are required by God's word as preserved in their holy book, the Qur'an, to do so. I quote below the relevant verses of the Qur'an:

"When the angels said, 'O Mary, Allah gives these glad tidings of a son through a Word from Him; his name shall be the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, honored in this world and in the next, and of those who are granted nearness to God, 'And He shall speak to the people in the cradle and when of middle age, and He shall be of the righteous." Chapter 3, Verses 46 and 47.

I thought I also heard Mr. Rodgers saying Muslims instead look upon Jesus as a Palestinian revolutionary. If I heard him right, this, too, is off the mark, because there is nothing in a Muslim's spiritual training that allows him to view Jesus as a revolutionary, Palestinian or otherwise, except perhaps in the sense of a spiritual revolutionary in the context of his role as the Messiah appointed by God.

I trust you will consider broadcasting a suitable retraction or correction of your correspondent's statements in reference so that the misrepresentation of the Muslim view of Jesus as conveyed by Mr. Rodgers stands corrected and any misgivings this report created in the minds of your non-Muslim viewers are dispelled. I thank you for your attention.

M.H. Quader, York, PA

Advice and Consent

To The Atlantic Monthly , January 1996 (as published).

Your October issue carried an advertisement by an organization that calls itself FLAME,so-called Facts and Logic About the Middle East. These advertisements are outrageously racist and full of malicious disinformation. If you were remotely familiar with FLAME, you would know that it engages in a propaganda assault on all Arabs, regardless of their religion or nationality, for the purpose of evoking unconditional support of Israel, regardless of Israeli practices and actions.

FLAME's ads seek to portray a tiny, defenseless Israel surrounded by murderous, fanatical "Moslem-Arab" terrorists. Of course there is no mention of the fact that Israel, which is an undeclared nuclear state, has been occupying Palestinian land, Syria's Golan Heights and southern Lebanon for decades. There is no mention of the fact that to this day Israel continues to confiscate Palestinian land, demolish Palestinian homes, violate Palestinian human rights (including the right to self-determination), engage in collective punishment of innocent Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, build settlements on Arab land, and jail political prisoners who have never been tried in a court of law.

FLAME's blatant racism is evident in ads that blame "Arab-Moslem fanaticism" for all the problems of the Middle East. FLAME's intent is to equate all Arabs with Islam and, in turn, to equate Islam with terrorism, even though many Arabs are Christian or Jewish, and even though Islam does not promote terrorism any more than Christianity or Judaism does. FLAME's racist anti-Arab and anti-Muslim propaganda is appalling.

It is a disgrace that a respectable magazine like The Atlantic Monthly would agree to carry such inflammatory and racist messages! Would you publish an advertisement by the KKK? I think not. And rightfully so! It is unimaginable that your magazine would carry ads by groups who promote anti-Black or anti-Jewish sentiments. Jews, like Arabs, are a Semitic people. Why is anti-Semitism tolerated when it is directed at them? By carrying FLAME's ads, you are compromising the integrity of your magazine. Arabs are not fair game for bigotry, lies and hateful messages.

Hamzi K. Moghrabi, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Washington, DC

Many "Boilerplate" Responses

To Terryl K. Stewart, Director, White House Liaison Office, Office of the Secretary of the Navy, Washington, DC, Dec. 28, 1995

Decades of receiving unresponsive, inane, thoughtless and downright wrong boilerplate responses from the personnel at the Department of the Navy have left my former shipmate, John Hrankowski,and many other USS Liberty survivors,convinced that people in power inside the Beltway truly feel the Israeli forces who attacked our American ship acted properly when they deliberately machine-gunned our life rafts in the water.

While I must admit I share my shipmates' sentiments, I also feel that somewhere in the bowels of the Department of the Navy is a person with courage to seek the answers to the questions we have been asking. In that light and toward that end, Mr. Hrankowski has asked that I respond for him.

