November/December 1993, Page 5, 105

Letters to the Editor

Letters co the editor are selected and edited on the basis of relevance, accuracy, taste and available space. The editors do not have facilities to respond to individual letters, or to clear in advance published letters, as edited, with the writers.

(Editor's note: Letters in this issue pertain to subjects covered in the July/August and earlier issues. However, letters pertaining to the bumper sticker enclosed with the September/October issue are included because of their urgency.)

Communique from Representative Rahall

On July 29th, I made remarks on the floor of the House of Representatives concerning the appalling actions being taken by Israel in southern Lebanon, under the guise of legitimate retaliation against the Hezbollah.

These actions are unconscionable for two reasons: First, Israel began its attacks when seven soldiers were killed. Soldiers are instruments of war, and as such can expect to die, as millions of soldiers have died over time in wars worldwide. But to retaliate against innocent civilians who are not engaged in war making or attacks against northern Israeli citizens is barbaric. Second, if Israel would get out of Lebanon, and let Lebanon take care of its own, perhaps none of this would have to happen. A third, and a very good reason for the United States to take action to put a stop to Israel's shelling is that it may cause a serious setback in the timely and appropriate continuation of the Middle East peace talks.

Knowing of your interest, I am pleased to enclose a copy of my remarks as they appeared in the Congressional Record.

Representative Nick J. Rahall II, Member of Congress (D-WV)

Because of the rush of events subsequent to the Israeli attack on Lebanon, we have substituted on page 13 of this issue your article on the Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement for the text of your courageous and fair-minded remarks on the Israeli attack on Lebanon which we had planned to present. Readers interested in the text of Representative Rahall's remarks on Lebanon are invited to contact his office at the address listed in our congressional box on page 82.

Attracting Attention

Since I placed your ''Congress is an Israeli-Occupied Territory'' bumper sticker on my car, I've received six thumbs up signs and two separate requests to pull over while traveling in Virginia.

To my surprise, both people who asked me to pull over turned out to be army officers, the first a major and the second a "light colonel," both stationed locally. Both of these officers expressed fear and enmity when they spoke of Israel's wrongful actions toward America. Although they said they would never be able to place the bumper stickers on their cars, both officers wanted to know where I got mine. One wanted a sticker to show to some of his friends, and the other wanted one to put in his home!

Both officers, during my conversations with them, expressed fear of being labeled anti-Semitic if they mention that America's interest has not been served in a number of occasions where Israel has been involved. I told these officers that they are wrong to abridge their freedom of speech, especially if America's interests are involved.

I sent the major a bumper sticker, and an old copy of WRMEA. I sent the "light bird" an old copy of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs also, but had no bumper stickers left.

James Stroman II, Washington, DC

We have lots left. Readers can have one for $2 to pay for postage and handling, plus 50 cents for each additional copy. We'll include a free copy with each book order. Just ask. Also, we salute your courage in showing your colors. Read on.

Life-Threatening Political Vandalism

On Aug. 31 the September issue of the Washington Report arrived, with its very well-worded bumper sticker saying "The U.S. gave Israel $6.3 billion this year. Have you paid your share?" Later that afternoon, after several hours of reflection, I affixed it to a rear window of my Jeep, the bumper being occupied by a ''Save Bosnia'' sticker my 11-year-old daughter bought at a rally.

The following morning I found the back window of my car smashed in, with the sticker in shreds on the ground surrounded by the shards of my rear window. A large concrete ''rock" lay nearby. The Dallas Police Department suggested it was my fault for publicly displaying my "anti-Jewish'' sentiments in this hate-filled city.

As this was the fourth time my car has been vandalized in this manner, and the 20th such incident we've experienced since moving here from Saudi Arabia six years ago, the event has motivated me to think back on similar attacks. Probably some of the thefts and burglaries we've experienced were not hate crimes. But other events were certainly ethnically inspired.

For his first Halloween in America, my fifth-grade son dressed excitedly in the beautiful flowing robes of a Saudi prince, only to be beaten by a carload of neighborhood teenagers. We sat in our pool one evening listening to Arabic music, and were pelted with eggs thrown at us over the back fence. When I placed a small Arabic calligraphy emblem, a Muslim prayer, on a car window, it was shot out. Our yard has been strewn with garbage, more of the same plus red paint thrown in the pool, and my car continually egged.

Not once has a neighbor commented on this vandalism or wondered why we were repeatedly singled out for this treatment.

Am I hated because I protested my third grader being pressured by her school to demonstrate in support of the Gulf war? Or because I withdrew my children from the public schools after teachers used that conflict to promote anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiments?

