November/December 1993, Page 47

Other People's Letters

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

A Taxi and Bumper Stickers

(Text abridged by Washington Report)

To Mr. Sadiq Reza, Legal Services Department, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, 4201 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC 20008, Sept. 9, 1993

On Sept. 7, 1993, as I stopped to have my oil changed and pay my weekly association dues of $101.55, which represent my weekly insurance, I was approached by Yellow Cab company president Jeffrey Feldman and Les Miller and was ordered to remove from my cab two bumper stickers saying "Pray for Palestine" and "The U.S. Gave Israel $6.3 Billion This Year. Have You Paid Your Share?" I refused on the basis that being forced to remove them would constitute a gross violation of my First Amendment rights. Feldman told me that it is against a city ordinance to have bumper stickers on city cabs. He said that someone had called him that morning complaining about those stickers as "they are inflammatory."

He added that my bumper stickers are political. I answered that they are neither inflammatory nor political and that I had been complimented hundreds of times by drivers and pedestrians asking me where they can get them. I said these are no more than facts and that it is not for him to decide if they are political. I added that I was stopped by a [Public Vehicle Operation Division, Department of Consumer Services] police officer in regard to my bumper stickers and, while I was protesting, two Yellow Cabs passed by with bumper stickers saying "Support United Jewish Fund Telethon.'' I told Feldman and Miller that after I told the officer he had to give around 3,000 tickets to Yellow Cab drivers for posting a bumper sticker on their cabs in order to give me a ticket, he smiled and released me without issuing a citation. My answer to Mr. Feldman was, ''I will not remove them even if it results in cancellation of my association agreement." I added that I am an active member of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), that I believe is ready to defend me all the way.

When I went to Checker Taxi Association to pay my association dues, the cashier told me, "there is a hold against you and you should see Mr. Moberg, the president of the association.'' What he said was a repetition of what Feldman said, except that Moberg added that he would like the issue to be resolved in a friendly manner.

I said I believe this is a constitutional issue and I feel I should consult my attorney. I asked for two weeks to prepare a final answer regarding the bumper stickers. Moberg told me that is a long time. When I asked him for one week, he again said this is a long time. Then I asked him if I could use his telephone to call the ADC national office in Washington to seek advice from the legal department and he agreed. When I could not reach a legal counsellor or adviser, Moberg and I agreed to settle the matter within two days.

On Sept. 9, 1993 at 12:45 p.m. I came home to find a message on my answering machine from Miss Rojas of the Department of Consumer Services, Public Vehicle Operation Division, asking me to call as soon as possible on an urgent matter. When I called, she spoke to me in a very nasty tone saying, "I want you to come with your cab right now, right now, I repeat right now.'' I asked if there were any charges against me so that I should get in touch with my attorney.

''No," she said, "you do not need an attorney." I told her I would be there within 90 minutes. I called ADC in Washington and explained the case. Mr. Sadiq Reza of ADC took the issue seriously. He called Miss Rojas and discussed the issue with Mr. J. Mueller of the Department of Consumer Services and with me. On Mr. Reza's advice, I went to the Department of Consumer Services where I was treated with the respect that everyone is entitled to. At the Public Vehicle Operation Division, Mr. Mueller inspected my cab and found that my bumper stickers are not inflammatory, although he said they violate Rule #7b of the city ordinance. I told Mr. Mueller I thought it unfair to enforce Rule #7b in my case, but ignore enforcement of the rule with around 3,000 Yellow Cabs. I told him by doing so you will be violating my constitutional right to equal protection. I told Mr. Mueller that in my own opinion Rule #7b of the ordinance is unconstitutional, as it is in violation of the First Amendment right to freedom of expression. I added that it is the court's prerogative to rule on this matter if Rule #7b is to be put to the constitutionality test. Mr. Mueller agreed that he could not ask me to remove the sign unless the rule is enforced for everyone.