I am afraid your boilerplate response of 18 August, 1995 is just another thoughtless attempt to sidestep the issues and to prove again that the Department of the Navy does, indeed, condone the war crimes committed against the USS Liberty. You wrote:

"The Navy convened a court of inquiry immediately after the event to review [the] question (of the deliberateness of the attack)...." Mr. Stewart, you and I both know that is not true. The U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry never attempted to address the question of the deliberateness of the attack. It is truly sad that a person in your position would publicly claim otherwise. Call the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General and you will learn that the scope of the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry was very limited and did not attempt to analyze the actions or the intent of the attackers. JAG has told us they left those questions to a congressional inquiry,which for reasons yet unexplained has never materialized.

"At this time there is no precedent to reinvestigate this case." Mr. Stewart, we both know that the question of precedents is irrelevant and merely a smoke screen to detract your correspondents' attention from the issues at hand. The fact is, the U.S. government has an obligation to investigate the charges we have been making for years. Before you reach for your standard unresponsive boilerplate and pop it into the mail to me, I suggest you get out your copy of the "Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea of August 12, 1949" and read Chapter VIII, Article 50 where it states quite clearly, "Each High Contracting Party shall be under the obligation to search for persons alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such grave breaches, and shall bring such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts." (Emphasis added.)

Then explain to us why you have for years ignored the allegations made by USS Liberty survivors of "grave breaches" of this Geneva Convention. Perhaps that explanation lies in the obvious fact that the U.S. Navy condones the deliberate machine gunning of U.S. Navy life rafts in the water.

Call Capt. Joe Tully USN (ret.),commanding officer of the USS Saratoga at the time of the attack,at the attached telephone number and you will learn that they recalled two flights of rescue aircraft (the one noted in the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry Report being the second). They launched and recalled the first within minutes of the beginning of the attack on the USS Liberty. That attack would last for another 90 minutes,with Sixth Fleet radio operators listening to and ignoring our pleas for help.

Then tell us why the U.S. Navy took no action based upon Section 899, Article 99 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice that says in part, "Any person subject to this chapter who before or in the presence of the enemyŠdoes not afford all practicable relief and assistance to any troops, combatants, vessels or aircraft of the armed forces belonging to the United States or their allies when engaged in battle...shall be punished by death or such punishment as a court-martial may direct."

Mr. Stewart, I know that they routinely read letters from USS Liberty survivors as peals of laughter reverberate off the walls of the Navy Department. I am sure my Representative Solomon Ortiz and his staff get a good laugh out of them as well.

Could I ask that you break with tradition and actually address the issues I have,again,raised here?

Joseph L. Meadors, past president and past chairman, USS Liberty Veterans Association, Corpus Christi, TX

Persian Gulf Security

To The New York Times , Jan. 17, 1996 (as published).

The press secretary of Iran's Mission to the United Nations contends (letter, Jan. 13) that "the Persian Gulf will be more secure if the extra-regional powers leave the affairs of this region to the littoral states."

In 1979, when the Islamic republic was established in Iran, there were no extra-regional troops in the area. Since then, two major wars have made plain that Iran and Iraq, the key regional states, have no desire to live in peace with their neighbors.

The first Gulf war of 1980-88 began with President Saddam Hussain's invasion of Iran, provoked by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's subversive activities against him. The feud caused more than a million casualties and $700 billion in material destruction.

The costs of the second Gulf war were paid not only by Iraqis but also by those who reversed Mr. Hussain's conquest of Kuwait.

United States military forces are in the Persian Gulf region to protect Western interests, but so long as adventurous despots rule in Baghdad and Teheran, they also serve the security of the region's voiceless peoples.

Mansour Farhang, Prof. of Politics, Bennington College, Bennington, VT

Saudi Economy Is Looking Better

To The New York Times, Feb. 11, 1996 (as published).

"An Inconvenient Saudi Dissident" (editorial, Feb. 5) says that the Saudi Arabian government's fiscal situation has deteriorated in recent years.