What subversive activities have branded me as a target for violence? I'm on several Dallas international and multicultural boards which try to plan events that will build understanding between peoples. My activities are quite visible, as I never miss an opportunity to set up a display or booth highlighting the Middle East, its cultures and religions, to provide programs and speakers for schools, and to try to gain acceptance for all local Arabic groups in citywide cultural events. Several hours a day are spent helping meet the physical and emotional needs of newly arrived Kurdish and Bosnian refugees.

I suppose many of us are enemies simply because we know the American system and refuse to give up hope that we can all live together as brothers and sisters. As I told my children, we're not living in Bosnia or Kashmir or the West Bank. Speaking out has only cost us money, not our lives. This is the United States, a democracy demanding responsible participation from an educated citizenry. If we chose to hide, as does most of the Dallas Arabic community, instead of building a community in which all peoples are respected and appreciated, there will soon be no one left to speak out against injustice or to fight for those who have no voice.

Having just finished my second book* which is dedicated to an Israeli friend, I've begun a new project. It's a city-wide art contest for children designed to build cultural sensitivity, a celebration of our diversity with the theme "America, a Country for All of Us."

We must keep trying.

Anne Marie Weiss-Armush, Dallas, TX

We've printed your letter without the usual abridgement because we think it's important. However, we don't want to be even indirectly responsible for an incident, in traffic or at home, that results in injury to anyone, on any side of the questions with which we are concerned. The point of the sticker is to acquaint the American public with the indisputable fact that Israel received $6.3 billion in U.S. grants and credits in 1993 and may again in 1994—a fact that very few mainstream journalists are willing to report. When all Americans know this, they will force their representatives in Congress to halt this outrageous and involuntary misuse of taxpayer funds. You've done your share, especially since you clearly have a very dangerous person in your neighborhood who should be put in a penal or mental institution before he or she kills someone. Never mind whether the police are doing their duty. You've done yours. Now, we think, you've paid your share. Let others carry the load for awhile while the police sort out what's wrong in what sounds like a very sick neighborhood. And if they don't, we expect there are many people in Dallas who would like to know why. Please see also the letter from a Chicago taxi driver on page 47 of this issue's "Other People's Mail. "

*Anne Marie Weiss-Armush is the author of Arabian Cuisine, reviewed in our July/August issue and available from the AET Book Club catalog.

New Bumper Stickers

Could you offer bumper stickers with the saying "To Eliminate Terrorism, Fight Injustice"? I think that is the best way to make people aware that "terrorism" is rarely a black-and-white situation.

I think it would be really good now, with so much propaganda about "terrorism." It's unfortunate the word has come to be connected with Muslims in the New York City area. But I think the connection with injustice is a very important one that can't be overlooked when dealing with the Middle East.

Karin Brothers, Toronto, Ont., Canada

Please note the new "Two Peoples, Two States, One Future " bumper sticker in the Middle East Marketplace on page 60. Meanwhile we'll welcome reader comments on your suggestion .

Presenting the Truth

Every time I receive your magazine I appreciate the quality of your effort. The articles are well researched and well documented, the presentation and printing excellent. Most of all one can feel you are consistently presenting the truth.

All of the friends to whom I have introduced WRMEA are grateful for it. However, I also would like to introduce it to a category of people whom I do not know personally, but whose opinions on certain issues I do know. These are the people who write letters to the editor of the Toronto Star, to which I subscribe, on behalf of justice.

Should you approve, I will cut out their printed letters or articles and mail them to you, after looking up their addresses and phone numbers in my local directory. You may print their letters/articles in your "Other People's Mail" section if you think they qualify, and in any case mail them an introductory copy of the Washington Report. You may thereby find yourselves not only subscribers, but perhaps some contributors as well.

You may be pleased to learn that we have introduced WRMEA to Mr. John Sola, a member of the provincial parliament, who has quoted from your articles about Bosnia in his speeches, and to Mr. Sergio Marchi, member of Canada's national Parliament. There is a great need of exposure. I fear that 99.9 percent of the people do not know about WRMEA. How about a TV ad?

I believe the day WRMEA is read by even half of the numbers who read Time magazine, North American policy will start to shift toward the side of humanity and justice.

Dean Wangho, Downsview, Ontario, Canada

We think it's already shifting, and much of the credit goes to readers like you who have done such a remarkable job of introducing a low-budget magazine with a zero advertising budget to tens of thousands of readers, particularly in the media and in both the U. S. and Canadian governments and Congress/Parliament. Yes, send in letters to the editor and op-ed articles by like-minded people (with telephone numbers and mailing addresses if possible) marked for the attention of Donna Bourne. She will see that they get sample copies. A large percentage of our subscribers came to us via this route, starting with faithful letter clippers all over North America.

