July 1991, Page 45

Other People's Mail

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

Building Cooperation

To the Jewish Week (Queens, NY), April 25, 1991

David Arnow's thoughtful article, "The Heart of the Stranger: Jewish-Arab Coexistence, " educates your readers about the poorly publicized fact that Jewish Scud victims were offered a safe haven by Israeli Arabs.

Our experience confirms Arnow's affirmation that internal harmony is ethical and fruitful. The Israeli Arab cities offering refuge to their Jewish neighbors were the same communities where Interns for Peace has operated for the past 15 years.

That kind of loyalty validated IFP efforts to build cooperation among 60,000 Israelis—Jews and Arabs, youths and adults—in the classroom, sports field, community center, workplace and home.

The Gulf war gave IFP a test under fire. We passed.

Interns for Peace is also proud that every coexistence organization mentioned by Arnow has been staffed or founded by one of the 142 IFP graduates, who served for up to two years as "matchmakers" in neighboring Jewish and Arab communities throughout Israel. Like Arnow, IFP takes special pride in the Center for Jewish/Arab Economic Development, founded as a direct initiative and outgrowth of seven years of labor by IFP.

Arnow's prophetic call for support of Jewish-Arab cooperation is being heeded increasingly by the Jewish community in Israel and abroad. IFP currently receives major funding from the Jewish Agency for Israel and Jewish federations.

IFP also concurs with Arnow that "American Jews are well-positioned to nurture these healthy ... developments. " While more than 70 percent of our current interns are Israeli-Jews and Arabs, IFP accepts North American Arab and Jewish applicants.

Those interested in serving should write Interns for Peace, 270 W. 89th St., New York, NY 10024.

Rabbi Bruce Cohen, International Director, Interns for Peace, New York, NY

Palestinian Economic Aid

To Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-IN), Chairman, Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East, May 13, 1991

I am writing to urge you to increase our assistance to the West Bank and Gaza for FY 1992. As you are well aware, the Palestinian people are once again the victims of another war in the Middle East.

The Gulf war left the Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza worse off economically. The enclosed Jan. 31, 1991 Wall Street Journal article documents the scope and gravity of the crisis in the West Bank and Gaza. Economists estimate that the impact of replacing the 100,000 jobs of Palestinians formerly employed in Israel, the impact of the long curfew during which families were unable to work, and the loss of remittances as tens of thousands lost their jobs due to the Gulf war, amounts to 20 percent of the West Bank and Gaza's $2 billion GNP ($400 million).

While I do recognize the budgetary constraints which do not allow us to compensate the Palestinians for all their economic loss, given the tremendous need precipitated by the Gulf war, I urge you to increase our economic development funds from the current $12 million to $25 million. This increase will assist the 1.7 million Palestinians of the territories in surviving this harsh economic situation.

Please call me or my staff if I can provide you with any further information regarding the economic crisis on the West Bank and Gaza.

Rep. Nick J. Rahall, H (D-WV), Washington, DC

Settlers or Uprooters?

To The Washington Times, March 18, 1991

Your article, subtitled "Life on a Jewish Settlement in the West Bank, " was misleading as much for what it failed to say as for what it said.

It told the story of a young American Jew named Bobby Brown who left the hustle and bustle of Manhattan 12 years ago to find pastoral bliss and his biblical roots in the town of Tekoa.

The article and the photos that accompanied it, a panoramic view of the small town of Tekoa "nestled in the craggy foothills of the ancient Judean desert, " workers contentedly processing exotic mushrooms by hand in a little factory, Mr. Brown sitting thoughtfully in his home in front of a wall of books, and a classroom full of happy Jewish children, were clearly intended to foster the impression that there's nothing so wholesome as a Jewish settler and nothing so innocuous as a Jewish settlement.

But while it may be true that Mr. Brown and the settlement of Tekoa alone are no threat to the Palestinian way of life in the West Bank, as part of a larger settlement movement they most certainly are. As was stated in the article, there exist in the West Bank today around 150 settlements supporting approximately 100,000 Jews. What wasn't stated, however, was that these settlements currently encompass about half of the land area of the West Bank, leaving the one million or so Palestinians also living in the West Bank to get by on the other half.

