November/December 1994, Pages 74-77

Other People's Mail

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

Foreign Aid Facts

To the Detroit Free Press, Aug. 5, 1994, (as published).

Your July 24 Foreign Aid analysis left out some critical aspects of how billions of U.S. aid dollars are meted out.

Israel's true U.S. aid level is over $4 billion annually. That aid is NOT administered by the United States Agency for International Development, as it is for all other countries. It is handed over with virtually no strings attached, thanks to a deft pro-Israel lobby.

Israel's aid is given in a single installment at the beginning of each fiscal year, as opposed to the usual quarterly installments for every other aid recipient. That adds $50 million dollars yearly to the U.S. deficit because early disbursement requires more interest payments.

You made no mention of the $10 billion in U.S. guaranteed loans to Israel that were granted on the false premise of an imminent flood of Russian Jews to Israel.

You made the legitimate point that foreign aid makes up less than 1 percent of the U.S. budget. But Americans deserve to know how all the billions are spent by our frequently irresponsible government.

Tom M. Rifai, Farmington Hills, MI

Middle East Development Initiative

To The Hon. Lynn Woolsey, U.S. House of Representatives, May 6, 1994

As a voting member of your district, I am writing concerning HR 3818, a bill introduced by Congressman Penny of Minnesota, to establish a "Middle East Development Initiative." I urge you to co-sponsor and support this bill.

The Penny Bill would redirect a modest part of our current foreign aid now given to Israel and Egypt, our two largest recipients of aid, toward directly promoting peaceful development. So far the administration has failed to use current U.S. aid to directly support the process. The Congress needs to send a message that it wishes the administration to divert some of the current aid away from projects of confrontation to regional development as a reward for peace.

It would help make foreign aid a better instrument in the promotion of the U.S. national interest and foreign policy.

It would benefit all the states (including Israel) and peoples (including the Palestinians) in the region.

It would help promote U.S. trade and jobs.

It would not reduce U.S. aid to the region, yet would also not cost the American taxpayer any more than the current aid programs.

I understand that some special interests are opposed to the Penny Bill, but I urge you to act in what is clearly the best interest of the United States of America. More aid such as we have been sending means either more weaponry or more settlements built in the occupied territories whose final status is to be negotiated. We should not be using U.S. taxpayer money in this fashion.

Please let me know by letter if you will co-sponsor the Penny Bill. Thank you.

Mark E. Werth, APO, AE

The Representative's Reply

To Mr. Mark E. Werth, Aug. 4, 1994

Thank you for contacting me in support of aid to Israel. I wholeheartedly agree that the United States government should continue to support Israel, our only democratic ally in the Middle East.

As your representative in Congress, I stand firm in my support of aid to Israel, particularly now as Israel courageously struggles to establish peace with its Arab neighbors. I am pleased to inform you that this year's foreign aid bill recommends a total of $3 billion in security assistance for Israel—$1.2 billion in economic support funds and $1.8 billion for defense grants. The Appropriations Committee report also recommends that $80 million be provided for the resettlement of Soviet and other refugees in Israel. Finally, the Committee recommends that President Clinton continue to allocate resources from the Economic Support Fund for the Palestinian-Israeli Cooperation Program.

I have always been a strong supporter of Israel. I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to travel to Israel last summer where I witnessed first hand the economic and security pressures that Israeli citizens confront every day. On my trip, I realized how much the people of Israel count on American support. I assure you that I will continue to work vigorously to ensure adequate foreign aid to Israel.

Again, thank you for contacting me. The voices of my constituents are always the most important voices that I listen to. I look forward to hearing from you in the future.

Lynn Woolsey, Member of Congress, 6th District, California

An Answer to Rep. Woolsey

To The Hon. Lynn Woolsey, Aug. 17, 1994

I originally wrote you to urge support for HR 3818, the Penny Bill, which would help Palestinian civilian development by diverting military aid from Israel and Egypt. Unfortunately, your reply, which unabashedly sings the standard, yet ill-deserved, praises of Israeli foreign policy, misses the mark.

A growing number of fair-minded, informed, and rational people in this country, Israel, and around the world, are tired of the same time-worn, utterly false clichés about "our only democratic ally in the Middle East" as it "courageously struggles to establish peace" by milking the U.S. taxpayer for $6 billion a year. To get a better taste of the "economic and security pressures Israeli citizens confront every day," talk to a Palestinian in Gaza or the West Bank.

