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October 1996, p. 3 Letters to the Editor
Cut the Gobbledygook!If you’re as financially hard up as you seem to be, you’re not going to save yourselves by burying your cries for help at the bottom of your “Publishers’ Page.” Get to the point! After all, it was my father who coined the word gobbledygook. If you swallow your diplomats’ pride and run a full-page ad in your own magazine that tells people in one paragraph exactly how bad your situation is, the checks will come! I don’t think you know how many people all around the country, whose eyes you’ve helped open, now depend on you for the truth. If we lose you, we’re all lost. Maury Maverick, San Antonio, TX Okay, we’ve heard from your colleagues that you get more mail than all the other columnists on your newspaper combined. So we’ve built this issue according to your blueprint. There’s no “Publisher’s Page.” On page 43 is a one-page, one-paragraph ad telling readers just how bad things are. And on page 19 is the editorial that might have obscured our really desperate appeal for contributions. We’ve built it. They’d darn well better come.
Congratulations to KillgoreCongratulations on the receipt by your publisher, Ambassador Andrew I. Killgore, of the Foreign Service Cup. Courage and perserverence indeed—remarkable and unmatched. If braver souls of high station could only join in bucking the powerful forces that bring into being policies inimical to U.S. long- and short-term interests, this would be a more honorable world. God bless you! Stephanie Perry, Washington, DC
Kudos for KillgoreI read the July issue from cover to cover and had the usual feeling that this was the best yet. What impresses me is that so many articles that are beautifully written, and never shrill, are nevertheless enraging. But never hopeless. The reports from Lebanon have been great. And thank you for including Grace Halsell’s lovely tribute to Yehudi Menuhin. His father, Moshe Menuhin, and my grandfather were close friends. Finally, congratulations to Ambassador Killgore for his impressive award from former State Department officers and for what the citation said about the Washington Report. Rachelle Marshall, Stanford, CA We’re always pleased at evidence that we speak not just for ourselves but also for most of the thousands of foreign service officers who have served or are serving in the Middle East and South Asia, and are just as anxious as we are to keep the U.S. from fighting Israel’s proxy wars. The photo below shows, from left, Ambassador Hermann Cohen, former assistant secretary of state for African affairs, who received the State Department’s Director General’s cup; Ambassador Anthony Quainton, director general of the foreign service; and Ambassador Andrew I. Killgore, publisher of this magazine, who received the Foreign Service Cup at a May 3 Foreign Service Day ceremony. The Foreign Service Cup is awarded annually to the retired foreign service officer selected by his or her peers as the outstanding retiree of the year.
Lenni Brenner Is RightI read in your July issue Lenni Brenner’s criticism of one of Abe Foxman’s mean-minded and misrepresentative letters to The New York Times, and would state that Brenner is 100 percent on target. With regard to the prospects for a TVA in the Jordan River basin, I have re-read Miriam R. Lowi’s Water and Power; the 1995 “Updated Edition,” and found her study of the Eric Johnson-TVA mission in the 1949-1955 period to be very relevant to today’s headlines; a promising, mutually beneficial solution was delayed for 40 years because of war. Must we wait another 40 years while Israel hunts for the last of the Hamas bombers before the siege of the autonomous Palestinian areas is lifted? Rather than giving Israel $100 million to build a fence for its paranoia, the U.S. should pour $20 million into the Palestinian communities in a program such as the proven TVA MEREC program. David E. Blank, Louisville, KY
What is “Semitic”?You allow the use of the construct “anti-Semitic” (July 1996, page 24). What means “Semitic”? Tom Scollan, Vallejo, CA The dictionary refers to such languages as Arabic, Aramaic, Hebrew, etc., and therefore presumably the speakers of such languages. As the ADL uses the term in its annual survey of anti-Semitism, about which Lenni Brenner wrote in the article to which you referred, it applies to such anti-Jewish manifestations as, in ADL’s own words, “Swastikas and racist remarks found in a bathroom.” In our own experience, the ADL and a lot of other national Jewish groups also tried, with some success for a long time, to equate “anti-Semitism” with criticism of Israel. There’s no doubt in our minds that swastika graffiti is on the rise, at least in Washington, DC where we see it daily, but we doubt that those who deface walls, the glass on newspaper vending machines, etc., are either great political philosophers or trendsetters. There’s no doubt, however, that criticism of Israel, and U.S. involvement in its endless wars with the neighbors from whom it has seized territory, also is rising. If national Jewish groups insist on equating legitimate and, in our opinion, necessary concern about openly expansionist Israeli policies with anti-Jewish sentiments, and mainstream newspapers continue to ignore or downplay it, we think they do America’s Jewish community no service. If you listen carefully to what those who join militias in the far west, south and elsewhere are saying, it’s more than just the language of alienation. The talk of black helicopters and conspiracies by “U.N. forces” is silly, but the feeling that pressing and legitimate questions are not being raised in the national media, and that some important but disquieting subjects receive only minimal or slanted coverage, now is growing exponentially. We know such sentiments are not confined to guys crawling around in camouflage clothes on weekends, or squirreling away munitions in caves, but are shared by people who read, think and worry about what’s happening to America and its own traditional support for justice and human rights. Whether this legitimate and widely shared concern gets mixed up with “anti-Semitism” depends to some extent, we believe, on whether American Jews become identified in the public mind with sincere proponents of American values like Anthony Lewis and Flora Lewis, both of The New York Times, or journalistic Israel-firsters like Charles Krauthammer, A.M. Rosenthal and William Safire. That’s seemingly a long ramble from your original question — but nevertheless, we fear, quite pertinent to an answer.
