Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October/November 1998, pages 3, 94-98

Letters to the Editor

Superior British Journalism?

The other day I came across an editorial in the Economist magazine entitled “Israeli New Provocation, Stretching Jerusalem,” along with detailed analysis under the international section. Perhaps you may agree with me that the quality of British journalism is possibly superior to ours!

I thought you might wish to review the material, copies attached, if it could be used in the supplement of the WR, under “Other Voices.” Keep up the good work and God bless you!

Mohamed Alwan, Annapolis, MD

Thanks. It’s perceptive readers like you, who sense and send what we need for our various departments and publications, that have made it possible for us to keep it all rolling out, on schedule, for the past 161ã2 years.

The Wrong Person

In the Jan./Feb. 1998 issue of the Washington Report, Mr. Russell Warren Howe in the letters column, “More on Zimmermann Telegram,” said: “It resembles the remarkable CIA false-flag exercise which persuaded Nasser to expel the Soviet military mission from Egypt in 1972.” As a matter of fact, it was Anwar Sadat, Henry Kissinger’s friend, who did so, not Gamal Abdel Nasser who passed away on Sept. 28, 1970.

Kamel Mudarry, Brighton, MA

Touch’! Our mistake.

Bishop John Nolan

A quick note to thank you for the lovely write-up on our friend, Bishop John Nolan. I’m so glad he has received the kind of recognition his death deserved—unlike The New York Times, which treated his passing like any other nobody’s. From Janet McMahon’s article, I learned things I did not know about him, such as his role in the hostage situation back in 1980. We thought we knew him well! If I could use but one word for him, it would be “terrific.” He was a big fan of WRMEA , by the way.

Congratulations also to Delinda Hanley on her new job as AET news editor.

Mary Norton, Houston, TX

Why Not Use the Poll?

In May I sent you the results of a poll conducted and published on May 5, 1998 by the largest paper in central Florida, the Orlando Sentinel. The poll stated that 74 percent of respondents wanted “aid” to Israel ended now. I thought this poll bad ly needed national exposure.

For some reason you did not publish this poll and I cannot understand your reason for this omission. Would you please be kind enough to enlighten me in this matter?

Ted Byrd, Merritt Island, FL

Your clipping is reprinted in this issue’s “Other Voices,” the 16-page supplement to this magazine. Readers not receiving “Other Voices” bound into each issue of the Washington Report, may send $15 to start a subscription. If you’ve sent your $15 and still are not receiving “Other Voices,” use our toll-free number (press 2) to call circulation director Samia El-Mahdi.

Can Their Votes Be Bought?

I have been reading your “Two Ways to Make U.S. Mideast Policy Even-Handed,” in the July/Aug. issue received this morning. I assisted in founding Chicago’s Muslim League of Voters in the early ’80s and was pleased to see other actual results in the columns of your article.

I also note that you reckon roughly 40 percent of your readers to be of Muslim or Arab extraction, which makes the Report the most widely read of non-Muslim publications and remarkably successful on that ground. I have distributed hundreds of copies at mosques in the Pacific Northwest, where I am known for orthodoxy—and Muslims have all been initially hesitant to accept literature from non-Muslim sources, most declining. To overcome the prejudices involved and acquire regular readers in this population is no small accomplishment, and a unique position of influence.

Essentially the same prejudices continue to militate against Muslim involvement in American politics, not a few of which inhibit Muslim religious leaders from appearing to approve non-Muslim political leaders. You might revisit, by the copy enclosed, my “Political Process for Muslim America,” which “greatly heartened” you in the Dec./Jan. ’93 issue (p. 91). It addresses these inhibitions and cultural factors for readers such as your 40 percent, and may be more timely now that Muslims are organizing for political action. Before ISNA’s “1200” mosques will endanger their tax exempt recognition, the rationale of activism must be known to the people.

Your accounts of the AMC and AMA on p. 103 are of interest because Muslim America seems to be on neither mailing list. Didn’t half of these people return that Zionist to the White House? We continue to find unsettling the degree to which the Muslim vote can be bought by a luncheon date or photo op with a luminary of any stripe.