About the threat of cancellation of the association agreement, I will provide you with the facts as the matter progresses. I should explain that the Feldman family has a monopoly over the cab industry in Chicago. There are about 175 drivers who own their medallions and are members of the Checker Cab Association who are Arabs or of Arab descent. There are about 600 cab drivers who lease their cabs from the Yellow Cab Company and are Arabs or of Arab descent.

Chicago city has now around 5,400 cabs, with the total expected to reach 5,700 by 1997. There are around 10,000 cab drivers, of whom about 1,000 are drivers of Arab or of Arab descent.

To conclude, I would like to thank every member of the ADC in general, and their legal department in particular.

Khalil A. Kishawi, Chicago, IL

A Letter to the Chicago Public Vehicle Division

James Mueller, Esq., Ass't. Commissioner, Department of Consumer Services, 510 N. Peshtigo Court, Chicago, IL 60611, Sept. 23, 1993

We spoke on Sept. 9 about the bumper stickers that Chicago taxi cab driver Khalil Kishawi has on his cab. I write this letter to confirm your decision not to order him to remove those stickers, or to take any other action against Mr. Kishawi because of those stickers, even though the stickers may place him in technical violation of Rule 7b of the City of Chicago Rules and Regulations for Public Passenger Vehicle License Holders.

As we discussed, the basis of your decision was that it would be unfair to enforce Rule 7b against Mr. Kishawi since your department apparently does not enforce the rule uniformly.

I would also like to take this opportunity to tell you about our organization. ADC was founded in 1980 by former Senator James Abourezk to combat discrimination against and stereotyping of Arab Americans. With its thousands of members organized into 75 chapters in the United States, including a sizeable chapter in Chicago, ADC has grown into the largest organization of Arab Americans in the country. Thank you for your time and assistance in this matter.

Sadiq Reza, Contract Attorney, ADC, Washington, DC

Twenty Blind Librarians?

To Ms. Nancy R. John, Past chair, ALA International Relations Committee, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, July 27, 1993

Thank you for your letter of July 9 explaining the ALA Council's revocation of the legally adopted resolution condemning Israeli censorship practices. Twenty blind librarians all on the ALA council! Perhaps reading my reply to them will open their hooded eyes.

Americans are overly sympathetic to Israel because of the mistaken impression that Jews were the only ones who died in World War II. We have been severely and blatantly brainwashed to that idea, while nothing is said of the others sent to concentration camps such as the Masons, Communists, gypsies, Seventh Day Adventists, Catholics, homosexuals, prisoners-of-war, journalists, etc.

Everybody suffered in that war—the Russians lost some 22 million people, the Germans lost some 2 million civilians (due in part to our ruthless bombing of urban centers such as Dresden, which had no military objective whatever). Yet sympathy is focused on only one group and because of that misplaced sympathy the Israelis have been allowed with impunity to run a most blatantly ruthless military occupation of a nation that had nothing whatever to do with World War II, just because the Israelis want their land. Everyone who opposes them there is branded a "terrorist," despite Israel's own selection of known terrorists as their leaders and their own terrorist acts such as purposely shooting down a civilian airliner. Everyone who opposes them here has reason to be afraid, even a minor American Jewish player like myself.

This is not a question of anti-Semitism but one of common honesty and decency. I have worked for over 50 years for human rights everywhere and there is no reason, in my opinion, not to censure a country just because it claims to be "on our side." Far from being a democracy, the Israeli occupation is illegal under international law and the oppression of the Palestinians amounts to genocide of a group under military occupation. It is racist in intent, as U.N. sanctions have pointed out. Shame on Judith Krug of the "Office of Intellectual Freedom whose task is to fight censorship" for telling the national press that it is okay to condemn censorship except in Israel. Why not? People who approve abuses when done by their own side scare me, and I put them on the same low level as Nazis.

As for the Council's resolution, remember condemning the whole Middle East is tantamount to condemning the U.S. and Canada for human rights abuses in Mexico just because we are in the same region. I would go along with condemning human rights abuses in any country providing that the appropriate organizations such as Amnesty International check them out, not just because of the opinions of an obviously misinformed group of librarians. I feel that those who voted to rescind the legally passed resolution did so out of self-interest more than for human rights and have disgraced the profession as a whole. I call on them to resign.