Rest assured, as you "continue to work vigorously to ensure adequate foreign aid to Israel," that I, and many others like me, will do the same—only that our definition of "adequate" differs considerably from yours. We will continue to do everything in our power to stop this human-rights abusing, tax-eating scam.

If you assume that every letter from your Marin County district dealing with the Middle East automatically supports the pro-AIPAC lobby position, you do your constituents a great disservice. Accordingly, I am enclosing a copy of our correspondence to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and the Council for the National Interest.

Mark Werth, Constituent, 6th District, CA

The Arab Boycott in Perspective

To The Washington Post, July 10, 1994 (as submitted).

An editorial entitled "A Boycott Over RU-486," printed in the July 9, 1994 edition of The Washington Post, stated: "Boycotts are a legitimate and nonviolent form of protest, and abortion opponents are well within their rights to organize one."

Two points: (1) Have the Post's editorialists always taken the same position with regard to the Arab boycott of Israel; and (2) does the above statement indicate the Post's disagreement with U.S. law that provides criminal penalties for Americans cooperating with the Arab boycott of Israel?

In the American view of the Middle East "right" and "wrong" are often determined not by what was done, but by who did it!

Roger D. Leonard, Bowie, MD

Poor Excuses from Israel

To The Washington Post, Aug. 7, 1994 (as published).

I would like to commend The Post for its news story about Israel's recent bombing raid in southern Lebanon ["Timing a Key to Israel Bombing Apology," Aug. 6]. But this article had one big error which tends to excuse the Israelis for their outrageous devastation of Lebanon last summer.

The story reads, "That action, known as Operation Accountability, was aimed at pressuring the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militia of Hezbollah...to stop its rocket attacks on northern Israel."

This is not why Israel launched its atrocious attack: The attack was a response to seven of its soldiers being killed by a command-detonated mine in Israel's so-called security zone in southern Lebanon, which Israel illegally occupies. Israel's soldiers died on Lebanese soil. This fact is important.

If The Post would check its own news accounts, it would not see any reports of Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel prior to "Operation Accountability."

Reverdy S. Fishel, Arlington, VA

Thumbs Down

To the Washington Jewish Week, Sept. 8, 1994 (as published).

Martin Indyk's appointment as U.S. ambassador to Israel is a mistake from every point of view (WJW, Aug. 28). Indyk is quite knowledgeable in Middle East affairs, but his background would be quite harmful to the United States, Israel and himself personally.

Indyk's past indicates that he is a soldier for hire. He first worked for Australia's Office of National Assessments, which reports to the prime minister's office, then in the States for a number of Zionist organizations that persuaded the White House to hire him to become the eyes and ears of the Jewish community, and only then did he become a U.S. citizen.

Indyk did a good job in the White House, but his name was not vetted nor does he have roots in America. He has no base in any segment of U.S. society on which he can draw as an ambassador. By moving him from the White House to the State Department, a bureaucracy known for anti-Semitism and against political appointees, he will be bypassed and rendered ineffective, which is what the White House is resorting to—getting rid of him through promotion.

It is inconceivable that Indyk was so capable with Arafat and Hussein negotiations that the White House decided not to keep him for dealing with Syria. It is also rather comic to suggest that in the entire United States, there is no one better to represent America in Israel than Indyk....

The Israeli leaders here during the Hussein-Rabin meeting were shocked and dismayed with the prospect of having Indyk represent the United States in Israel. They, too, would bypass Indyk and deal with their ambassador in Washington.

The United States does not officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a policy which every organization Indyk worked for opposes....

Indyk's appointment would also be harmful to American Jewry. What the United States and Israel need as an ambassador to Israel is a personality like Walter Mondale, Gov. Mario Cuomo, or a former congressman or senator who has political support and roots in the United States—and if that is not possible, then someone of higher rank from the State Department.

David Korn, former special assistant to Secretary of State Haig, Washington, DC

For Palestinians, No Improvement

To The New York Times, July 29, 1994 (as published).

Abba Eban's goal of Arab-Israeli peace is not furthered by his rationalizations of the policies of Israel's Labor governments in "Hussein, King of Realpolitik" (Op-Ed, July 20).

Mr. Eban asserts that the JordanianIsraeli deadlock since 1967 occurred because Israel, "haunted by Arab threats," felt compelled to claim boundary changes that Jordan could not accept. However, Israel's rejections of King Hussein's peace offers after 1967 were due more to an expansionist Zionist ideology that Labor shares with religious settlers and the desire to exploit the land and water resources of Palestinians.