U.S. Militias and West Bank “Settlers”Has anyone besides me noted similarities between the “hard-nosed” Montana and other American militias and the Jewish settlers in the territories? The only significant difference I can see is that the U.S. government opposes the militias while the Israeli government—with American money—supports the settlers! Sheesh! Roger D. Leonard, Bowie, MD
The AARP and Aid to IsraelRecently, the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) in its bulletin to members opened the way to get the Israeli foreign aid question into national politics by soliciting members for questions to be asked of candidates for Congress. In response, I sent a question to them about aid to Israel (copy attached). It occurred to me that letters such as mine, from Washington Report subscribers to AARP could get national attention and be difficult to ignore. Omitting the opening question, the text of the letter is well suited for citizens to make their convictions known to their Congressmen. George E. Brown, Palm Beach Gardens, FL Your response to the AARP’s challenge to “grill the candidates” is printed on p. 53 of this issue’s “Other People’s Mail.”
From the President and the BishopEnclosed is an exchange of correspondence between myself and President Clinton on the April invasion of Lebanon that may be of interest for your “letters” section. I appreciate President Clinton’s reply. He is one of the few people in the U.S.A. who do reply to their mail, I find. However, his letter does not even begin to address the concerns I raised in my April 16 missive to him. The president’s position on Israel is well known. What is not so well known is the equivocating, mealy-mouthed stance of the Catholic Church in the U.S., as witnessed by the enclosed statement from the Most Rev. Daniel P. Reilly, chairman of the U.S. Catholic Conference Bishops’ Committee on International Policy, commenting on the Israeli attack. If a Catholic bishop cannot see the sinfulness in U.S. complicity and collaboration in the attack, who can? If no Catholic churchman is concerned about the soul of Bill Clinton and his eternal salvation, and the guilt of the nation, who is? The Washington Report , and its courageous, God-fearing staff, the truth-givers and champions of all of God’s family, without fear of the forces of the devil, that’s who! Patrick F. Flynn, Yorba Linda, CA We note from the clipping you enclosed that in contrast to Bishop Reilly’s “impartial” statement, Pope John Paul II said that “it is difficult to find acceptable justification” for the Israeli attacks in which more than 130 Lebanese civilians died.
Reprints of Washington Report ArticlesThe Washington Report on Middle East Affairs is one of the few publications which I look forward to receiving as each issue is published. I am particularly interested in the West Bank news told from a Palestinian viewpoint. The article by Maureen Meehan on pages 13 and 14 of the July issue is a helpful report under the title, “Land Confiscations Increase As Israelis Impose Jewish Settlement on Bethlehem.” Because the information on page 3 states that “Material from the Washington Report may be reprinted without charge with attribution to Washington Report on Middle East Affairs,” I plan to make 500 copies of the Meehan article and distribute it to the 500 members of the World Methodist Council when it meets in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I will indicate that the material is reprinted by permission of the WRMEA and will indicate the issue and pages from which it is reprinted. This subject is of particular interest to the World Methodist Council as it will participate with Christians of other denominations in the celebration of the year A.D. 2000 in Bethlehem. If there is anything I should know before having this article reprinted, please contact me immediately. Keith T. Berry, Council on Ministries, The United Methodist Church, Kansas City, MO Go ahead. Our reprint permission applies to anything in the main body of our magazine, but not to the copyrighted material in “Other Voices,” the cartoons, or any photos that are not credited to our own staff members, whose names are on the masthead.
A Vote for Bill ClintonBe assured that I mention the Washington Report to someone at least once a week. Each issue is even better than the last, and the articles are more and more engaging and insightful. Even though I don’t think I could ever bring myself to vote for Dole, I have to admit I certainly enjoyed reading the opinions of those who will! I guess that’s the mark of a truly great magazine: even the viewpoints to which I am opposed are so well-expressed that I’m compelled to read them. Vicki Tamoush, Tujunga, CA Don’t feel too bad about not agreeing with us all the time. We understand that no one’s perfect.
One for a Bloc VoteRegarding your 1996 election opportunity watch, what an absolutely fabulous job you are doing. If indeed your position takes, as it well could, you will go down in American history for a great idea and deserve it all. If only this country could wake up to how Israel continues to bleed us. Hoorah for Dick Curtiss. Blythe Foote Finke, Ft. Belvoir, VA Since you and our executive editor were very junior foreign service officers together 40 years ago, your letter proves that old friends are the best friends.