Louise F. Leonard, Middle East Cataloger, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL

Libraries and the Washington Report

To The New York Times (Westchester weekly edition), July 25, 1993

Noticing an imbalance in the Middle East collections of the libraries I visit frequently and knowing their budget constraints, I offered a gift subscription to White Plains, Greenburgh and Tarrytown of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Tarrytown accepted it; Greenburgh canceled the subscription after initially accepting it, and White Plains declined my offer.

While all three libraries have Commentary, a magazine sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, only White Plains has also Midstream, representing the same side as Commentary, Tiklun and Middle East Policy, formerly American Arab Affairs. My main concern was that the two sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict were not represented in a balanced way, especially when the mainstream media tends to present the Israeli side more favorably.

The reason White Plains and Greenburgh gave for their rejection was more like a pretext. That pretext was that the WRMEA was not indexed and therefore not useful to researchers—as if all the materials carried by these two libraries are indexed, which is not the case, and their patrons are all researchers, which is not the case either.

The Washington Report magazine was not only accepted by Tarrytown public library but also can be found at Yonkers (Central Park Avenue), Mamaroneck and New Rochelle public libraries. Moreover, it is represented in 3,200 libraries* throughout the United States. I have a hard time believing that all those libraries are wrong and only White Plains and Greenburgh are right.

Medhat Credi, North Tarrytown, NY

*Washington Report editors' note: Since this letter was published in The New York Times, the number of libraries receiving the Washington Report has grown to 3,300. The magazine now is indexed by The Public Affairs Information Service, one of the most widely used indexes in the United States.

The Facts on the Deal

To The Washington Post, Sept. 5,1993 On behalf of the American Business Association of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, I would like to respond to Mr. Hobart Rowen's article "Clinton's Deal With King Fahd," which appeared in The Washington Post on Aug. 26,1993. Mr. Rowen takes great exception to President Clinton's intervention with Saudi Arabia's King Fahd to encourage the purchase of aircraft from McDonnell Douglas and Boeing. He also wants to know "the terms of the barter," assuming there is such a quid pro quo.

To those of us who lived here during the Gulf war, and to the over 30,000 Americans living in Saudi Arabia, it is perfectly clear that America has a vested interest in this region. We are not, as Mr. Rowen puts it, "enthusiasts in the Democratic Party who have lost patience with traditional free trade approaches. " Most of us are, to the contrary, free trade enthusiasts, both Democrats and Republicans, who recognize that the United States no longer has a strong lead in the race for international markets.

As Mr. Rowen correctly states, for years the heads of state in Europe, including Great Britain and France, and in the Far East have been promoting their industries abroad, in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Prime Minister John Major of Britain, for example, has been playing a key role in the sale of British military goods, including Tornado aircraft, throughout the region. Meanwhile, our share of the international market had been steadily decreasing. The idea of a cooperative partnership between the private sector and the government to save American jobs and sell American products is not a new one. It was not conceived by President Clinton nor by President Bush. While we would neither expect nor support the idea of a sample-bag-carrying president making individual sales pitches to private businessmen, the communications between heads of state regarding government purchases, many of which must be approved by our own government (such as the sale of McDonnell Douglas F-lSs), makes a lot of sense.

The United States and Saudi Arabia are mutual-need allies. If Saudi Arabia chooses to show its appreciation, and perhaps to shore up its position, it is we who benefit. U.S. Department of Commerce statistics show that $1 billion in exports creates 22,800 man-years of direct employment. The 10,000 Americans working in Saudi Arabia promote American exports and American technology—from airplanes to agriculture—and our sales mean trade dollars for America and jobs for Americans back home.

If President Clinton wants to lend a hand, more power to him. While this may be a new phenomenon for America, government and business must join in partnership to compete effectively in today's global marketplace. We applaud President Clinton's efforts on behalf of working Americans everywhere.