Sheikh Dawud Ahmad Al-Amriki, Muslim America, P.O. Box 231, Springdale, WA, 99173-0231, tel. (509) 258-9031, fax 1 (800) Muslims.

That certainly was a factor in 1996 when reluctance of two different national groups that thought they had an “in” with the Clinton White House, plus concern among some other national Muslim leaders that they would endorse a loser and then be disowned by their membership, led the group of national Muslim leaders as a whole to refrain from endorsing either presidential candidate. Maybe the ease with which local Muslim groups seem to be reaching unified endorsements at the local level for Senate, House, state, county and municipal offices in 1998 will ease the way to a bloc Muslim presidential vote in 2000.

The “Mayflower Arab”

I was honored to be featured in your Feb./March issue in the article by David Johnson.

Since this article, we’ve been invited to Methuen to dinner by a Syrian-Lebanese group. Also ADC in Worcester has asked me to give a talk. Lots of good things are happening. Libraries are asking for copies of my thesis, “Anglos and Arabs: Will They Ever Meet?” At Harvard, CMES has a copy for their library and has asked me to write one of their newsletters, taking information from the thesis. It truly is an honor to be recognized as a pro-Arab writer and activist.

Thank you for helping me on my path.

Carol Rae Bradford (“Mayflower Arab”), Woburn, MA

Our correspondent David Johnson gets the thanks for his wide-ranging coverage of the Northeast, and then we’ll take a bow for finding such a generous, hard-working reporter to do the job.

Supporters From Afar

Enclosed are my renewals, also a contribution of $1,000 to AET.

Richard Curtiss’ weekly articles in our daily Arab News newspaper are so much appreciated here.

H.M. Bogary, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

The Situation Remains Grim

I realized after speaking with you the other day (and then receiving the current issue of the Report) that your financial situation remains grim. So I’m making a second contribution of $1,500 now, rather than waiting for later in the year. I hope it helps.

If necessary, I will find another $5,000 for you between now and the end of the year. Just give me a call or drop me a line. I admire all that you’ve endured and accomplished.

John O’Kelly, East Williston, NY

You’ve provided two very generous donations for this year, so we hope we won’t have to call on you again until 1999. Many thanks.

(P.S., that’s a hope, not a promise.)

Another Generous Subscriber

Enclosed please find a check in the amount of $150. Please divide this amount for the following:

(1) One-year subscription to your great magazine, the Washington Report, for myself.

(2) One-year subscription to “Other Voices,” for myself also.

(3) Please consider the $110 that remains as a donation to be used as you see appropriate. Perhaps you can use it to send your magazine to some of those persons who wish to subscribe but could not do so for lack of money. I am a retired citizen and live on a fixed income and know how hard it is to spare a few dollars.

I must admit that I have become addicted to your marvelous magazine and I read it cover to cover. You have moral courage beyond description.

Ned Ammari, Westerville, OH

We have used the surplus exactly as you suggest. There are a lot of people in that situation.

In Memory of Marion Fitch

We enclose a contribution of $100 to your fund as a memorial to Miss Marion Fitch from her four English cousins—Mrs. Marie Eyles, Mrs. Rosemary Page, Mrs. Viola Crowe and Mr. Richard Viney. We were much saddened by the news of her death for although we saw Marion infrequently, we felt that she was a part of the family and she will be missed by us all.

Viola Crane, Wallingsford, Oxon, England

She was also family for those who could count on her to turn up (and get others to turn out) at protests at the White House, Israeli Embassy, Capitol Hill and other places when the occupants merited her scorn.

Alone in Iowa

The enclosed op-ed piece by Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe needs a more professional response than I can give. My wife, Marie, and I were in East Jerusalem and Gaza in January 1990. We met Marion Fitch, a good friend. She often mentioned Andrew Killgore and AET.

While I was renewing my subscription, one of your employees referred me to AAI to contact an Iowa discussion group. I feel very lonely in Des Moines. We have a very good, in the best sense of the word, Jewish community in Des Moines. But they are strongly pro-Israel.