A Voter Against PerotRoss Perot was interviewed by Larry King tonight, Aug. 18, 1996, and a female caller asked Perot either: (1) if he thought the attack on the Liberty was deliberate, or: (2) if the attack should be investigated. I can’t remember Perot’s exact words but basically he said: “There’s no way the Israelis would’ve attacked that ship on purpose. Our own military has had many instances of friendly fire.” Larry King then asked Perot if “we should continue our aid to Israel.” That whacko didn’t even begin to answer the question; instead, he went off on one of his tangents, this one about the requirement that the U.S. must remain economically viable in order to remain a superpower. Figure that one out. How he got to that answer from the question posed is a mystery to me. At least ol’ H. Ross persuaded me not to vote for him. R. Redge, via Internet Actually, Perot probably figured he had two choices: duck the question on continuing aid to Israel, as he did, or say yes, we should continue aid to Israel, as Bill Clinton would have. (No, we don’t know whether Bob Dole would have ducked or said yes.) One thing is for sure. No candidate is going to say, just before the election, that the U.S. should stop or cut aid to Israel — at least not until Arab Americans, Muslim Americans and others for an even-handed Middle East policy form as formidable a voting bloc as have those one-issue voters who support a pro-Israel U.S. Middle East policy.
An Endorsement for Ralph NaderI wish to endorse Ralph Nader as the presidential candidate that readers of the Washington Report should support. Ralph Nader is one of the most respected persons in the world, and he has earned that respect through his work protecting the rights of Americans for over 30 years. Ralph Nader has agreed to run for president and he is currently on the ballot in nine states, including the crucial state of California. In seven of the nine states, Nader is running on the Green Party ticket. Supporters hope to have his name on the ballot in 30 to 40 states before the election. Unlike the other candidates for president, Ralph Nader has unimpeachable integrity. Unlike Clinton/Dole, Ralph Nader has not and does not pander for votes. Unlike Dole/Clinton, Ralph Nader is not in the pocket of corporate or Israeli interests. Unlike his opponents, Ralph Nader does not burn with the desire to be president. This means that Ralph Nader will not be influenced by money from AIPAC or any other group. Ralph Nader provides a choice for voters who care about the Middle East, but who are turned off by Dole’s position on social issues as well as by Dole’s recently stated positions on Israel. Ralph Nader stands for the American worker, and opposes the predatory practices of multinational corporations. Ralph Nader led the opposition to NAFTA and GATT because he understood that they would drive down wages worldwide, eliminate decent jobs, and be destructive of the environment. Ralph Nader has campaigned hard and long for campaign finance reform which, if passed, would reduce and/or eliminate the clout of AIPAC. Publicly supported political campaigns would allow our elected officials to vote their conscience without fear of being the next AIPAC target. In addition, Ralph Nader stands for the single-payer health care reform, providing health care coverage for all Americans. Ralph Nader also believes in protecting our environment through increased support for renewable energy. Ralph Nader is the intelligent choice for voters tired of the “evil of the two lessers.” For more information about the Nader campaign, readers can contact the Nader Clearinghouse at 1-888-Nader96 or by e-mail at nader96@vais.net. There is also a Nader World Wide Web page at: http://www.vais.net/nader96. Ronald N. Forthofer, Ph.D., Longmont, CO We know Ralph Nader personally, and his late brother Shafiq and his sister Claire helped keep this magazine going by providing low-rent office space in our early years. So if our principal issue were the environment, and we thought he was on enough state ballots to win, we would consider Ralph Nader, even though we disagree with him on some other issues. However, our principal issue is an even-handed U.S. policy in the Middle East and, although he is an Arab American, we are not aware of any public positions Ralph Nader has taken regarding that issue. However, many of our readers who aren’t satisfied with either President Clinton or Senator Dole will want to ponder your endorsement and perhaps follow up on the addresses you’ve provided.
Your Cover Says It AllYour July front cover photo of a sign held by an Israeli, “Israel. Because the Promised Land is for the Chosen People. For Good…For Keeps…Forever,” says it all. When an Israeli woman in the West Bank says: “This is our country…if the Palestinians do not like what we are doing let them leave,” it doesn’t surprise me. I am a 1948 refugee and I experienced this mentality before and after my escape from Jaffa, an Arab city of 100,000, on April 26, 1948 following a day-long mortar attack from Tel Aviv, Batyam and AgroBank. My only dilemma is why the USA and the Western world could not rest until they forced the revocation of the U.N. resolution equating Zionism with racism. Is it conceivable that they could not see the blatant, ruthless and insensitive racism in Israel’s aggressive policies? Shukri Salameh, Jacksonville, FL Well, first, Zionism iseither racism or bigotry, depending upon whether one considers the blatant discrimination implicit in both Zionism’s theory and its practice as racial or religious. Second, leaders of the Western world do know this. Third, and you’ve heard this from us before, U.S. political leaders will not officially discover this until after they first discover that Muslim Americans and Arab Americans not only can but do vote and are prepared to vote as a bloc on the other side of Israeli questions from the only existing one-issue Middle East voting bloc presently on the American political scene.