The Rush to Rush

We've watched Rush Limbaugh's TV shows, at least parts of them, since they started. It always seemed that he studiously avoided any mention of Arabs or Israelis. Then in July he made his "pilgrimage." (I believe I read in the Northern California Jewish Bulletin or the Canadian Jewish News that he was a guest of a national Jewish organization.) Apparently he now is "paying" for that trip to Israel.

Rush, on his third TV show of this season on Sept. 15, said he wished to explain why Israelis worry about the agreement with the PLO. Using maps, he explained, roughly quoting:

"In 1967 Jordan attacked Israel (placing his pointer on Jordan and the West Bank) after Israel attacked from over there (pointer indicating Egypt)."

Then there was a commercial break.

Back on the air, he said, "During the break someone said I said 'Israel attacked.' I don't remember saying it, but I was talking fast and may have. Egypt attacked Israel, Israel defended...Jordan, Syria, Lebanon attacked on different days. Israel then captured Sinai and the West Bank . . . " His total presentation on the subject took up about 10 minutes of air time. We watched a re-run on Sept. 16 to be sure of what he had said.

Rush, of course, had it right the first time. Perhaps if someone at the Washington Report, someone with "credentials," would call this to Rush's attention, we would at least find out if he is interested in giving his audience the truth, or would rather pay for his trip by misleading his audience. It might also be well for your readers to keep tabs on Rush's Mideast remarks for the next month or so. He might be slipping in more Israeli propaganda, knowingly or not, for a while.

Gip D. Oldham, Jr., Dallas, TX

We're told some of his radio remarks have been just as ill-informed. Some time ago we told our readers that if they got on the Bob Grant radio show in New York and brought up the Middle East, he would probably hang up on them, and that if they told the call screener, Bo Snerdley, on Rush Limbaugh's radio show that they wanted to talk about the Middle East, they would not get on the show. Since his conservative pro-taxpayer stance would be totally contradicted by a pro-aid-to-Israel stance, his solution has been not to talk about it. Your description of his incredible TV show remarks makes us think that maybe, instead of fearing his advertisers, he really is that badly informed. In any case, Israel launched devastating surprise aerial attacks on both Egypt and Syria on Monday, June 5, 1967. Jordan, treaty bound to come to the assistance of its Syrian and Egyptian allies, launched an artillery attack on Israel that afternoon. Israel responded with a successful ground assault on East Jerusalem the night of June 5, and Israeli forces reached the Jordan River the next day. Lebanon wasn't involved. Those are the facts, subsequently confirmed both by present Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. No one seriously contests them, and anyone who claims otherwise is either a willfully lying propagandist for Israel or an ignoramus. We'll let the legion of our readers who also are Rush Limbaugh listeners or viewers work it out with him and let us know. "Credentials" aren't needed. Any authoritative textbook on contemporary Middle East history will verify this, as have the "Myths and Facts " columns and other articles in the Washington Report.

Stop Jumping Your Stories

Your magazine would be a lot easier to read if you stopped jumping stories to back pages. I'm in the business so I know it is more difficult to make up without jumping. But it can be done and the extra effort is surely worth it. I have been a subscriber for several years and appreciate receiving a different viewpoint on the Mideast from what I get in most U.S. publications.

Bob Van Leer, Publisher, Curry County Reporter, Gold Beach, OR

We try to round off most stories at one page or two pages, but if they have photos, maps or charts that's not always possible. Also, there's the problem of four-color pages and black-and-white pages. We hate to waste the four colors on second pages when there's no second photo. When we make you jump twice for the same story, however, that's poor planning.

Some Constructive Comments

I love your magazine and I have some constructive comments which might be of use to you.

My only concern is that I do not want to be seen as being critical of you. I am not. You are doing a great job. But I believe that dialogue is an invaluable tool to success. So I am adding my thoughts to the great forum for improving American Middle East relations known as the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

S. Shabaz, Washington, DC

Nine pages of constructive suggestions are not only flattering but also merit our careful consideration. You represent a supportive segment of our readers who feel we're giving too much attention to issues and countries of interest primarily to Muslim readers and not enough to issues and countries of particular interest to readers of Middle Eastern Christian background. We 'II try to provide something for everyone. Please bear in mind, however, that while we are trying to give all readers of Middle Eastern background the information they need to make them more effective in the U.S. political system, we're also trying to inform other Americans who need more information about things they don't understand—like Islam.

Options For Cutting Costs

Re: the June Publishers' Page: You discuss your options for cutting costs; here are my thoughts. Your publication is too valuable to lose, but longer (therefore more expensive) than it needs to be. You should be more selective in your choice of articles. Fewer human interest stories. Bosnia is stretching the definition of "the Middle East." The cartoons could go. The letters section could be shortened. Is Morocco relevant? I don't need the CNI section; I belong to that, and probably other readers do too. Many of the articles are longer than they need to be. Tighten up the editorial reins. I hope this doesn't sound brutal but it sounds as if things are tight! Good luck.