John M. McNamara, President, American Business Association-Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia

cc: The President

The Honorable Ronald H. Brown, Secretary of Commerce

Facts on the ADL Scandal

To the San Francisco Weekly, May 26, 1993

ADL national chairman Melvin Salberg's letter on the "facts" of the spy scandal must be corrected. In a flight of magic, he declares there's no "ADL spy network"; dismisses as "uncorroborated" individuals who claim they've been spied upon; and asserts his organization "targets no community or individual based on race, religion, ethnicity..."

However, another ADL official at another time was a good deal more straightforward in confirming the existence and scope of the "civil rights" organization's political spying.

On July 7, 1961, ADL's Executive Director Ben Epstein wrote a B'nai B'rith official, Saul Joftes: "Our [intelligence] information, in addition to being essential for our (ADL) operations, has been of great value to both the United States State Department and the Israeli government. All data have been available to both countries." This is hardly the stuff of the mere "[newspaper] clippings, articles and public documents" Salberg says ADL collects.

As for only "a few individuals" saying they've been spied on, court documents corroborate quite the contrary. During the past 40 years thousands of individuals and hundreds of groups, political and not-so political, have been spy targets.

Nearly the entire national membership of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) are in ADL's computers. That's hardly a few. And as for Salberg's assertion that ADL "targets no community based on. . . ethnicity, " 5,000 Arab-American files create a very different image than the Alice in Wonderland fiction conjured by ADL's national chairman.

Maha Jaber, Bay Area Chair, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, San Francisco, CA

Barred From the West Bank

To Birzeit University, Palestine, July 11, 1993 (printed in Al Fajr)

I am writing to inform you that I am unable to attend the summer program at Birzeit. I arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport on July 8 and was questioned and detained for 24 hours before being sent to Frankfurt. I was given no reason for being barred from entry into Israel. I can only assume it is because of past work involving Palestinian human rights. (My name may have been on the list of names collected by the Anti-Defamation League and sold to Israel.)

The following is part of a letter I wrote to you while locked up at Ben-Gurion:

The reality of life here hit me once again as I watched several Palestinian families suffer the indignation and humiliation of interrogation and harassment. For a few seconds my eyes met those of a young man in the interrogation room. No words were necessary. He spoke through his eyes. It is a story which can be told by any Palestinian living under occupation. And then he was gone, followed by several younger brothers and sisters who each looked at me with the same eyes.

I shall miss very much not being able to live alongside those I have come to know as sisters and brothers. I feel cut off. But even as I am forced to leave I carry with me my hope, expressed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when he said to so many disenfranchised Black Americans: "I know this situation can and will be changed."

I hope that your summer program is successful and I look forward to the day when I can once again return to your land.

Terry Rempel, Tofield, Canada

Unbalanced TV Programming

To Mr. David Brinkley, ABC News, New York, NY, Aug. 1, 1993

I was aghast at the solo appearance of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on your Sunday show today, without your presentation of a guest to represent the Lebanese people. You are certainly entitled to choose your guests pertinent to current news, but to present Mr. Rabin as a solo point of view was an unreasonable and unfair act.

Where was a representative of the Lebanese people, who were attacked and killed on their own land, from which they were forced to flee by the hundreds of thousands?

I am also surprised that three distinguished newsmen—you, George Will and Sam Donaldson—would sit there in awe of Mr. Rabin and fail to ask any questions concerning the issue of the Israeli attack on their neighbors. I feel that all three of you deserve to be roundly criticized for a poor performance. Unfortunately, the Lebanese people received not a whit of support for their dead, injured or displaced refugees from any of you. Shame!

In the past, I have generally defended the media, but recently I have begun to believe the charges concerning special interests and managed news. It is sad to see justice and fairness ignored and only violence, greed and power glorified.