You’ve Given Me a Balanced EducationI am writing because I am ecstatic and disgusted. Ecstasy is the state I have been in since I picked up this magazine from the shelf. I am disgusted because of certain political situations I find increasingly intolerable. How refreshing to find other kindred souls sharing the concerns I have for the Palestinian people. I am a graduate student (one more year to go) and, believe it or not, I feel very much alone in my concerns for global tragedies. I am not anti-American; but I do feel that our foreign policy toward the Middle East and North Africa is unforgivably biased. I do my homework, and with the help of Mr. Curtiss’s articles, I am receiving a balanced education. It is time that those of us who feel strongly on Arab-related issues stand up and make our votes count in November. It is shameful how this country glossed over the atrocities of the Hezbollah bombings in Lebanon. It is unfair that Jerusalem is encroaching further and further into Palestinian settlements. It’s easy for us to be complacent here. No one has the legal right to come into our homes and pull the easy chair from under our backsides. This “might makes right” is dreadfully wrong in my book. Many people are not aware (not surprisingly) that Islam believes in peace and forgiveness first. But if you are confronted with eviction, slaughter and unending aggression, what are you to do? Not try to hang on to what is yours? For Palestinians who are up against powerfully backed pursuers, what hope do they have? If they have no legal rights, what about human rights? There are none! I must keep doing my homework. If we all do, especially our unbalanced diplomats, perhaps we really can achieve something of an understanding; then comes peace. Please keep up your excellent and important work, and kudos to Mr. Curtiss for his informative and well-researched articles. Thank you. Leslie A. Carr, Kenmore, NY You keep on doing your homework and we’ll keep on doing ours. As for the unbalanced diplomats, they aren’t motivated by ignorance, but by fear. In weakling Warren Christopher’s State Department, you take orders from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, as he does, or your career suffers sudden death. Just ask anyone who deals with the Middle East there. They’ll tell you in technicolor, so long as the conversation remains off the record.
The Three Faces of EveThe Three Faces of Eve have nothing on Ambassador Madeleine Albright. Her statements on Iraq are probably kept in a looseleaf notebook. Consider the following two statements on the U.N. sanctions on Iraq and the suffering it has caused, including massive deaths. First the “60 Minutes” program aired on CBS on May 12, 1996. Leslie Stahl said that “We have heard that a million children died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” Ambassador Albright: “I think this is a very hard choice, but we think the price is worth it.” Almost three months later, to the day, the United States removed the last major barrier, after five years of changing and re-changing barriers, to the sale of Iraqi oil in order to aid civilians and alleviate the suffering and death. Here is a partial statement attributed to Albright. “We do believe that the important part here is to get humanitarian assistance to the people in Iraq” ( The New York Times, Aug. 8, 1996). Move over Eve, our foreign policy has you beat. Robert J. Pisapia, Westlake Village, CA
Thanks for the LaughsDespite the stupidity that is our country’s Israel-first Middle East policy, there are still opportunities for us to laugh. The Aug./Sept. issue of the Washington Report provided us with two such opportunities. On page 6 I nearly choked on my lunch from laughing so hard at the caption “all this is yours” under a photo of President Clinton pointing, presumably toward the national capitol, as he stood on the White House balcony with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Perhaps those weren’t the president’s exact words, but, as the caption continued, “actions speak louder than words.” The other chuckles came from reading the report of Dole’s record on Israel, distributed by the National Jewish Democratic Council. At first I thought I might be reading comments from the Likud Party campaign, but snapped back to the reality that our representatives are elected on their support for Israel. Sounds like the NJDC is a collection of paranoids who missed the train marked Tel Aviv and wound up in Washington. Besides, with Dole’s selection of Kemp for a running mate, they ought to just calm down because, like spoiled kids in a candy store, the Israel-firsters are sure to get whatever they want. Also, is it just me, or did anyone else hear Bob Costa’s idiotic comments first during the introduction of the Israeli athletes and then again during the appearance of the Palestinian contingent at the Olympics? If so, I’d be interested if anyone has requested an apology for his repetitious comments about the 1972 massacre in Munich. Thanks, as always, to WRMEA for giving us something to smile about in the otherwise grim reality of our country’s Middle East policy. Ray A. Rafidi, Richardson, TX We were apalled as were several other readers at the highly politicized comments during what otherwise was a deeply moving Olympics opening ceremony. Perhaps from now on, whenever he covers a sports event involving Israeli athletes, Bob Costas should remember to add, “They’re the people who seized Palestine and still occupy all of it after killing or dispossessing its original inhabitants!”