Richard Bevis, Vancouver, B.C. Canada

Things are tight and it's very useful to get such perspectives. We welcome them from all readers. Actually the present 116-page version costs less to print than did the former 104-page version. The increase was largely to accommodate more paid advertising, which includes the CNI section. That helps CNl find new members from the 95 percent of our individually paid subscribers who are not CNI members.

Surely You're Not Folding

I am in despair. First the New Outlook folds. Now you? No! It's impossible. Enclosed is some help, I hope.

Gene Knudsen-Hoffman, Santa Barbara, CA

We 're still around, but at the cost of cutting back on the frequency of our issues through 1993. For 1994, we hope to get back to monthly status, or something close to it, if every reader can give us a little additional help as you have, either in the form of a tax-exempt donation to the AET Library Endowment or some gift subscriptions to friends and relatives at $19 each, or opinion molder subscriptions at $12. 50 each to libraries, educators, journalists, clergy and elected officials and their staffs. Thanks for the tangible expression of your concern.

ACS Alumnus Reports In

Enclosed is our 1993 contribution to the American Educational Trust and a renewal of our subscription to the Washington Report. We have been delighted to see the continuing expansion and improvement of the publication, which we think is now the best monthly magazine on the Middle East and the Islamic world.

We were interested to see the ad for the Alumni Association of the American Community School (Beirut) in your June issue. One of us (Bob) is an ACS alumnus of the class of 1966. The most recent issue of the AA-ACS newsletter discussed AET and the Washington Report and mentioned that copies would be sent to alumni association members. Good idea!

Please be assured of our best wishes and hopes for progress in American understanding of the Middle East.

Robert and Joyce Kelley, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

Help Me Get in Touch

I would like to correspond with the Islamic community in New Mexico which Dr. Hasan Zillur-Rahim mentioned in an article he wrote for the Washington Report. I am going to visit the southwest U.S. soon and would like to include a visit to Dar al Islam. Congratulations on a great publication!

Dr. Ahmad J. DeMarais, Brooklyn Center, MN

The address you need is Dar al-Islam, P. O. Box 180, Abiquiu, NM 87510 .

From a Participant

Since I was mentioned prominently in your magazine as one of the Jewish librarians opposed to the American Library Association's refusal to censure Israel, I think you might like to see a copy of my reply to Nancy John regarding the dispute. My main points are: 1) Americans have been brainwashed. 2) Condemning the whole Middle East for the sins of one nation there is tantamount to condemning the U.S. and Canada for what happens in Mexico. 3) People who approve of human rights abuses when committed by their own side scare me—what is the difference between them and Nazis?

Please contact David Williams and give more publicity to this issue. Librarians carry a lot of power in selecting books for libraries and an Israeli tactic has always been to remove from libraries all materials which do not back them up.

Louise Leonard, Middle East Cataloger, University of Florida Libraries,

Gainesville, FL

We'll try to follow your advice. Meanwhile, we're publishing an abridged version of your letter to the past chair of the American Library Association International Relations Committee in "Other People's Mail" on page 85 of this issue.

Letters to Editors' Censorship

I recently read a glowing review of a new book, Twin Pillars to Desert Storm, by Howard and Gayle Teicher. It wasn't in our library system but they procured it for me. I first regretted that, but read it, and I'm glad I did. It illustrates how—and why—the staffs of our vital agencies are able to create foreign policy which is contrary to our best interests. Sometimes I wonder if "the principals" know what is going on.

I'm hoping that someone at AET will scan this book, and others being published. I wonder if we aren't being blitzed by a concerted propaganda program. And are we being subjected to a de facto literary censorship? For example:

Some of our "letters to the editor" are hard to get published—at least in their entirety. In my case, this is partly my own fault, as I tend to be too lengthy. However, anything critical of Israel seems to get deleted. E.g., in a recent letter I suggested that Israel is a threat to our national security by a "coerced symbiotic relationship" contrary to cautions against such by Washington and Jefferson.

I quoted my sources as Dangerous Liaison, Territory of Lies and By Way of Deception—all in our public library. These thoughts were deleted, along with a reference to Jonathan Jay Pollard's activities, although I had not exceeded the usual 300-word limit.

Since this community—the Seattle, Tacoma, Everett, Bremerton area—has quite a concentration of military—active and retired—I believe they have a "need to know" such things, for the ultimate good of all. Any help you can provide to "make it happen" will be greatly appreciated.