They do have problems with the extreme Israelis—the Orthodox on the matter of authorized conversions to Judaism. As a lifetime Roman Catholic I can understand their feeling, but not their hard stance. Israel should have an American constitutional First Amendment. In fact, as anyone well read on Israel knows, they need a Constitution.

Barry J. Malloy, Des Moines, IA

Write “Israeli” Settlers

I’m astounded how Zionists define the language in which Mideast politics are argued. A good example is the issue of settlers in the West Bank and Gaza. All sides of the conflict refer to these as “Jewish” settlers; yet, this is not their salient characteristic. The settlers are most correctly, and most disparagingly, referred to as “Israeli” settlers.

Zionists like to refer to the settlers as Jewish for several obvious reasons. It distracts from the colonial policies of Israel; it creates the false impression that Arabs are anti-Jewish; and it furthers the misbelief that the Israeli-Arab conflict is primarily a religious one.

The defining logic to this question is as follows. Would Palestinians be significantly less resentful if Christians or Muslims were claiming Palestinian land in the name of Israel, carrying Israeli citizenship, flying the Israeli flag, and provoking Palestinian anxiety? I think not!

Don’t conduct this debate on Israel’s terms. From now on, refer to the settlers exclusively as “Israeli” settlers. That is exactly what they are, in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

David Lappa, Livermore, CA

We’re not sure we fully agree with you, and would feel a little hypocritical about only calling them “Israeli settlers” when so many seem to come directly from the U.S. to the West Bank while barely stopping in Israel. Where space permits we’ll probably continue referring to them both as “Israeli settlers” and “Jewish West Bank settlers” while restraining ourselves from using such equally accurate terms as “thieves” and, in the vernacular of the American West, “claim jumpers.”

To Support Your Good Work

I’m just interested primarily in supporting your good work. You must know about C.O.M. and Mark Bruzonsky. I’ve urged them to publicize WRMEA on their listserver but with no success. What gives?

Howard Baumgartel, Lawrence, KS

There was a time several years ago when we mailed a brochure to our readership on behalf of Mark Bruzonsky (who had recently left a position with the American Jewish Congress) and his Committee on the Middle East, and also allowed him to place one or two fund-raising ads for his organization in our magazine. But we soon realized that virtually all of his efforts seemed concentrated on publicly disparaging other American organizations critical of Zionism. Then when our pages no longer were available to him, he began disparaging us as well, which at least put us in better company. We are reminded of the Old Testament description of Ishmael: “his hand was against every man, and every man’s hand was against him.”

Important for Insight

My job requires extensive reading (I am a diplomat here in the Middle East) and the Washington Report offers me news and insight that is useful and not available elsewhere. Keep up the good work.

Susan Heher, Ramallah

Gingrich a Turnoff, But You Aren’t

I apologize for not getting this donation to you sooner. I meant to send it several months ago.

I confess I am becoming discouraged and your publication is the only ray of hope. I can’t even get my senators and representative to answer letters on the Middle East. Thanks to Gingrich, I haven’t given the Republican Party a dime in the past two years. Keep up the good work and God bless you.

Clyde A. Farris, West Linn, OR

Thanks for your $1,000 donation. It’s generous people like you who keep our ray of hope kindled. Personally we think both Gore and Gingrich have tin ears politically. Our mail makes us suspect that with most voters, if not financial contributors, being seen as a “Friend of Israel” is becoming a political liability because, thanks to Binyamin Netanyahu, informed Americans now realize that the racist, bigoted Israeli government is the antithesis of everything Americans have stood for in the past and want to continue to stand for in the future.

The Logan Act

The May 4, 1998 issue of Newsweek magazine contained a story about ex-President Bush going apoplectic when he recently found out that ex-President Carter secretly wrote leaders to the Arab coalition just a few days before the Gulf war began in 1991. Carter asked them to “call publicly for a delay in the use of force in order to seek a peaceful solution. Most Americans will welcome such a move.” Brent Scowcroft, in a book that he’s writing with President Bush, will accuse Carter of violating the Logan Act, which prohibits U.S. citizens from interfering with American foreign policy.