This obvious inequity just begins to tell the true story. While the Shamir government subsidizes Jewish settlements such as Tekoa, it tries to make life miserable for Arab farmers. If a Palestinian needs to dig a well for water or wants to plant a single tree, he must first obtain a permit from the Israeli military government—a long, frequently humiliating and usually futile bureaucratic process.

Young Palestinian men and women are shot at, beaten and imprisoned for months and years without trial, all because they refuse to accept their servitude with a smile.

Palestinian intellectuals and political leaders are deported for writing and speaking out against the daily injustices (imagine being driven to the Mexican or Canadian border with nothing more than the clothes on your back and being told to walk away from your family and country forever). And unlike the smiling Jewish children of the Tekoa settlement, Arab children are not allowed by the Jewish authorities to go to school because the Jewish authorities apparently believe that even 10-year-old Palestinians, if allowed to gather, will conspire to overthrow them. They may be right.

John McGrane, Potomac, MD

Justice for Kashmir

To Indian Prime Minister Chander Shekher, May 12, 1991

I am writing to express my deep concern at the continuing human rights abuses in Kashmir, which include assassinations and extra judicial executions of unarmed civilians. The assassination of Mohammad Shaban Vakil, 41, editor of Al-Safa news, a leading Urdu-language daily, must be viewed as a clear attempt to silence the press in Kashmir. I understand Vakil was gunned down in his office on April 23 in the densely populated Saraibala area near Amirakadal.

No organization has claimed responsibility for Vakil's assassination. Statements by government officials that the killing was done by militants cannot be accepted at face value. In the past, the government had, I understand, registered six cases against Vakil's paper under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Prevention Act. Also, previous government statements about incidents such as this have been incorrect. In June 1990, statements made by government officials about militants kidnapping a journalist, Yusuf Jameel, who was in fact abducted by Army personnel, proved incorrect.

The government announcement of a reward of Rs. 50,000 ($2,500) for information leading to the arrest of the assassins appears to trivialize a very serious matter. A prompt and impartial inquiry into this serious breakdown of civilized behavior is necessary. The methods and results of the inquiry must be made public promptly and those people found responsible for the killings brought to justice.

I understand that Vakil's relatives do not want a hush-hush investigation. They desire that the criminal, "whosoever he may be," be punished according to the law. That is what must be done. Mr. Prime Minister, unless the guilty are brought to justice swiftly, you as the chief executive officer of India must be ultimately judged responsible for the assassination of Shaban Vakil.

Rafique A. Khan, Los Angeles, CA

Saudi-Bashing

To The Washington Post, May 27, 1991 Rep. Larry Smith (D-FL), an unrelenting critic of Saudi Arabia, is on the war path again. In his letter, he accused us in Saudi Arabia of having a "contemptuous" attitude toward the United States. We believe Saudi Arabia and the United States have had a mutually constructive and important relationship for more than 50 years, and we are grateful to all Americans for the support given to Desert Shield and Desert Storm. The factual assertions in his letter also contained gross distortions, and the record needs correcting:

• The Saudi Embassy has never denied Rep. Smith a visa, nor did it deny Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) one. Saudi Arabia has long-established requirements for issuing visas, just as the United States does. Anyone meeting these criteria is issued a visa, as was the case with Rep. Smith and Sen. Lautenberg.
  
  
• Saudi Arabia has no laws requiring that visitors surrender their passports to their Saudi sponsor. There have been cases, in Gaudi Arabia just as in the United States, in which employers have required foreign employees to let them hold passports as a form of surety.
  
  
• There may be "ample evidence, " as Rep. Smith alleges, of Americans who have suffered "gross mistreatment in Saudi jails, " but none of this has stood up in a court of law when the purported victims attempted to recover enormous damage claims. In any event, Saudi law prohibits such mistreatment just as US law does, but both countries have had overzealous violations and have to be vigilant to minimize that.
  
  
• Saudi Arabia's pledges for payments to the United States toward the cost of the Gulf crisis are subject to a schedule agreed upon between the two governments and will be fully paid by the end of June.
  
  
• The Saudi government has not "steadfastly refused to join Middle East peace talks." On the contrary, Saudi Arabia has been on the forefront of promoting progress toward a genuine peace. President Bush and Secretary of State James Baker's public statements as recently as May 11 attest to our continuing and most recent efforts.