Palmer O. Hanson, Bremerton, WA

Howard Teicher was known by his colleagues in the Reagan White House as "the Kibbutznik" because the "Middle East expertise " for which he supposedly was hired was largely gained and obviously influenced by his time spent as an American visitor to an Israeli kibbutz. It's a little like a Lithuanian-American going to spend a summer or two with grandparents in the old country and then later setting up shop as an "expert" on all of the lands of the former Soviet Union, from Estonia to Georgia and Ukraine to Kazakistan. But, as in Teicher's time, that's the way it is again in the Clinton White House. Now the top Middle East adviser, Australian-born Martin Indyk, is devoid of professional or academic background in any Islamic country, although every Middle Eastern country but Israel either is an Islamic state or is a secular state with a Muslim majority. Indyk's qualifications are stints as a Middle Eastern adviser with the Australian government, as a U.S. media adviser to former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, as an employee of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington, DC, and as director of an AIPAC off shoot think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. As for your other points, we couldn't have said it better ourselves. It's best not to give editors fluff or too many words to prove how open minded you are. Make your point in as few words as possible. That way they can 't cut out the important points while leaving those that don't matter or even lead to an opposite conclusion than the point you wish to make.

Re: CAMERA and FLAME

Before leaping to condemn the likes of CAMERA and FLAME, you might do well to rethink the role your own publication plays in disseminating false information/impressions about the Middle East, Arabs, Israel, Palestinians and scads of other related topics. Only then do you have the right to throw stones.

Yale M. Zussman, North Quincy, MA

We have no problem at all with readers exploring many viewpoints on the Middle East and U.S. relations with it. Readers can get such viewpoints in the paid advertisements of pro-Israel extremist groups like CAMERA and FLAME, in the news and opinion columns of the like-minded publications that carry those ads such as Mortimer Zuckerman's U.S. News and World Report and Atlantic Monthly, Martin Peretz's New Republic, and the American Jewish Committee's Commentary. readers weigh carefully such viewpoints, along with what they read in their own daily newspapers and, of course, this magazine, we are confident they'll want to make some course corrections in U. S. Middle East policy.

We do have a problem with people who try to keep this magazine out of libraries by stealing it, and off newsstands by buying up (or stealing) all the copies and destroying them. Besides showing that such people are sick, we think such actions also demonstrate that they know we are right. Presented with our view of true American interests in the Middle East, which must take into account traditional U. S. support for human rights, self-determination and fair play, we feel certain most Americans will agree with most of what we write. If that's not so, why are the book burners in such a panic about us that they must resort to thievery as a form of censorship and book-burning ?

Censorship and Speaking Out

Here's another order for They Dare to Speak Out. One is for a good friend of mine, a journalist for whom I also am purchasing an opinion molder subscription to the Washington Report. I had been having difficulty discussing with this friend the special and particularly vehement censorship and self-censorship that happens around Palestine-Israel, when she ran smack dab into it herself. Now that the dust is beginning to settle around that latest of several related flaps here in the Bay Area, she said she would have had a hard time believing it if I had told her beforehand what would happen. You can write the script—journalist (also a public TV board member) speaks out against censorship attempt on the part of the producer of an Israeli "history" documentary, board members who were allies against the censorship attempt when it first happened become milquetoast, several board members attack with claws bared, the TV station is bombarded with concerns about bias, public meeting degenerates into chaos, journalist and TV personnel receive telephoned threats against themselves and family. It goes on, but you already know how it works.

I have been searching everywhere for David Hirst's The Gun and the Olive Branch and Lenni Brenner's Zionism in the Age of Dictators. Any chance of having them show up in your book order section?

Kudos for the wonderful work you do! You are absolutely invaluable.

Marianne Torres, Oakland, CA

We no longer have Lenni Brenner's Zionism in the Age of Dictators and will welcome any information on where we might obtain copies of it or the classic David Hirst book on the PLO. Not a month goes by without at least one request for it.

Many Helping Vanunu

Regarding your report on my good friend Gideon Spiro, who is doing holy work on behalf of Mordechai Vanunu, allow me to point out that the idea of arranging an exchange of liberation's—that of Mordechai Vanunu against that of Jonathan Pollard—originated in two of my letters published in the International Herald Tribune and in Ha'aretz.

Most of my non-editorial work for a just Israeli-Palestinian peace has been done behind the scenes for the past 22 years. Nor do I wish to give it any kind of publicity or high profile. The Vanunu case is, however, an exception for me—as I wish to stand and be counted among those who have done their tiny bit for this suffering man of principle.

Maxim Ghilan, Editor, Israel & Palestine Political Report, Boite Postale 130 75463 Paris Cedex 10, France

U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu

This is a story of two brothers—one serving 18 years in an Israeli prison for telling the world about his country's secret nuclear weapons program, the other a leader of the international campaign for his release.