Dean W. Cooper, Seattle, WA cc: KOMO-TV, Seattle

Definition of Anti-Semitism

To Mr. Robert E. Nordlander, Menasha, WI, June 14, 1993

I have your letter of May 24 concerning anti-Semitism '2' in Webster's Third New International Dictionary and am happy to reply. The very great majority of all our citations for anti-Semitism show the word being used unmistakably in the sense numbered '1' in Webster's Third. There is, however, a small group of citations clustered in the years 1947-1952 in which anti-Semitism is linked more or less strongly with opposition to Israel or to Zionism. One later citation from 1975 suggests but does not explicitly state the same link.

Clearly the definer who handled this term in 1956 saw those citations as embodying a separate sense. So did other editors, it seems. There is a note in the files from a relatively senior member of the staff that we "must recognize" the newer sense. Looking at the same material more than 35 years later, I see what looks to me more like a special application of the usual sense rather than a separately definable sense. But the matter is far from clear-cut, and I would not fault the 1956 definer for his decision.

In any case, unless there is a return of the 1950s use that is not in prospect at present, the second sense will most probably disappear from the next edition of the International. If it is a real sense at all, it is now a relic and not needed in a dictionary that records primarily the contemporary vocabulary of English.

I hope these comments give you what you need. I'm sorry you had to ask us three times for this information. I hope you'll make allowances for the fact that while our editorial staff were working flat-out on the new edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, some requests probably got lost in the shuffle.

Frederick C. Mish, vice president and editor-in-chief, Springfield, MA

$10 Million a Day to Israel

To The Oregonian, Aug. 2, 1993

Our so-called representatives and senators are apparently going to give Israel another $3 billion of our tax dollars for the coming fiscal year—money that we will have to borrow to give away. This will bring the total given to Israel to well over $50 billion, with no end in sight.

In addition to these billions that have come directly out of our Treasury, there are many more billions that have been given, directly or indirectly, by tax-deductible contributions to Israeli charities, gifts of military equipment, duty-free imports from Israel—the list goes on and on.

In these days of so-called belt tightening to reduce our deficit, one of the big targets is Social Security, including Medicare. Why should we older Americans, as well as middle-class Americans in general, be forced to reduce our standard of living in order to support Israel forever?

This tiny nation has been condemned time and again for human rights abuses. Yet, contrary to our own law, we continue to give it more than $10 million a day, day after day.

Gerald G. Toy, Portland, OR

Cutting Aid to Israel

To The New York Times, March 25, 1993

From the headline, "Cutting Aid to Israel," on A. M. Rosenthal's March 19 column, I thought at first glance that by some divine intervention he had recognized the virtue of objectivity. But after finishing another of his works of excessively pro-Israel sophistry, I was again disappointed.

First, anyone who has looked into the matter knows that Israel gets far more than "about $3 billion a year." That is the amount in the foreign aid budget, but there is more than an additional $1 billion in other parts of the budget.

Second, it defies logic for Mr. Rosenthal to call any of the aid the U.S. gives Israel "loans. " Israel has not defaulted on U.S. Ioans only because Congress eventually forgives all loans to Israel. In fact, Israel has never repaid a U.S. government loan.

As Senator Dole has said, it would be much cheaper to just turn the farcical "loan guarantees" into legitimate grants, and save the U.S. taxpayer the millions of dollars in administrative fees they eventually entail. In fact Israel doesn't even pay the interest on its U. S. government loans, while waiting for Congress to forgive them. The Cranston Amendment, attached to every congressional foreign aid appropriation since 1984, makes it mandatory for the U.S. to give Israel at least as much economic aid each year as Israel owes in interest on U.S. "loans."

Mr. Rosenthal's usage of the term "Bushbaker" to convey a condescending tone to former President Bush and Secretary of State Baker completely disregards the fact that it was their tactics (i.e. delay of Israel's request for $10 billion in U.S. loan guarantees) that made possible the initiation of the Middle East peace talks, against the will of former Israeli prime minister and admitted Stern Gang terrorist Yitzhak Shamir.