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait necessitated the payment by Saudi Arabia of more than $55 billion in cash for direct war-related expenses, which represented one-half of the country's gross domestic product at that time and slowed achievement of the kingdom's economic goals.

Saudi Arabia has largely recovered.

Budgets were cut by 20 percent in 1994 and 6 percent in 1995, subsidies have been reduced, and the fiscal picture is improving, not deteriorating.

This success derives from cultivation of a strong private sector; an open economy that attracts the participation of foreign companies; and investment of nearly $1 trillion in infrastructure in less than three decades.

Gross domestic product growth at an estimated 4.3 percent for 1995 and repayment of the government's international debt during that year provide evidence of the improved outlook.

Medlej Al-Medlej, Executive Director, U.S.-Saudi Arabian Business Council, Washington, DC

Britain Wise to Expel Saudi

To The New York Times , Feb. 13, 1996 (as published).

Your Feb. 5 editorial criticizing Britain's decision to deport the Saudi dissident Mohammed al-Masari omits important points.

In April 1994 Mr. Masari came to Britain under a false name and on a Yemeni passport. He used our asylum procedures to establish himself in Britain to campaign against the Saudi government, which has supported the foreign policy objectives of Britain and the United States in the region.

Mr. Masari's asylum application was refused because there was a safe third country, Dominica, willing to accept him. The decision to deport him is in accordance with our immigration rules and international obligations.

Though you admit that Mr. Masari is an Islamic conservative and that his professed commitment to nonviolence has been cast in doubt, I am surprised at your understatement. His views include:

On democracy in Islamic countries: Parties could stand in elections but only if they were Islamic parties, committed to ruling according to the Qur'an.

On America: Because it is a secular society, America does not work.

On Americans killed in the Riyadh bombing last November: They were a legitimate target. We don't condemn it.

On Israel: The relationship between the Saudi royal family and Zionism is immoral.

I am puzzled that you are so sympathetic to Mr. Masari and critical of my government.

Peter Westmacott, Counselor, British Embassy, Washington, DC

U.N. Overlooks Bosnia Evidence

To The New York Times, Feb. 11, 1996 (as published).

Re "U.N. Official Says She Found No Missing Men in Srebrenica" (news article, Feb. 6): Elizabeth Rehn made inaccurate and misleading statements during her brief tour of the former United Nations-declared safe area in Bosnia and Herzegovina where Bosnian Serb forces slaughtered some 7,000 Muslims.

While acknowledging the existence of mass graves in the area and noting that "many young men were killed," Ms. Rehn asserted that "they were probably soldiers" and repeated without comment the claim of Bosnian Serb military leaders that they "were killed in battle."

Human Rights Watch, which conducted extensive interviews of survivors of the Srebrenica genocide in the month following these killings, has reached different conclusions.

The majority of the young men killed were unarmed. Of those who were armed, the majority were murdered after being taken prisoner. These are clear war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Ms. Rehn also presented a deceptive picture of the status of prisoners detained by Bosnian Serb forces to perform forced labor.

While noting that two sites she visited had not recently housed forced laborers, Ms. Rehn neglected to mention the considerable evidence that Bosnian Serb authorities are detaining forced laborers elsewhere.

Human Rights Watch has received many firsthand reports of forced labor in northern Bosnia and believes that hundreds of non-Serbs remain detained for that purpose.

Ms. Rehn's predecessor, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, resigned over the failure of the United Nations and the international community to protect the residents of Srebrenica. Ms. Rehn, by contrast, shows a disturbing tendency to credit the self-serving obfuscation of Bosnian Serb military leaders.

Diane Paul, Research Associate, Human Rights Watch-Helsinki, New York, NY

Our Brothers' Keepers

To the Orlando Sentinel , Dec. 19, 1995 (as published).

I agree wholeheartedly with your two excellent editorials of Dec. 13, although I have a few reservations on the second editorial about sending troops to Bosnia.