Mordechai Vanunu, 39, the older of the two, has occupied a 6-by-10-foot isolation cell since 1986, when he was kidnapped by Israeli agents and charged with espionage and treason for telling a British newspaper about his nine years as a technician in Israel's secret nuclear weapons plant in the Negev desert.

Meir Vanunu, 37, one of Mordechai's 10 siblings, has worked with the London based international campaign which seeks release of his brother and elimination of nuclear weapons from the Middle East. During Meir's six years in Britain, the campaign secured the support of such leading public figures as former Prime Minister Edward Heath, violinist Yehudi Menuhin, playwright Harold Pinter, and the founder of Amnesty International, Peter Beneson.

This spring Meir Vanunu arrived in the United States to join forces with American peace activists concerned about nuclear weapons proliferation. He is trying to raise public awareness of his brother's plight through speaking engagements and contacts with media and governmental leaders. The campaign already has won the support of local peace and justice groups, Democratic Rep. Ron Dellums of California, and such national organizations as the Jewish Peace Fellowship and the Episcopal Peace Fellowship.

The campaign appeals to the U.S. government to use its influence with Israel to release Mordechai Vanunu on humanitarian grounds. For almost seven years he has been denied any human contact except with his guards, his attorney and members of his immediate family, who are allowed brief visits twice a month. Amnesty International has condemned his treatment as "cruel, inhuman and degrading."

Mordechai Vanunu is widely regarded as a prisoner-of-conscience who made Israel's secret program public in order to promote discussion in Israel and elsewhere. Thousands of supporters have petitioned Israel for his release, and he has been thrice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Sam Day, U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu, 2206 Fox Ave., Madison, WI 53711. Tel.: (608) 257-4764

Vanunu-Pollard Exchange

I was glad to see from your "Tale of Two Spies" that the idea I launched last year in WRMEA of exchanging Vanunu for Pollard is slowly gaining some ground although, as Ian Williams points out, it is probably too late to save John, formerly Mordechai, Vanunu's sanity. He now refuses to see visitors, including his family and his chaplain, or to answer letters from his priest in Sydney.

There was just one odd mistake in the reference in that opening sentence to the contrasting treatment of "two Jews convicted of spying." John Vanunu is, as the story mentions, a Christian pacifist. Several church groups in the United States have involved themselves in the prospect of sending Jonathan Pollard to Israel and Vanunu to Australia. When I was in London earlier this year, the Archbishop of Canterbury promised to take it up (Vanunu is an Anglican).

Although the point is often overlooked in the establishment press, Israeli peace activist Gideon Spiro, who is working for the exchange, is right in saying that, under the Geneva Conventions, an occupied people have the right to resist occupation violently. As Winston Churchill told Charles de Gaulle in 1940: "The only good soldier of occupation is a dead soldier of occupation." And, as Spiro points out, if civilians are illegally brought into occupied territory, their deaths are the fault of those who brought them in. That's also in the Conventions.

Russell Warren Howe, Washington, DC

It's our impression that a good many people can claim spontaneous combustion on the idea of an exchange of Pollard for Vanunu. Still another of our regular writers, former foreign service officer Gene Bird, now executive director of the Council for the National Interest, wrote about it repeatedly last year. His articles attracted some negative mail from those who think Pollard still could tell U.S. authorities things that might lead to the unmasking of other Israeli spies within the U.S. government, and that the U.S. therefore shouldn't let him go.

Big Lies About the USS Liberty

Thank you for your recent issue's beautiful cover photo from the USS Liberty memorial ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery last June 8. And thank you for reprinting the Washington Times article covering the ceremony. The big lie, that Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats killed 34 Americans aboard the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967 as a result of "mistaken identity," is shipping water fast.

The next big lie is that the book Assault on the Liberty, an authoritative work on the attack, is "anti-Semitic." As author James Ennes relates, only a few days after the Liberty attack, his wife was visited by a Jewish neighbor who expressed her personal anguish that Mrs. Ennes' husband's ship had been attacked by Israeli forces. "This is unfortunate," writes the author in Assault, because, as he explicitly states, Jews as a group are not to be held responsible for the Liberty attack. Assault on the Liberty is in no way anti-Semitic.

Similar misuse by Zionists of the term "anti-Semitism" occurs during anti-Zionist street demonstrations by members of the Orthodox Jewish "Neturei Karta." Surprisingly, during these demonstrations, it is common for Zionist passersby to shout at the Jewish demonstrators, wearing beards and peyous, the insult "anti-Semites! "

Abraham Weiss, Liberty, NY

Thanks for your thoughtful letter. Deliberately misapplying the term "anti-Semitic" to anyone who criticizes Israeli actions or policies debases the term and cheapens the currency. Readers may be interested in a letter in this issue's "Other People's Mail," reprinted on page 86, from an editor at Merriam Webster on the misuse of the term ''anti-Semitism" when applied to criticism of Israel.