The Central Rabbinical CongressWe read a message on the Internet last night. It was a copy of something purportedly published in The New York Times, dated Sunday, July 14, 1996. It was titled “A Clarification of Torah Doctrine,” issued by The Central Rabbinical Congress of the U.S. and Canada, 85 Division Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11211, tel: (718) 384-6765. In it, it made, among others, the following statements:
We found these statements surprising. Is this document legitimate? If so, what impact, if any, might this have upon Zionism? Would it be possible for you to reprint the article in a future edition? Perhaps many Jews might be as unaware of these positions as we were. And perhaps, just perhaps, it might even modify some behavior. Vi and Sam Parks, Albuquerque, NM The statements are taken from a quarter-page advertisement in The New York Times by a sect of Orthodox Jews who have opposed Zionism since its beginnings in Europe at the end of the 19th century. Most American Jews are aware of this school of thought holding that establishment of a Jewish state before the coming of the Messiah is a blasphemy. All Israelis are aware of the existence of the Netura Kartei sect because it is large and active in Jerusalem. This orthodox Jewish sect also has been represented on the executive council of the PLO and now is represented in President Yasser Arafat’s PNA cabinet. You won’t read any of this in the obscurantist American mainstream media, of course, which is why these earnest and deeply religious Jews have to resort to paid advertisements to distinguish themselves from the Israeli and American Likudniks who are busily sowing the wind that both the guilty and innocent may reap as a hurricane. Read on.
Israeli Elections — Jewish ViewThe common perception of late, supported by a massive media campaign, is that religious Jews support Israel and are heavily involved in its election process. We therefore wish to publicly declare this is decidedly not the stance of authentic, faithful Jewry. Authentic Jewry is not associated in any way with the so-called “State of Israel.” They have no connection with its decisions or with its on-going conflicts with other peoples. In fact, they have no relationship or contact with it whatsoever. The mere fact of seeking to end the Jewish divinely decreed Exile by human means and establish a state (even if that state be religious and its laws based on Torah) is a violation of the Jewish faith. The true Jewish leaders warned long ago that the establishment of sovereignty over the land’s previous inhabitants — the Palestinians — is illegitimate and would inevitably lead to bloodshed. This fear has been realized. Both sides suffer, seemingly without an end in sight. The world grows tired of seeking a solution. Responsibility for all this lies solely on the Zionists — not on the authentic Jews. They have no connection with the political or other efforts of Israel. This was always the position of Torah leaders. This has always been the position of Torah-true Jewry and this will always be their position. Their perspective remains the same whether Israel is successful or in a catastrophe. There is no circumstance capable of pushing the Torah-true Jew into a connection with Israel. The Torah position remains always the same: Israel is not a Jewish state, but a Zionist state; Israeli leaders of whatever party have no right to represent, or to speak in the name of the Jewish people; the name Israel is a misrepresentation, stolen, so to speak, from the authentic Jewish people. All Orthodox Jews and their leaders who have associated themselves with Israel and support it have falsified the true Torah faith. They have distorted Torah in order to serve their political or personal interests. Many of these rabbis are under constant pressure from the masses who have been driven to an emotional state by Zionist propaganda. The media is controlled by the Zionists. Authentic Jewry cannot raise its voice above the din created by this propaganda wave. We await God’s salvation. M. Mordkovych, Neturei Karta, Monsey, NY
An Appreciative AmericanMy husband and I enjoyed your executive editor’s speech at the World Affairs Council of Orange County meeting in June. It was honest, interesting and refreshing after all the presentations we receive from the other side through the media. I understand you have heard about Herb Tobin’s article about that meeting in the Orange County Register. Words could not adequately explain my emotions when I read it. Did you hear my screams in Washington? I wrote an article in response and I am sending you a copy. It was not published and it probably does not make sense to anyone without Tobin’s article. I have now joined the World Affairs Council of Orange County and the Arab American Republican Club. I have even met Mr. Tobin and will probably be seeing him again sometime. That may be interesting. Mr. Curtiss was superb and I, as an American, appreciate all that your magazine has done and continues to do for the United States and for the people in the Middle East who are being treated so miserably and with cruelty. I have already called President Clinton and the State Department about Binyamin Netanyahu’s visit and made suggestions on “briefing” Clinton. They were probably wasted efforts but I have had some interesting conversations over the years — and my conscience is clear. Thank you again for your wise words and continuing courage. Florence Richards, Whittier, CA We thought your unpublished letter to the Orange County Register made perfect sense with or without reading the Tobin article so we are reprinting it in “Other People’s Mail” on page 53 of this issue. At our request Mr. Tobin submitted a “two views” article to this magazine a year or two ago, but we found some of his suggestions for what the Palestinians should do to strengthen the peace proces too callous for our taste so we did not publish it. Nevertheless, he is a gentleman and our two-way dialogue with him has always been friendly and courteous. Of course that may owe something to the fact that both he and we are a tad hard of hearing.