If the Logan Act should provide for the penalty of death, then Representatives Gingrich and McCollum (who co-signed a letter to Netanyahu saying that Congress would support him if he ignored President Clinton), are in great danger, also.

John Gidusko, Lt. USN (Ret.), Fern Park, FL (a USS Liberty survivor).

Maybe the American people will wake up and throw every one of the 81 senators and 234 House members who signed such letters out of office. As for legal consequences, members of Congress have parliamentary immunity which is why they can say and do things you or I might be sued or jailed for. Thus the only thing his fellow members of Congress can do about Gingrich is reprimand and fine him for ethics violations, which they’ve already done.

You Break My Heart and Infuriate Me!

Thanks for another great issue which—as usual—alternately breaks my heart and infuriates me. The whole situation is so weird—the information is there. The information has always been there; but trying to share it with ordinary American taxpayers of good will is almost impossible. Even today. They’ve been and are being so brainwashed that they can’t make connections, can’t draw logical inferences. It reminds me of Pete Seeger’s song about being neck deep in the Big Muddy but the big fool says to push on.

As for the Zionists themselves—even the members of the recently founded Someday-Even-the-Dimmest-of-the Goyim-are-Going-to-Catch-On School of Zionism—Shimon Peres and Abba Eban, for instance, and their admirers in the press such as Anthony Lewis and Thomas Friedman, seem clueless re the fact that from its inception political Zionism has been one of the most rotten, vicious enterprises in history. Do they genuinely “not know”?

Peres and Eban never cease by their antics to give new meaning to the word hypocrisy. (At least Bibi and his friends never pretend to be other than the things they are. Peres and Eban and their friends masquerade as statesmen.)

The photograph on the back cover of your July/Aug. issue is simply stunning—and the toddler on your December, 1997 cover must now be the most famous Palestinian baby in the world.

I enclose three checks—subscription renewal for WRMEA and “Other Voices,” book order and a further donation. The further donation will make me an accompanist. The scenario on the “Publishers’ Page” was so scary I wanted to scrape up some more. Believe it or not this donation comes out of some “found money”—a refund I never expected to receive. Wish it were more, of course.

Thanks again for everything. Receiving the magazine is like receiving confirmation that there are knowledgeable people of good will—you, your writers and photographers, various people you cover and most of your correspondents—out there.

Karen Ray Bossmeyer, Louisville, KY

P.S. On p. 13 Leah Tsemal compares the Zionist enterprise to a prostitute. But it was always my understanding that whores give value for money.

We’ve left in your reference to syndicated columnist Anthony Lewis, but we think he’s quite outspoken regarding Israeli misdeeds. For a long time he was so wrapped up in U.S. transgressions in Vietnam that he seemed to ignore Israeli transgressions against the Palestinians. Since then, like New York Times columnist Flora Lewis, he’s made up for lost time. A result is that The Times (but not the International Herald Tribune) seems to have dropped Flora Lewis entirely and cut the frequency of Anthony Lewis’s column, while keeping William Safire, A.M. Rosenthal and Thomas Friedman at the same frequency. Since, so far as we know, all of the named columnists are of Jewish origin, it just shows that any serious criticism of Israel is an equal opportunity offense.

The Photo Shows it All

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, referring to the Har Homa project, stated that home building (in Israeli West Bank settlements) does not equate to terrorism. After seeing the picture of the little Palestinian boy whose home was demolished by the IDF—how would Madame Albright answer the question—do home demolitions equate to terrorism?

Huseyin Babaturk, Radcliff, KY

Joining in Solidarity

Thank you so much for all your help with our rallies. Eight organizations co-sponsored our events. The poster of the little boy was mounted on top of each table. We had eight tables, side by side, right across from Hillel and the Texas for Israel celebration. Joining all these organizations was the humanity of the Palestinians and the human rights concerns each community felt, which we represented by the image of the little boy. We took three ads in the daily newspapers, a quarter-page, a half-page and another half-page three days in a row. I wrote an article in the name of all eight organizations and it was published as a guest columnist. I archived the articles on my homepage: http://verdi.cm. utexas.edu/~saeh.