Disrupters

Our thanks to features editor Andrea Lorenz for her help in providing information for my husband's speech to our Charlottesville Foreign Relations Committee. We so appreciate the Washington Report and the efforts of its superb writers and staff. It is a badly needed publication—now more than ever before. If there is to be peace in the Middle East, you will have played a major and vital role in it. Please keep it up. You have our enthusiastic support.

Margaret Ison, Gordonsville, VA

As your letter, in a portion which we've deleted, reports, when the disrupters—who try to intimidate speakers by ostentatiously taking notes while shaking their heads disapprovingly—see they've met their match, they rise and leave. Who can blame them? Would you want to defend sending $6.3 billion in U.S. government grants and loan guarantees to Israel while the U.S. supposedly is basing its foreign aid on the human rights records of recipient nations?

The Lobby and Its PACs

I understand that the Israel lobby has a large variety and number of PACs, with quite innocuous names. When taken in these small parts, the Israel lobby does not appear to compare in size with many others, such as the health industry, the real estate industry, etc. If these Israel lobby PACs were consolidated, it is possible they would be at the top of the list. Do you have a listing of all the PACs whose primary focus is aiding Israel?

I noted on page 52 of your February issue an item entitled "Jewish Agency Asks UK to Keep Out Bosnian Jews." It reminds me of Dr. Alfred Lilienthal's revelations (The Zionist Connection: What Price Peace, pp. 35-6) concerning the Zionist hierarchy's refusal in 1942 to accept Roosevelt's and Britain's offer to give asylum to thousands of Jews from Nazi Germany in their countries, in order not to divert them from settling in Palestine.

What a goal-oriented people the Zionists must be to have risked Jewish lives so easily!

Doris Rausch, Columbia, MD

As you surmise, when contributions of the pro-Israel PACs are combined, they have made the Israel lobby the largest or among the top two or three largest special interests contributing to congressional candidates ever since 1978. Their standing, election by election, is documented in Stealth PACs: Lobbying Congress for Control of U.S. Middle East Policy, obtainable from AET at $9.95 for one or $14. 95 for two copies. The book also identifies 116 pro-Israel PACs, nearly all with deceptive names, that have been active since 1978.

Haifa Home-Port Pork

I want to urge you, if at all possible, to do a story, soon, on the so-called "Haifa Home-Port" pork that Senator Daniel Inouye is pushing through now. It was mentioned in Paul Findley's letter of June 18th to Council for the National Interest members.

Colonel Joe Hunt, our local CNI chapter president, did some research and found that this is the third year that the senator has gone to the well for the project, this time for $57 million, ostensibly to provide a "home port" for the U.S. Sixth Fleet. Joe said that, eventually, the U.S. taxpayers will build Israel a billion-dollar port, with no publicity, and certainly no congressional opposition.

The project will 1) destroy thousands of American jobs; 2) jeopardize the health of the U.S. shipbuilding industry; 3) undermine U.S.-Arab relations; and 4) endanger the lives of U.S. servicemen and their families. As you know, the Defense Department is closing major shipyards around the country. While the Congress is bulletproof on the Haifa boondoggle, your story could be circulated to organizations and individuals who have a direct economic interest, and help to reveal this corruption and duplicity.

It all brings to mind the observation of Don Vito Corleone, who opined in The Godfather, "Men with briefcases can steal more than men with guns."

Patrick F. Flynn, Yorba Linda, CA

Paul Findley wrote an informative article on the subject of Haifa home-porting published in our April/May issue. New subscribers can obtain a copy at no charge by contacting us.

"Who Are the Assyrians?"

Your article entitled "My Unrequited Love Affair With the People Who Gave Us Civilization" in the February 1993 Washington Report motivates me to write a few congratulatory remarks, hoping that there will be more of the same in future issues.

I have enclosed an article on "Who Are the Assyrians?" which lists the contributions of these early inhabitants of today's Iraq, site of mankind's first civilization over 7,000 years ago, and who themselves contributed greatly to world civilization. Since the fall of the last Assyrian empire over 2,000 years ago, we Assyrians have lived in the land of our forefathers with Arabs, Kurds, Persians and others. Our people were among the first to accept Christianity, and over the centuries have maintained their national identity and Aramaic (Syriac) culture and religion at great suffering and sacrifice. There are more than four million Assyrians in the world today. Of these, 1.7 million are in northern Iraq, mingled with Kurds hoping to gain their self-determination, and about 500,000 are in the United States and Canada.

Assyrians, like Kurds, Palestinians and others, await the day when Middle East justice will grant them a homeland in which to live in peace with their Semitic cousins and brethren. Let us pray that our great new President Clinton will take a new look at peace efforts from all perspectives in the Middle East.