The Pakistan ArticlesI had the pleasure of reading your articles by Richard Curtiss on Pakistan in the Aug./Sept issue of the Washington Report. I am a foreign student at Bennington College working toward my B.A. degree in 1997. My major is Political Economy and in this following academic year I will be writing my thesis on the political and economic relationships between China, Pakistan and India. That is why I have found your articles so interesting and quite invaluable to my research. I have not as yet defined my thesis topic. However, before I choose a specific issue, I am interested in researching Pakistan’s trade relations and its foreign policy toward China and India. I am wondering if you are able to provide any guidance concerning recent literature that may be useful for my thesis. I am particularly interested in obtaining government documents of trade agreements and official records of foreign policies Pakistan has pursued in its dealings with China and India. Once again, it was a pleasure to read your articles. Maliha Subhani, Bennington College, Bennington, VT 05201 We’re only ink-stained wretches (okay, toner-smudged inputers), so we’ve printed your mailing address with the letter above so that readers with suggestions, or perhaps students with similar research goals, can contact you directly. You have no idea how satisfying are the sentiments of serious students to ink-smudged scribes.
An Interest in PakistanThat was a great series of pieces your executive editor did on Pakistan. We were in Pakistan on two occasions in the 1980s and 1990s. Much as Pakistan has its Muslim extremists, it is, as you point out, full of well-educated and hard-working people who know just what is wrong, and are determined to work for justice. We don’t know how you do it, traveling around the Middle East, and succeeding in publishing the Washington Report. At any rate, we welcome each issue, read it thoroughly, and preserve them for future referrals. Hope you can keep the WRMEA afloat in this terrible period. The end of the article by Robert Hazo was one of the best, succinct, summaries of the present Palestinian-Israeli problem. Good luck in your work, you deserve it. Jim Young, Wilmington, OH We don’t know how we do it either. And keeping afloat this year has been particularly difficult, as we point out on page 43of this issue. Robert Hazo is delighted that ever since we told him that although we disagreed with his prediction that the Netanyahu government might be short-lived, we would print it in the interest of presenting all sides of the question under examination, we have been receiving letters and phone calls, particularly from people who have lived in Israel, saying how right he is.
The Balfour Piece Was RewardingI don’t often read the Report cover-to-cover but digesting the May/June issue, particularly Andrew Killgore’s scholarly piece on Balfour et al., was truly rewarding. Robert Burns, Cupertino, CA We hope that will teach you to stop skipping around and read every issue cover-to-cover. It’s only 60 to 80 articles and departments per issue, so how better to invest a couple of days?
You’ve Made Great ProgressThe Report has made great progress. We would appreciate having information on Arab-European Union, Arab-German, and Arab-French relations and events. Helga Kasimoff, Los Angeles, CA We’re starting a column in this issue on page 23 by best-selling author and long-time Middle East expert Patrick Seale that may supply a bit of what you are seeking, written from the U.K. If there’s anyone out there who would like to report directly from France or Germany, send us a sample column and we’ll say yes or no. Now if we just had another 140 pages in addition to the ones we’ve already filled in this issue, we could cover Islamic and Arab affairs all over the globe.
Giving My AllPlease forgive my current un-renewed status regarding the Washington Report. It is due solely to my own current disastrous financial situation, and not to any dissatisfaction with your excellent publication, which is more necessary than ever in these dark times for the Palestinian people. My renewal notice is right next to my car payment coupon in the stack of “urgent bills to pay,” and with my firewood and hay bills. I will renew as soon as I possibly can. Enclosed is the scrounging from the bottom of my pocketbook. This is pathetic, but as I think of my brothers and sisters in Palestine who do not share the bounty I have of ample water and pasture for my goats, and the freedom to till my garden in peace, I give thanks for my own situation and pray that God will soon alleviate theirs. I confess that I have all but lost hope in any human solution of peace with justice for the Palestinians and neighboring Arab peoples. Ill-will seems far to outweigh or outrank good-will. Surely we can still trust God, neither to abandon the oppressed peoples of Palestine, nor to fail to restrain their oppressors. May justice come soon; may it be bloodless, the product of compassion and repentance. Please keep up your own good work, and be assured I will soon add my financial as well as prayerful support. Name withheld, Pennsylvania Your subscription has been renewed. Pay only when and if you can. (But are you sure having a car as important as having the Washington Report?)
You Have Influenced ManyKindly discontinue my subscription. I am a long-time supporter of your work and magazine. I am now 94 and can no longer read well. Best of luck. Your efforts have influenced many. Thank you. Emma W. Wallbridge, Austin, TX It is gratifying but also sad that generally we lose subscribers (besides those who move and forget to send us a new forwarding address) only to failing eyesight or death. We’re glad in your case it’s the former.