This has been a fantastic experiment in community building and student acti vism. We put the emphasis on us, not them. We affirmed our position and the memories we seek to include in history. In the spirit of Israel’s arrogance, they celebrated. We mourned and remembered the people who were killed and dispossessed. The press picked up on the inherent lack of symmetry and reported on our event very favorably.

We distributed over 5,000 pieces of literature, hung over 600 posters, and took three ads, and the event grew organically in number and in effect. Small donations from many people was our way of mobilizing our communities. It was truly inspiring to see people from all over the world join us in solidarity. When we sang “We shall overcome” the resonance of our voices (Americans, Arabs, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis...etc.) was truly moving.

Jamal Saeh, Austin, TX; Pres., Arab Students Assn.

Congratulations! Austin is a university town so many of its residents may be readier for reason and reality sooner, but your successes show that no one, anywhere, should write off mainstream America. Like enchanted frogs, many Americans just need the kiss of enlightenment to be turned into knights in shining armor.

Anonymity a Must

Yours is the best publication in the U.S., bar none. I eagerly wait for it. I work for people from the other side of the fence—so please let me remain anonymous.

Name Withheld, Boston, MA

Not Mutually Exclusive

First of all, I would like to thank you for your publication. It is a great source of information. I am a Palestinian who was born in Jerusalem, but the last time I visited was in 1978. Therefore, I am extremely thankful for all the news you provide. I have only one suggestion. Stop making “Arab” and “Jew” mutually exclusive terms. The conflict is a Palestinian-Israeli one. I am not as totally out in left field as I seem. I realize that most American Jews are Zionists because of their education. Most (especially the younger ones) don’t know what Zionism is. They have been brought up to believe that any Arab, certainly a Palestinian, wants anyone Jewish dead. Most don’t know Arab Jewish history, i.e. Maimonides (Musa ben Maimoun). They also have not been made aware of the discrimination that Israelis from Europe practiced against Arab Jews at the inception of the state of Israel. That discrimination was the basis for the Black Panther movement that started in the ’60s in Tel Aviv and was made up of Arab Jews who were given menial jobs, and were called “black” due to their darker skin tone. I think since your publication does such a fantastic job of education, you might want to pay more attention to the third Semitic religion that, at least in the beginning, did not receive equal representation in Israel, even though that religion was Judaism. I think that would help address the political nature even more. I also believe that would help people think of “Arabs” and “Palestinians” as a nation and not as a religion.

Thanks again for such a wonderful publication.

Name Withheld, Los Angeles, CA

Media and Some Protestant Churches Irresponsible

I have welcomed your fine magazine and read and reread it, and then given it to others for years. I have trusted its every word and admired your fairness, decency and the honest help you provide. You see I once was very pro-Jewish and worried about “poor little Israel,” etc. It is not an unusual attitude which is encouraged by our media—all of them—and some Protestant churches.

Anyway, you’ve been told this story many times before. Now I could list so very many benefits, experiences and several valued friends I’ve enjoyed, just thanks to your magazine—Alfred Lilienthal to name just one.

I’m now 87 years old, was recently hospitalized for two months and am no longer reading. I hate to give up the Washington Report but think you should use this $25 renewal payment to send issues to whoever most needs to get honest reporting.

As for me, I’m not unhappy. Hawaii is a nice place to live. Aloha.

Ina Goff,Honolulu, HI

We’re going to go on sending the copies of the Washington Report for which you’ve paid. We’ll let you find the people who can benefit most from them. Next year, when you get a renewal notice, just write “cancel” if you no longer can deal with it. We deeply appreciate your long-time support for the magazine. Without people like you, it wouldn’t exist to educate generations to come.

California Boosters

The last time we saw Ambassador Andrew I. Killgore, your publisher and our neighbor in New Zealand, was in 1994 when he was in San Jose with Richard Curtiss to accept awards from two Islamic groups at a conference which we also attended. We remember he told us that he had no confidence in his writing.