Francis Emmanuel Hoyen, Jr., Worcester, MA

The material you enclosed points out that the reputation of the ancient Assyrians for war and conquest has outlived the record of their accomplishments in bringing order and some measure of prosperity to the many parts of the Middle East that at one time or another were included in the successive Assyrian empires. It's noteworthy as well that many of the legends and chronicles of earlier epochs in the Middle East, like those of the Sumerians and the Semitic inhabitants of the Akkadian and the "Old Babylonian " empires, are known today because of the careful work of Assyrian scribes who copied and preserved them, along with their own writings, in the clay tablet libraries assembled by the earliest Assyrian rulers.

Just to Get Some Things Said

I turned my car radio on to WMT (Cedar Rapids, IA) to listen to the weather reports on a very stormy summer night and there was your executive editor being interviewed by Barry Norris. I admire your magazine and hope you had a good response as a result. I value your publication greatly, but I have to admit giving way to despondency and despair lately. I can't tell you how many people I know who somehow think that to criticize Israel is blasphemous. They simply can't distinguish between Biblical Israel and the present-day modern state of Israel. They don't seem to see that some of those Palestinians are descendants of people who may have walked and talked with Jesus.

I would like to hear Elie Wiesel speak out just once for the Palestinians. I would like to see him shed a tear for just one Palestinian child wounded or killed by Israeli soldiers. Injustice is injustice wherever it is found; and cruelty and hatred should not go without condemnation, whoever the perpetrators are. Maybe he ought to give back his Nobel Prize.

This letter is not intended for publication—just wanted to get a few things said. Please continue doing what you are doing.

Name withheld, Iowa

We've withheld your name, abridged your letter, and published it anyway. People who are selective about which injustices to abhor don't seem to be very admirable adherents of any religion. We must, however, give Elie Wiesel credit for speaking out so clearly in President Clinton 's presence at the opening of the Holocaust Museum in favor of U.S. action to halt the genocide in Bosnia.

The Muslims' Plight in Bosnia-Herzagovina

I am writing to express my sincere thanks and gratitude for the generous humanitarian concern that you have demonstrated through your fine magazine. I also extend my thanks for your attention to the sometimes difficult task of keeping your readers accurately informed about the plight of the Muslims in Bosnia-Herzego vine. May the Almighty God continue to help you in promoting the noble cause of world peace.

Fatima Osmancevic, Public Relations Officer, Bosnia & Herzegovina Help Organization, 1255 Laird Blvd., Suite 165, Montreal, QC H3P 2TI, tel. (514) 739-1336, fax (514) 731-7163.

It Happened in California

This happened to friends in California, but it could just as easily have happened anywhere in the United States. Three men entered their house and began to talk excitedly about their magazine, called Survive. They said Muslims are killing Christians in Bosnia, Iraq and Iran and that all Muslims are terrorists.

My friend's wife said to the men, "We are Muslims, Iranian, and Shi'i. Does that make us terrorists?" Their mouths dropped open and they hastened to say that everyone the world over is the same, etc. After which my friend's wife gave them 50 cents for their brochure and they left.

I think my friend's wife expressed it very well and her words need no qualification. It worries me, however, that the Associated Press and the secretary of state have equated the bombing of the New York Trade Center and the plot to assassinate former President Bush in Kuwait before either case has gone to trial.

Andrew M. Patterson, Houston, TX

Following Up

Would it be possible to have a follow up report on the letter from Jesse Maali Maali Enterprises, Orlando, FL, "Israel Abuses U.S. Arabs," in the July/August issue, p. 45. This is a human interest story that deserves more attention.

I could not find the writer listed in the Orlando phone directory in our local library so am unable to contact him directly.

Thank you for whatever information you may be able to provide.

Margaret Corman, Santa Barbara, CA

Thanks for Your Interest

I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation for your interest in my mother's ordeal at the hands of airport officials upon her arrival in Israel. Your efforts to publish the story of a 71-year-old Palestinian-American held at the airport overnight and then expelled without even being allowed to communicate with frantic members of her family are very much appreciated by me and my family. We all join in thanking you for taking the time to do this!

Jesse Maali, Orlando, FL

Pen Pal Corner

Being an avid reader of your magazine, I would like to add my name to the list of readers seeking pen pals. Anyone interested in the Middle East is more than welcome to write. Here are a few details about myself. I am a 30-year-old single Jordanian male. My interests are Mideast culture, travel, serious correspondence and friendship. I am especially interested in corresponding with Americans, Arab expatriates, Pakistanis, Turks and Kurds.

Sami Ragheb, P.O. Box 3816, Doha, Qatar