In Defense of Free SpeechMost reasonable people accept it as a given that the free and open marketplace of ideas is where the truth is most likely to emerge. Surely the opposite would be to arbitrarily proclaim the “Truth,” stifling any contradictions regardless of merit. Having been on the victim’s side of this equation much of the time, one would expect the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs to be sensitive to the plight of others subjected to this form of intellectual bigotry. You don’t have to subscribe to a given point of view to allow a fair presentation of its position, especially after it’s been savaged and/or its proponents have been subjected to ad hominem attacks. While you are certainly entitled to your opinion that, in your words, “the European Holocaust happened,” (Letters, July 1996, p. 102), you’re not entitled to shelter under a mantle of fairness, objectivity and defender of oppressed people if you arbitrarily accept a simplistic and agenda-driven definition of a very complex position without allowing a full explanation of it. Aside from its use as a weapon to discredit and even demonize, what does “Holocaust denial” really mean? As with the popularized term “holocaust” it means different things to different people — from “denying” the planned murder of 12 million people to “denying” the existence of concentration camps. You seem to believe that it means denying ethnic cleansing, which could be as relatively benign as a relocation policy. How can we know what the reality is if we can’t freely examine and put the various versions to the test? Try it and you might find that it’s about as logical to automatically conclude that Jews were gassed because some were no longer in their home country as it is to arrive at the same conclusion about the Palestinian diaspora. (See The Dissolution of Eastern European Jewry, by Walter N. Sanning.) John Mortl, Bala, Ontario, Canada We don’t think of any relocation policies as “benign,” but read on.
A Revisionist ResponseThis is a response to your attack upon myself and Holocaust Revisionists in general (Washington Report, July 1996, pp. 102-103). Intellectual honesty demands you publish this letter in total, with no “clever editing” performed. Revisionists contend the Nazi government never planned to exterminate Jewry, the “Final Solution” being no more no less than their expulsion from Europe. During the course of WWII Jews were forcibly uprooted from German-controlled areas and sent to ghettos and camps in Poland, then later to Soviet-occupied territories. We further assert (and have evidence to prove it) that the “Hitler gas chambers” never existed and were the creations of Allied and Zionist war propaganda. Holocaust skeptics do not deny that Germany and its allies committed atrocities against Jews. A large number were shot by the German army during their anti-guerrilla warfare campaign on the Eastern Front. Others were slain during atrocities committed in Nazi-controlled areas. Although not deliberately murdered, many Jews died of disease and malnutrition brought on by wartime conditions. Revisionists contend that the number of Jewish deaths from all causes was between 200,000 and one million. Thus, contrary to what you imply, we don’t deny that any ethnic cleansing of Jews took place. We simply point out Jewry suffered no more no less than other ethnic groups prior to or during WWII. In order to “justify” and “legitimatize” the taking of Palestinian Arab land and the founding of Israel, the “Holocaust” has been vastly exaggerated. The Holocaust mythos is used as an ideological battering ram against people of European descent. Exploiting the feelings of guilt which lurk within the Christian psyche, Zionist ideologues constantly remind Americans that because White Christians are mainly responsible for the “horrors of the Hitler gas chambers,” it is their “moral duty” to ensure Israel’s survival and well-being. For these reasons alone Holocaust revisionism is an appropriate topic for the Washington Report. Furthermore, your attack is an excellent example of the fallacy of alleged certainty. Nowhere (!) do you offer proof that Holocaust Revisionism is false. You simply “authoritatively” declare that the “Holocaust happened” and anyone who claims otherwise is careless and pigheaded. By a clever use of rhetoric instead of hard evidence, you have attempted to get people to accept your viewpoint. Consider just a small sample of salient Revisionist points. In 1945, “official history” asserted that “gas chambers” had functioned in the Nazi camps in Germany as well as in Poland. Fifteen years later, in 1960, it revised its judgment: “gas chambers” had been in operation only in Poland. That awkward revision of 1960 reduced to nothing the large number of “testimonies” and “proofs” of the alleged gassings in Nazi concentration camps in Germany. The late Dr. William B. Lindsey, a research chemist employed for 33 years by the Dupont Corporation, testified in a 1985 court case that the Auschwitz gassing story is technically impossible. In 1988 Fred Leuchter, America’s leading gas chamber expert, carefully examined the supposed “gas chambers” in Poland and concluded that the gassing story is absurd and technically impossible. Walter Luftl, the former president of Austria’s professional association of engineers, also concluded that the alleged mass extermination of Jews in gas chambers is “technically impossible.” When one is confronted with facts such as these, an open-minded rational person would at least have the intellectual honesty to give Holocaust Revisionism a fair hearing. Unfortunately, WRMEA has shown itself to be close-minded and bigoted on the “Holocaust” issue. You simply refuse to even read our point of view. Thus, the charge of “carelessness” and “pigheadedness” which you level against Revisionists hurls right back into your face. I defy you to publish this letter in total. Or are you afraid that this will upset your prejudiced mind? Paul Grubach, Lyndhurst, OH We’ve now published your letter, unedited and in total, as you requested. We assume you will agree that, whatever the total who died and were killed, the Nazis had no more right to carry out “the expulsion from Europe” of Jews than do the Serbs to carry out “ethnic cleansing” of Muslims from the Balkans or the Israelis to expel Palestinians from the land of their birth. Perhaps if you started out from that premise, people would be more likely to listen to your point of view. As for our own viewpoint, we think that if their only purpose was to remove Jews from Europe, the Nazis who shipped entire Jewish communities of men, women and children from such places as the Greek islands of Rhodes and Kos, neither more than 13 miles from Turkey, all the way to Poland, from which virtually none returned, certainly must have been working from faulty maps.