In 1970, Labor adopted the Allon Plan, which envisioned keeping as much as 40 percent of the West Bank. The "demographic problem" would be solved by gerrymandering Palestinian urban enclaves and turning them over to Jordan; Israel would keep much of the best land and water resources. The seizure, that is, theft, of Palestinian resources violates international law and was never necessary for Israel's security.

Today, when Israel's Arab neighbors verge on accepting Israel, Labor still wants to keep much Palestinian land and water, only it is the Palestinians, not Jordan, who find Israeli border claims unacceptable. This is also true in Gaza, where Israeli forces have not withdrawn, but redeployed to protect a few thousand Jewish settlers, who control, per capita, 100 times the land and 16 times the water allocated to 800,000 Palestinians.

Israel is gerrymandering Gaza, leaving Palestinians with urban ghettos—what Yasser Arafat fears will become bantustans. Israeli settlers, whose presence violates international law, keep most of Gaza's natural resources. What is a self-governing authority that cannot govern decisions about natural resources?

Mr. Eban asserts that Labor, unlike Likud, does not want to "rule permanently over nearly two million Palestinians" without offering them a "separate jurisdiction." If Gaza is any indication, that is a euphemism for a bantustan or ghetto.

Despite agreements in Washington and Cairo, Israel expands its settlements in the West Bank, especially around Jerusalem. Torture of Palestinians continues, according to new reports by Amnesty International and Middle East Watch. These Labor policies not only violate international law and human rights, but also damage the credibility of the peace accords.

Edmund R. Hanauer, Exec. Dir., Search for Justice and Equality in Palestine/Israel, Framingham, MA

Israel Must Share Power

To The Washington Times, July 28, 1994 (as published).

Former diplomats can and should be indulged the pleasure of speaking their minds once they are no longer restrained by protocol from doing so. But the ex-ambassador of Israel to the U.S., Zalman Shoval, in his highly charged, emotional diatribe of July 14 ("Yasser Arafat's next target will be Jerusalem," Op-Ed) exceeds the bounds of credibility, not to mention fact.

If the Jewish population of "old East Jerusalem" was indeed a "plurality" 140 years ago (at a time when its total population was in the neighborhood of 10,000), Palestinian Arabs, Christian and Muslim together, were still the majority.

And to state that Jews are today an "absolute majority in the formerly Jordanian-occupied eastern part of the city" is false (they make up less than 10 percent of the total community of Arab Muslims and Arab and Armenian Christians within the walls) unless one includes the ugly shanty apartment blocks that Israel has erected outside the 16th-century walls, which despoil the ancient landscape, and the illegal suburb settlements hastily erected since 1967.

Such attempts to obscure the truth make one wonder indeed on what grounds Mr. Shoval, quoting that paragon of evenhandedness, Amos Perlmutter, concludes that the newly autonomous territories ruled by the Palestine Liberation Organization "will probably evolve into 'yet another authoritarian, inefficient, corrupt, praetorian Arab state.'" What evidence do we have of this probability? Has Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, unknown to us, been found to be receiving kickbacks? If so, we should be told. But in the meantime, this sort of ranting by Mr. Shoval, filled with calumny and innuendo attacking both the Palestinian Arab leadership and the Labor government of Israel, has no place on the Op-Ed pages of The Washington Times, a paper that has made a name for itself by attacking and exposing exactly this sort of blatant humbuggery.

Jerusalem, with its more than 100,000 Arab citizens, is a potent symbol that no Palestinian can ignore. That Mr. Arafat has reminded the world of the necessity of Israel's sharing it with the 2 million Palestinians living within the boundaries of the former British mandate should come as no surprise to anyone. People like Mr. Shoval should come to terms with the need to work out a power-sharing modus vivendi.

Robert Brenton Betts, Associate Professor, The American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon

An Unprofessional Book Review

To the editors of The Washington Post Book World, Aug. 8, 1994 (as submitted).

In the Aug. 7 edition of The Washington Post Book World, Adam Garfinkle launched a vicious attack on A Fire In Zion—my book on the Israeli-Palestinian search for peace. The readers of Book World should know that Garfinkle's review is filled with half-quotes, misquotes, and statements purposely taken out of context. Here are the most egregious examples.