To "maintain a global outlook" is vital and necessary to American interests everywhere. Because of its high ideals, which have been heroically practiced, tested and proven successful, people everywhere, especially the oppressed, the uprooted, the war-torn and helpless, as in Bosnia, Rwanda, Haiti, Palestine and even Lebanon, look up to America as their major savior. All those people, excluding very few, hunger for "big brother" U.S. protection against their oppressors.

But I'm with President Clinton in sending peacekeeping troops to Bosnia to give the Balkan people a break. Is not the world becoming, with U.S. leadership, a "global village" where strong and able nations are also responsible for the well-being of disabled nations? Are we not also our brothers' keepers?

Nuha Marchi, Arab American Community Center, Orlando, FL

In Bosnia U.S. Honors Duty

To The New York Times , Dec. 23, 1995 (as published).

Twice in this century we engaged in world wars that might have been averted if we and our allies acted sooner.

A trite but true saying, paraphrased, says that if we don't learn from the past, we will suffer it again.

Another lesson from the past: What did we mean when we swore "never again"? We couldn't have meant it for only when we are directly attacked; "again" wouldn't apply.

What must happen to whom, where, to invoke "never again"?

We can't be leaders of a world we choose not to belong to, or belong to only when it suits our purpose.

If we are to be one with others in the world, we must assume our share of the responsibility.

Every American is loath to endanger even one life in the armed services, but that is the risk that goes with being in the armed services.

The threat of the Bosnian war's spreading beyond its borders; the threat that Islamic fundamentalists might take the plight of the Bosnian Muslims as an excuse for a widespread jihad; the threat of "never again" meaning "maybe",these are compelling reasons for supporting the president's decision to send troops to Bosnia. And, yes, a sense of national morality is nothing to be ashamed of.

Henry Perril, Spring Valley, NY

Bangladesh Workers Organize

To The New York Times , Jan. 31, 1996 (as published).

Re "Economic Surge in Bangladesh Undercut by Political Turmoil" (front page, Jan. 27):

The garment industry of Bangladesh is indeed experiencing an awakening, but not the kind you describe. The women working in the industry are awakening to their rights as human beings and as workers; tens of thousands have organized themselves to obtain recognition of those rights, and they are facing the opposition of employers.

Too bad you did not interview the leaders of the Bangladesh Independent Garment Workers Union, all of whose 15 board members are garment workers, 11 of them women.

Most industry workers get below the minimum wage of $23 a month, are forced to work 12 to 14 hours a day, sometimes through the night, seven days a week, and seldom get premium pay for overtime. When somebody speaks up for her rights, she is vilified or beaten or fired.

You report that the garment factories have recorded $1.5 billion in sales to the United States. But as Hasna Hena, the union's president, has asked: "Should one million workers continue to suffer while a few owners can strive to be as rich as the legendary moguls?"

From two visits to Dhaka, I know that the union leaders are not exaggerating the workers' plight. Two things I found the most shocking: the widespread employment of girls and boys under 14, contrary to law, and the hostility that garment industry employers express toward the union.

Violence against the workers has increased. One evening in November, 25 young armed goons burst into the union office, fired shots, tossed Molotov cocktails, assaulted several officers and staff members, and warned them to close down the union. The threats have not worked. The workers are carrying on against great odds.

Robert A. Senser, Reston, VA (The writer is a retired Foreign Service Officer.)

Israelis Are Bigoted, Too

To The Orange County Register, California, Oct. 11, 1995 (as published).

I think Ken Garey misses an important point ["Israel's enemy is bigotry," Letter, Oct. 6]. Libya has deported foreigners, not Libyans, from their country. Israel deported Palestinians from occupied-Palestine.

Israel violated international law and the U.N. treaty that it signed. I notice there is no embargo of Israel, like the one in place on Libya, for crimes against the Palestinians and for invading and occupying Lebanon. Talk about bigotry. The only bigotry I see is bigotry against Muslims and Arabs.

Philip Bordeaux, Dana Point, CA