Rep. Smith should, for the sake of evenhandedness, speak out on Israeli actions that sometimes are not in the national interest of the United States. This is particularly true with regard to its settlements policy in the occupied territories and its rejection of the principle of land for peace, both of which have been obstacles to the peace process.

Bandar Bin Sultan, Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States, Washington, DC

Palestinian-Bashing in Kuwait

To Al-FaJr (Jerusalem), April 14, 1991

A cartoon on the opinion page of the March 25, 1991 Al-FaJr English Weekly depicts an Arab, presumably a Kuwaiti, attacking a bound and gagged Palestinian, while an indifferent Uncle Sam sits by.

This is a grossly unfair and inaccurate representation of the position of the United States toward treatment of Palestinians in Kuwait, following the restoration of the government of Kuwait.

Here are the facts: long before Kuwait was freed from Iraq's occupation, the United States expressed concern to Kuwaiti authorities about the need for protection of Palestinians in Kuwait after the return of the Kuwaiti government. Since then, the US government, at very senior levels, including the American ambassador in Kuwait City, has continued to urge the Kuwaiti authorities to treat Palestinians fairly. On March 22, the White House press spokesman said that President Bush is "very concerned" about reported abuses against Palestinians in Kuwait. Our embassy in Kuwait is passing information to the Kuwaiti authorities about mistreatment of Palestinians, urging that action be taken against those responsible, and closely monitoring the situation on a daily basis. We shall continue to do so.

Philip C. Wilcox, Jr., US Consul General, Jerusalem

Blasting to the Stone Age

To The New York Times, May 23, 1991

"Health Crisis Said to Grip Iraq in Wake of War's Destruction" summarizes the report of a Harvard University medical team, which estimates 170,000 more child deaths this year in Iraq. "How to Aim the Embargo Weapon" takes no note of this report, but deals with the political objectives of the embargo President Bush wants to maintain indefinitely.

The war that President Bush and Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney authorized against Iraq was much more than a war to limit military reinforcements from reaching Iraq's forces in Kuwait.

The systematic destruction of the electric power plants and water utilities of Iraq constituted an assault on the civilian population. What we have done guaranteed the epidemic spread of disease from polluted water and a lack of the hospital services necessary to deal with it. Transportation and even the harvesting of food in Iraq have been crippled by the destruction of oil refineries. Outside aid is urgently needed.

We violated international law in our assault on civilian life in Iraq, and few people have the courage to tell this to the American public and to point out our moral obligation to act quickly and adequately to reduce the predicted toll of 170,000 more child deaths.

There is, to put it bluntly, no moral leadership in Washington, or in the news media, if the horror that we have created is swept under the carpet.

Frederick S. Lightfoot, Greenport, NY

Senate Hearing Planned

To Mr. and Mrs. David Marrash, April 12, 1991

Thank you for taking the time to send me your Mecklenberg County Resolution on the Persian Gulf war. I hope that you had the opportunity to present it to the Democratic meeting.

As the new Near East and South Asia Subcommittee Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I am planning a series of hearings on a number of aspects of the Middle East: economics, politics, history, arms control and long-term solutions to bring stability and peace to the region. I hope these hearings will be televised for the benefit of the American people to understand the complexities of the Middle East.

Senator Terry Stanford (D-NC), Washington, DC

Rodney King Was Lucky

To The Chattanooga Times, April 9, 1991

"Let each of the readers imagine himself standing before a completely helpless young person lying there handcuffed; let him imagine himself taking his (night) stick and coldly and systematically beating that person until the blood bursts out, until the bones burst, until even the soul exits. One must have a unique personality makeup in order to be capable of such acts and anyone who can imagine himself doing such should immediately phone the nearest mental health center."

A comment upon police brutality in Los Angeles? Not this time. It is an excerpt from an article by B. Michael, in Israel's Hebrew language daily, Haaretz, speaking to the savage attacks on Palestinians by members of the Israeli army. While police brutality, such as that visited upon motorist Rodney King by the Los Angeles police officers, probably occurs more frequently in the United States than the public realizes, Palestinians are subjected to sadistic treatment on a daily basis.

Israeli soldiers guilty of atrocities often defend their actions by claiming they were acting on orders from those "higher up." The author of the Haaretz article, however, makes no allowance for such a defense: "A human being who has not lost his essence would not only have refused to carry out such an 'order,' he would simply be incapable of carrying it out."