Well, we want to tell him here and now he can forget that kind of nonsense! His articles are absolutely excellent. In fact, your entire wonderful magazine is fascinating reading, filled with news unobtainable elsewhere because of the work of Zionists and their lobbies.

The May/June ’98 copy of the WRMEA is particularly informative. Ambassador Killgore’s “Celebrating 50 Years of Israeli Make-Believe” brings variants of “Democracy” poignantly to mind. When I taught civics to American high school seniors in Ankara, Turkey, in the absence of a textbook and course outline, I showed the students the different levels of democratic governments with the help of visiting dignitaries from the embassies of “democratic” countries in Turkey.

How can Israel be called a democratic government? By the same token, the U.S. of A. is not that “squeaky clean,” a truth that Ambassador Killgore, as an Alabamian, so graphically expressed. Having worked in the hotel business, we, too, can testify to the days when resorts and hotels discriminated against Jews.

His other two articles are equally thought-provoking, but space does not allow elaboration on them.

Enclosed is an article our daughter sent us some time ago. We think you may find it interesting that this Protestant church group in Apple Valley, Minnesota, seems to have withstood the usual Israeli “brainwashing.”

Jack and Jane Webster, Walnut Creek, CA

We, too, found the article by Sara Peterson in the Eagen, MN This Week fascinating. If space permits, we will try to include some or all of it in this magazine or its “Other Voices” supplement.

Eye-Opening Information

I have been among your many appreciative subscribers for some years now and find the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs an important source in keeping abreast of developments in that part of the world.

From time to time articles have appeared in our church publication, the Mennonite Weekly Review, which are eye-openers also. I thought perhaps the enclosed article concerning the work of the MCC (Mennonite Central Committee) in Israel and the harassment they are now being subjected to might be of interest. I suspect, however, that the actions of the Israeli government reported here will not be much of a surprise to you or to many of your readers.

John W. Kliewer, Vienna, VA

We hope to reprint the article on Israeli harassment of Christian relief efforts among Palestinians in East Jerusalem in the “Other Voices” supplement.

More Christian Input

Greetings from Minneapolis. I trust that all is well with you as you continue your most necessary battle! I continue to plug away in my seminars, distribute the 10 copies of the Washington Report that you send me each month, and encourage pastors, people and churches to take an interest in your work.

I get the impression that more people are aware of the nature of the irresponsible government that rules in Israel, and of the power of the Israeli lobby in this country. However, to get people to do anything about it is the challenge.

I subscribe each month to The World Press Review, which is put out by the Stanley Foundation. In the July issue was a letter, a copy of which I am adding to this fax. Because I do not have access to the authoritative facts and figures that you have, I would be grateful if you would send a letter to TWPR, stating how much the U.S. sends Israel each year, and stressing that Israel repays none of that!

A friend of mine, Dr. Ken Bailey, who taught theology for many years at the Tantour Institute in Bethlehem, tells me that we send a total of seven billion dollars each year, and that they insist that this be paid in the first month of each fiscal year—which in turn means that the U.S. taxpayers not only give them the money but pay interest on it as well throughout the year, and then forgive them the loan!

Harry Wendt, Crossways International (“Bible Studies With Vision”), Minneapolis, MN

An Erroneous Impression

I was appalled to see a picture of a street vendor on page 29 of your July issue captioned “Coptic Priest Old Cairo.” Regrettably this gives a very erroneous impression i.e. that Coptic priests dress like peasants and sell trinkets on the street corner.

The man in the picture is a vendor of zaefs, a cross used as decoration during the Easter season and sold to tourists year around. I have seen him plying his trade near the old Coptic churches in Cairo for many years. I have even purchased a few zaefs from him. With all due respect to the man, he looks like what he is, a street vendor, not a dignified man of the church who is readily recognizable by the elegant habit of centuries-old design that Coptic priests wear.

In the words of a Coptic friend, “Why would anyone do this—make our priests look so poor?” However this happened, careless editing, ignorance—the Copts of Egypt have enough to contend with as a result of the arrogant and uninformed actions of the U.S. Congress. They do not need to be insulted further. As an avid reader of WRMEA and a Hummer, I feel sure you will correct this mistake in keeping with your policy of responsible journalism, a rarity in this age.