Tom M. Rifai, Bloomfield Hills, MI

The Values of History

To the Oakland Tribune, Aug. 31, 1993

I read with keen interest Riva Gambert's Aug. 20 op-ed, "Lessons in Prevention, Not Vengeance." Her preachment on the value of history as a teacher and the value of individual accountability are well taken. She cites Bosnian "ethnic cleansings" as a current example that history's lessons remain unlearned. I agree.

I would cite another example of history's lessons falling on barren soil—among Israel's political leaders. On July 12, 1948, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion ordered Yitzhak Rabin, then an Israeli Defense Forces brigade commander, now Israel's prime minister, to expel forcibly 50,000 Palestinians from the Tel Aviv area, part of a human tide totaling 750,000.

When families—mothers and fathers, young and old—were driven at gunpoint beyond Israeli-held territory into the West Bank it was described as a "population transfer." However, I suggest Gambert's Bosnian "ethnic cleansings" as a more apt analogue. Although it was disastrous history offering another lesson in the lack of political accountability, the ugly chapter went unnoted by Western media, further proof, as Gambert opines, "that one can get away with. . . obscene (ethnic) crimes. " History records endless calls for "accountability," such as this warning of Mahatma Gandhi more than 50 years ago: "They (Israelis-to-be) are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people (the Palestinians) who have done no wrong to them." He went unheeded.

George Green, Oakland, CA

Whose Double Standard?

To Ambassador Samuel Lewis, Director of Policy Planning, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC, May 11, 1993

In your May 7 appearance at the annual meeting of the American Jewish Committee, carried on C-SPAN, you were admirably forthright in characterizing the Israeli government's expulsion of some 400 Hamas supporters into Lebanon as "unwise" and a mistake. However, I was shocked and dismayed when you agreed with a questioner that, in expressing disapproval of the expulsion, the State Department demonstrated "a double standard" since the department had not condemned Arab governments' expulsions of Palestinians.

Regrettably, you failed to inform the members of your audience that the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel was a party, proscribes the transfer or expulsion of inhabitants from territories occupied during wartime.

Even if you have adopted the Israeli view that the West Bank and Gaza are not occupied but "liberated" territories, you might have pointed out that world public opinion condemned the expulsion of people from their homeland as a gross violation of human rights. Your questioner presumably had in mind Kuwait's expulsion of thousands of Palestinians for their alleged sympathy with Iraq during the Gulf war. If this was the basis of his comparison, which you could have determined by asking, you could have pointed out that the Kuwaiti government never extended citizenship to Palestinians. Therefore, in wartime, they could be declared undesirable aliens.

I believe that you owe an apology to your colleagues for acquiescing in the mistaken notion that the State Department holds a double standard unfavorable to Israel. As a retired U.S. Information Agency foreign service officer, I can assure you that many of us labored for many years to deal impartially with all peoples in the Middle East.

Perhaps the many honors awarded you when you completed your term as ambassador to Israel were an expression of gratitude not for your attempts to explain American positions but rather for your adopting Israeli points of view.

Laverne Kuhnke, Silver Spring, MD

Israeli Crackdown in Gaza

To the Boston Globe, June 11, 1993

I am grateful to the Globe and to staff writer Ethan Bronner for the front page article of June 8, "Rights Groups Decry Israeli Crackdown in Gaza." As one who regularly receives reports from credible Israeli, Palestinian, American and international sources about the deterioration in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory, and who has heard devastating descriptions of the situation from close friends who have seen what is happening with their own eyes, I have been deeply depressed by the failure of the mainstream U.S. media to inform people here about the grim realities of life under an occupation which continues in full force despite the highly-touted Middle East peace process.

Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to provide the financial, political and diplomatic support that (at least indirectly) makes all this possible, and good and caring people—including huge numbers of concerned American Jews—continue to deny the reality and, when faced with overwhelming factual corroboration, to justify it. I am sure that  many of the letters and calls the Globe will receive in response to Bronner's fine article and to the profoundly moving accompanying photograph will include just such denial and justification (not to speak of vilification of the messenger!). May you have the wisdom and strength to continue providing your readers with such important information. Those courageous and persevering Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews who devote their lives to creating a better world for both peoples deserve no less.