Re: “You’re Unfair to Revisionists”I read this letter and your response and had to put it aside, your response was so illogical. First, the Jewish definition of the Holocaust is the State-sponsored genocide of 6 million Jews mostly by gassing. It is illegal to debate any part of this topic in Germany. One must accept this premise in its entirety even though the Polish and Jewish authorities in Poland have agreed that at least 3 million fewer persons died at Auschwitz than previously claimed. Several Holocaust believers have set the number considerably lower. Arno Mayer, professor of history at Princeton and a survivor of Auschwitz, claims there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz. Simon Wiesenthal has publicly written that there were never any gas chambers on German soil, Yehuda Bauer, head of Yad Vashem, and Elan Steinberg of the World Jewish Congress have said that eyewitness testimony is unreliable. The propaganda stories of soap from Jewish fat and lampshades from Jewish skin have been proven to be war propaganda. The stories of killing in diesel vans, submerging in elevators to electrocute, steaming to death have all been set aside as war propaganda. One of the most astounding stories proven untrue was the Katyn Massacre. According to the world almanac, with figures provided by the American Jewish Committee and the Statistical Bureau of the Synagogues of America, the actual number of Jews in the world increased by millions during the years of WWII. All of this stated, it does not take away from the fact that many Jews were persecuted and many died and many innocent people suffered. As an inaugural supporter of your publication I know you are well aware of the duplicity of the Zionists regarding the Palestinians. Do you honestly believe that this is a characteristic that originated with the establishment of the State of Israel? To deny fair and free debate of the Holocaust and all of the history surrounding WWII is tantamount to treason. Without debate you are denying freedom of thought and freedom of speech. You are denying academic freedom by your statement “it happened.” I have to ask, are you obstructionists who keep us busy feeling good because we support your publication while you abet the strengthening of a world-wide religious hegemony by Israel? Discussing the Palestinian problem out of context with WWI and WWII is like coming into the second act of a two-act play. The world over, academics are coming more and more to question the Hollywood version of history that is being taught as Gospel. These brave men are risking careers, reputations and in some cases life and limb for the truth. If truth were not what your publication were all about I would not be so offended by your out-of-hand rejection of debate. I am submitting some material, all from Jewish sources, all of a revisionist nature. Surely this will give you food for thought. Truth can only serve to strengthen freedom, it is not to be feared, unless one has something to hide. Josef and Judith Schuchmann, Carnelian Bay, CA Yours and the other letters above are just the tip of the iceberg of letters and phone calls we’ve received on the subject of Holocaust Revisionism. One nit to pick. As we understand it, the story of the Katyn Massacre was not untrue. The massacre of much of the Polish officer corps in the Katyn Forest happened, but it was the Soviet Russian army, not the Nazi German army, that carried it out. We agree that the subject of the Holocaust is important, but basically our field is the Middle East. We just don’t have the space to get into the arguments as to how many were killed, nor do we intend to. We assume all can agree, however, that it happened, it shouldn’t have happened, and the fact that it did happen in no way justifies what subsequently was done in the Middle East by the Israelis to the Palestinians, who had nothing to do with what was done to the Jews in Europe by German Nazis and their allies. Subject closed in this magazine for 1996?
Kudos for Iran Conference CoverageOur international director, Darab Ganji, brought to my attention the article by Dokhi Fassihian on the Iran in Transition Conference in the July issue of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. I just want to congratulate the author on a well-written and well-balanced article on the conference. W. Herbert Hunt, Petro-Hunt Corporation, Dallas, TX Dokhi Fassihian, our former business manager, is back in school this year as a graduate student at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) but still following Iranian affairs closely. As for the article you cite, we found it a model of superb conference coverage, although she was there primarily to acquaint all participants with the Washington Report.
A Stock Market LegendAs those of your readers who follow the financial markets know, Jim Rogers has become a stock market legend by scouring the international markets to find unloved markets poised for huge rallies. He seemed to have discovered his latest diamond in the rough, when, in the January 1994 Barron’s roundtable, he issued a bullish analysis of the Iranian stock market. I began to watch the Tehran index at the start of 1996, and have seen it jump 75 percent this year. Unfortunately, the U.S. government had closed the door on all American investment in Iran last year. Iran is opening its doors to the West, but the U.S. is bent on rebuking every conciliatory move made by Iran. The most blatant example is the multi-billion dollar Conoco oil deal nixed by the U.S. government. To quote Jim Rogers, “[Conoco] got the deal because the Iranians wanted to send a signal to Washington that they wanted to open up more.” After reporting to the State Department every month for three years on the progress of the negotiations, just before its finalization came the decree from Washington that the deal would not be permitted. I urge readers of the Washington Report to write in protest of this policy, to their congressmen or to: Treasury Department I also think this would be a compelling topic for an article in your magazine. Jim Rogers is one of the most outspoken figures on Wall Street, and no doubt would be willing to be interviewed by your magazine. Thomas Miller, Atlanta, GA |