There are IDF members who have not lost their "essence," as revealed by the disillusioned words of one Shmuel Shem-Tov, writing in Kol Hair. As a reserve officer, he spent 20 years serving in Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank and patrolling the Gaza Strip. It is his conclusion that "the time has come to admit that for many years now we have been serving as mercenaries to achieve objectives which are not our own. At the present time, we do have an alternative, one that is crystal clear: to negotiate and make peace. "

Though it came much too late for the Iraqi people, all "essence" was not lost amongst our troops; there remained some human compassion in the midst of our carnage. Newsweek makes an oblique reference to US forces having "serious morale problems—talk of pilots refusing to fly," ostensibly because their military actions had turned into a massacre of the Iraqis, both civilian and military. Slowly but surely the American public will learn the sad truth, that our war of aggression against Iraq was not our finest hour.

Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers, police and armed civilians have now been given the public mandate (to be sure, a previous de facto understanding prevailed): "Shoot to kill (Palestinians). " From a Palestinian perspective, Rodney King may be lucky to have ended up in the hands of the Los Angeles police.

Ruth Ramsey, Epworth, GA

Rotting the Barrel

To the Rochester (NY) Democrat & Chronicle, May 19, 1991

Arnold Shapiro's letter "Israel's Reluctance" seems to suggest that Israel is somehow the victim of the present Arab-Israeli conflict in general, and of the stalemated peace process in particular.

Let us not forget that Israel is the oppressor as well as the main obstacle to peace in the region.

The UN's decision to partition Palestine in 1947, whereby Jews owning a mere six percent of the land were granted over 50 percent, was fundamentally unjust.

Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza since 1967 is, according to international law and world opinion, illegal. And Israel's current refusal to advance the peace process is inexcusable.

Israel is the victim only in the sense that its immoral behavior affects not only the Palestinians at whom it is aimed but leads to the deterioration of its own society as well. A slave owner is himself never truly free.

Sandra A. Ford, Canandaigua, NY

A Constituent Speaks Out...

To Senator John Seymour (R-CA), Feb. 13, 1991

Secretary of State James Baker reported to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 6, 1991 that $400 million in housing loan guarantees were being withheld from Israel pending release of information by Israel of building and settlement plans.

GOOD! I hope Israel never releases the information and never gets the guarantees. The intention of the Shamir government has always been to use the funds to settle the occupied territories and evict the current resident population, in violation of US policy, UN resolutions, and congressionally legislated conditions on the guarantees themselves.

Let's support Secretary Baker in performing his duty of making sure that the guarantees do not contribute to Israeli colonization of the occupied territories, and let's not authorize any more aid to Israel until the illegal settlements already there are removed.

Paul S. Larudee, Richmond, CA

The Senator Replies...

To Paul S. Larudee, March 12, 1991

Thank you for contacting me regarding United States policy towards El Salvador.

I am hopeful that the ongoing negotiations between the Salvadoran government and guerrilla representatives will produce a settlement to end the insurgency. But until the communist leadership in El Salvador renounces the use of violence as a means of achieving political victory and states a willingness to participate in the nation's democratic process, the United States must provide the civilian government with adequate economic and military aid to prevent a totalitarian regime from taking power by force.

I believe, therefore, that a termination of the US program on behalf of El Salvador would amount to an abdication of our responsibility to a people so tired of war and so anxious for a stable and free nation.

Senator John Seymour (R-CA), Washington, DC

... Sorry, Wrong Continent

To Senator John Seymour, April 27, 1991

Thank you for your response of March 12, 1991 concerning your position on El Salvador. Unfortunately, I did not write to you about El Salvador. My letter was about Israel, and I would be interested to have your response to it.

Now is the time to show that we support moderate Israelis by demonstrating that we do not support the intransigent, extremist government now in power in Israel. Shamir and his ilk have no interest in peace—only annexation of territory. His continued policy of settling Israelis in Arab territory demonstrates his bad faith.

Let's not be accomplices of these thugs. Let's pull the financial plug on them so that Israeli moderates can show the bankruptcy of such policies. What kind of friend are we if we shove Israel into the arms of its most extreme elements? Let's help our friends get back on course.

Paul S. Larudee, Richmond, CA