While we are on the subject of Copts in Egypt, I would like to lend my voice to the cry of outrage of many regarding the Freedom from Religious Persecution Act. As the self-appointed keepers of the world’s morality, the U.S. Congress should concern itself with things in the U.S. and its apartheid, theocratic “special friend” before setting out to cure the perceived ills of the rest of the world. Have our leaders nothing more to do with their time than concoct legislation geared to make America and Americans look like world class self-righteous hypocrites?

Lois Cummins-Crooks, Cairo, Egypt

Sorry about the miscaptioned photo, which we obtained from what we thought was a reliable free-lance photographer, and not from the author of the accompanying article. Seems one can never learn enough about the Middle East to avoid the occasional blooper.

An Independent Kashmir

Now that India and Pakistan have tested nuclear weapons, the dispute over Kashmir of the lush valleys and jagged Himalayan peaks has become a matter of urgent concern. There is the prospect of another war between predominantly Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan over Kashmir.

Three wars have been fought between India and Pakistan, in the past 50 years. The United States and other countries can help defuse tension, but India and Pakistan must make a new attempt to sort out their differences now that these divisions could become the pretext for a nuclear exchange. As India’s only predominantly Muslim state, Kashmir has been torn by an insurrection that has cost 20,000 lives in the last decade and pinned down a major portion of India’s armed forces.

Since the beginning of the dispute, the United States and other outsiders have backed the United Nations demand for a plebiscite. India rejects that approach.

Most surveys show that the Kashmiris themselves want independence. But Pakistan, which controls a chunk of the state, may be no more interested in losing territory to a newly independent country than is India.

Kashmir should move to more autonomy, if not outright independence. If the people want to become an independent nation, it should be granted to them. I have been to Kashmir. It is most beautiful and the people are very friendly.

Ray F. Dively, Baden, PA

A Disgruntled Reader

I read your magazine all the time. Can’t you guys ever do anything except lambast the U.S. government and condemn Israel, etc.? I never read anything positive about the U.S. or its government in your magazine. You paint the U.S. government as a tool of Zionism but yet can’t explain why Pollard still rots in jail. You’re biased toward Islam, the PLO, etc. Never positive American things.

A disgruntled reader, Austin, TX

It’s because we believe in the inherent decency of the American people that we insist that direction of our aberrant Middle East policies can and must be taken back from those distorting them and thus causing the deaths both of innocent civilians in the Middle East and of our former foreign service colleagues in U.S. embassies around the world.

Deplorable Conditions

I wish you the best of luck. I admire your efforts. Having just returned from the occupied Palestinian territories, I find conditions are most deplorable. Keep up the good work and inform the American masses. Thanks.

Manuel Dudum, San Francisco, CA

The masses may escape our grasp but we’ll try to inform the media and let our readers and local journalists take it from there.

Your Articles in Sri Lanka

Enclosed are two articles from the WRMEA that I coaxed the Sunday Island to publish. This paper was once pro-Israel (and still is to a lesser degree). I hope you are keeping well and I pray that Almighty Allah gives you and all the others at WRMEA more strength and courage to carry on the excellent work you are doing.

Hameed Karim, Center for Islamic Studies International, Colombo, Sri Lanka

Zionism a Threat to the U.S.

As I am 70 and living on a pension, there are limits on my energy and on my finances. My main interest is obeying the first clause of the First Amendment and stopping all aid, both public and private, to both Zionist religious bigotry and political fascism! I wish all Arab and Muslims all the best, but Israel is the biggest threat to the U.S.A. and thus it is my main interest to stop it at all costs. I am a Christian and absolutely oppose using U.S. taxpayer dollars to propagate Zionism. You may use my name at any time. I like your publications very much. God bless all of you and your great work.

Thomas R. Wetherall, Ojai, CA

Can’t We Stop Meddling?

The latest Washington Report arrived! Relief from the silly “public viewpoint” news and talk radio! The Report provides the data to permit thinking.