Hilda Silverman, Cambridge, MA

Cal Thomas' Confusion

To the Janesville Gazette, Sept. 1, 1993 Cal Thomas's Aug. 29 column could hardly have given Gazette readers a more confusing introduction to the peoples and issues involved in the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks in Washington.

His equating of the Semitic ethnic cultural-geographic term "Arab" with the religious label "Muslim" (pertaining to  Islam) is inexcusable for anyone with access to an encyclopedia or even a condensed dictionary. There are some 12 million Christian Arabs, including the high-principled, conciliatory Hanan Ashrawi of the Palestinian peace negotiating team and U.N. secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali. And of the world's billion Muslims—from Indonesia (which has more Muslim citizens than all the Middle East countries put together) to Bosnia— less than a fifth are Arabs.

Particularly pernicious is Thomas's invention of an Islamic "Prophet, Allah" who instructs his loyal followers to make war on the Jewish "'infidels' and others who reject Islam." It illustrates the importance of the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia 's warning that "Political events and religious prejudice have conspired to produce an unfair picture in Western minds of the role of Islam in human progress."

Actually, Allah ("Elah" in the Hebrew Bible) is the name by which Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians as wel1 as Muslims refer to God. Islamic "holy writ," to which Thomas refers so disparagingly, gives 99 characteristics of Allah. Of these, the most frequently cited are "compassionate" and "merciful." The same scriptures jointly honor Christians and Jews as "people of The Book."

Contradicting Thomas's headline depicting only "Arabs thwarting peace in the Middle East" are the declassified files on earlier Arab-Israeli armistice talks. They are included in the Hamakor Press compilation of Documents on Foreign Policy of Israel, recently distributed to select American libraries and universities by the Israeli government. They may also be studied along with pertinent State Department, U.N. and other records in Rabbi Elmer Berger's Peace for Palestine: First Failed Opportunity (University Press of Florida, 1993). Candidly they reveal that Arab negotiators have had no monopoly on peace-inhibiting deceit, stalling, maneuvering or manipulation.

Thomas's identifying of a relatively small, loud-mouthed, terror-prone Islamic group as typical is as mischievous as suggesting that the Jewish Defense League and the Ku Klux Klan represent standard Judaism and Christianity.

Correcting and counteracting Thomas's other ambiguities, non-facts and chop-logic should not be left up to me or even to the peoples maligned. Is that not primarily the responsibility of the L.A. Times Syndicate and others whose good offices he has misused to the detriment of their reputations for fairness and accuracy?

Rev. L. Humphrey Walz, Janesville, WI

Focus on Proven Iraqi Abuses

To The Washington Post, April 4, 1993

The publication of a Pentagon study on Iraqi war crimes in Kuwait resurrected a claim about "120 babies left to die after being removed from incubators that were taken to Iraq." The report apparently was completed before a number of important reports refuted this allegation.

Middle East Watch's own extensive research found no evidence to support the charge. After the liberation of Kuwait, we visited all Kuwaiti hospitals where such incidents were reported to have taken place. We interviewed doctors, nurses and administrators and checked hospital records. We also visited cemeteries and examined their registries. While we did find ample evidence of Iraqi atrocities in Kuwait, we found no evidence to support the charge that Iraqi soldiers pulled babies out of incubators and left them to die. Kuwaiti government witnesses who during the Iraqi occupation asserted the veracity of the incubator story have either changed their stories or were discredited.

The propagation of false accounts of atrocities does a deep disservice to the cause of human rights. It diverts attention from the real violations that were committed by Iraqi forces in Kuwait, including the killing of hundreds and the detention of thousands of Kuwait citizens and others, hundreds of whom are still missing.

Aziz Abu-Hamad, Associate Director Middle East Watch, New York, NY