After 50 years or more to “tilt” the American foreign affairs “establishment” to underwrite their settlements in Palestine, the erection of a massive socialist state, and the assembly of the largest collection of “weapons of mass destruction” outside our nation, the Zionists now can rest. The State Department, White House, National Security Council and CIA are safely in their hands and they can say “now we are the establishment.” Indeed, the connection between the Nixon and Clinton administrations may be the Zionist pressures, and the threats of impeachment, to maintain that “now we are the establishment” position in our government.

This 50 years of effective infiltration of our government may in fact have suggested the present course of the Chinese government, which through surreptitious campaign contributions seeks to buy the military and political support of the U.S. administration without abandoning its own authoritarian ways.

Wouldn’t it be a relief if we could shake off the burden of supporting and protecting our Zionist ally? We might soon find all of the other peoples of the Middle East receptive to our friendship once they were assured that we no longer would be meddling in their affairs.

Charles Spillman, Pass Christian, MS

Living in a State of Terror

Will you publish this letter without my name? You would make me feel less guilty for being a collaborator in a crime against humanity: the torture and steady extermination of non-Jewish people perpetrated by the State of Israel and financed by me and other taxpayers in the USA.

Let’s reflect for a moment. What are we, our children, our political leaders, churches and temples going to say in a future Nuremberg-like moral examination of our silent collaboration in the Israel/ USA crime. Are we going to say that we were not aware of it? That we were too busy locating and judging Nazi collaborators from WWII? Will members of Congress claim they never knew they were financing and giving moral support to the perpetrators of the genocide in Palestine? Or will they admit that because of their fear of the “Percy factor,” they did not want to blow the whistle for fear of losing their jobs?

We deny the fact that we are living in a state of terror. Worse, we pretend that we are free, that we have a free press, free speech, that we call things as they are, that terror exists elsewhere, e.g. China or Iran. The fact is that we all have some idea of what is happening and that we, Congress included, could become more knowledgeable of the details by reading publications such as the Washington Report. We still can do something about the ongoing crime, relatively safe from persecution, instigated by the Israeli influences infiltrating our government, Justice Department, Congress and even our police. We can resist in small ways, anonymously, as is the case of this letter. This is how the people brought down other tyrannical police states.

The key to our “salvation” is to a) stop the denial of terror; b) call things as they are; and c) do as much as we can to stop the genocide.

Anonymous, Chicago, IL

WHY?

Why do your two U.S. senators and your representative in the House fully support the following giveaway of our tax dollars and have every year since 1978?:

Israel gets at least $3 billion a year, every year, which is:

$250 million a month which is $62.5 million a week which is $9 million a day which is $372,000 an hour which is $6,200 a minute which is $103 a second—every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year for the past 20 years. Israel is the 16th richest country of the 192 independent countries in the world and has a per capita income of $17,000. Since 1948, the U.S. government has given Israel in excess of $85,000,000,000 of our income tax dollars. Why? What motivates Congress and successive presidents to do that while making sharp budget cuts in America?

In addition, Egypt gets two-thirds of the above, and has for the past 20 years also. Just think what that $5 billion annually could do for the U.S.—medical research, education, elimination of hunger/ homelessness, highways, fighting crime, etc., etc.

Try to get a clear and definitive answer from your senators and representatives as to why they always vote to continue the above outlay of our income tax dollars for so-called “foreign aid.” Lots of luck!

R.L. Gabler, Kingwood, TX

“Patron of Lost Causes”

Since I began the enclosed essay solicited and printed in the Akron Beacon Journal with a reference to the December ’97 cover of your journal, I’m sending you a copy.

I have decided to have my tombstone bear the inscription, “Patron of Lost Causes.”...But we have to keep trying!

Gordon Shull, Wooster, OH

We hope to include your op-ed piece in an upcoming issue of “Other Voices.” Meanwhile, better change that epitaph to “prescient patron of just causes” because we’re certain that within the next 50 years there will be a Palestinian state and, whether Binyamin Netanyahu likes it or not, its capital won’t be in Jordan.