Garfinkle says that I make a "factual error" when I say that Egypt "rarely interfered" in the business activities of the Palestinians during their occupation of the Gaza Strip. That's not what I said. My statement is made in the context of Egyptian interference in the political life of the Palestinians. Here's the full quote. "The Egyptians rarely interfered: While officials of the government security service were ever-present, the Cairo government saw its primary task as making sure that Gaza was not used as a base for attacks against Israel—unless, of course, those attacks were approved by the Egyptian government."

Garfinkle claims I make a "language error" when I describe Rabinovich's views on the Israeli-Palestinian search for peace as "almost" mystical. My judgment was based on Rabinovich's many statements on the conflict—one of which I quote at length. Does Garfinkle really believe that his objection to my use of the adjective "mystical" constitutes a substantive criticism of my book?

Garfinkle claims that I display "ignorance" of "inter-Arab politics" by confusing the Arab-Israeli conflict with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The basis for his claim is my statement that "more Palestinians have died at the hands of their co-nationalists than at the hands of the Israeli enemy." But that's only half the quote. The entire statement reads as follows: "At times, the Palestinian struggle has been more of a civil war than a single-minded national conflict against a recognized foe: In the 45 years since the founding of Israel, more Palestinians have died at the hands of their conationalists than at the hands of the Israeli enemy." I am very careful in my book to explain that the Palestinians have often been their own worst enemy. Does Garfinkle disagree?

Garfinkle calls my claim that the Washington signing of September 1993 "began the slow process of reconciliation that has as its goal the end of 100 years of unremitting strife between Jews and Arabs" over control of Palestine "astonishing." What is so astonishing about a statement uttered by no less than three Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (to the Knesset) on Sept. 23, 1993?

Garfinkle criticizes my explanation of Haj Amin al-Husseini's support for the Axis powers during World War II, claiming that "no significant Jewish immigration into Palestine occurred after the 1939 [British] White Paper." That's not true: 50,000 European Jews came to Palestine during World War II—a significant number considering that only 500,000 Jews then lived in the Mandate. The figures are taken from research done by the Falk Center, a Jerusalem-based think tank.

Garfinkle characterizes my view that "Rabin employed force" during the intifada in order to stave off a massacre (like the one that occurred at Sabra and Shatila) as "absurd." This is the most egregious of Garfinkle's claims, because I never made such a statement. Instead, I very carefully defended Rabin's words to IDF commanders to "break their bones" as his attempt to keep Israeli soldiers from using gunfire to subdue rioting Palestinians. I make it clear that Rabin was attempting to de-escalate the growing Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the territories. Garfinkle's claim constitutes a purposeful misreading of my text to support a criticism that has no basis in fact.

Garfinkle says I "mischaracterized" Rabin's views because he supported "the Allon Plan." But anyone who has studied the conflict in any depth knows that the Labor Party systematically undermined the plan—which would have given Israel control of the Jordan Valley (and Jericho). Did Rabin change his views on how to deal with the Palestinians—as I claim he did? I quote Rabin in my book to prove my position. Here's what he said three months after the beginning of the intifada: "I've learned something in the last two and one half months. Among other things, that you can't rule by force over one and a half million Palestinians." How can using Rabin's own words be a "mischaracterization" of Rabin's position?

Finally, Garfinkle says that I "never" support my claim that "America's victory against Iraq brought to a close the 40 years of confrontation between Israel and its Arab neighbors." That is not true. I support my claim in the very next sentence. Here it is: "The war was followed by a significant, but still largely unexplored, intellectual shift among Israel's political elite, who realized that the politics of the region had been transformed—by choosing not to fight against Iraq, Israel implicitly made itself an ally of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and even Syria. The Gulf War made Israel a part of the Middle East as no other event had in its 40-year history."

Garfinkle purposely deceives the reader about my position. But why? Perhaps it is because the Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement directly contradicts his previously printed views. In the April 1, 1991 issue of National Review, Garfinkle described President Bush's call for peace in the Middle East as "breezy bombast" and predicted that it wouldn't work: "Rather a lot could go wrong—and probably will." In other words, I got it right—and he didn't.

Garfinkle says that I have written a "snap" book to exploit the profits that go with the Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. If Garfinkle had read my book as closely as he claims, he would have known that I worked in the region for a number of years and interviewed key Israeli and Palestinian leaders numerous times. I began gathering material for the book in 1988—as the acknowledgement and source notes in A Fire In Zion clearly show. I began to write the book nearly three years ago—long before most believed that peace was possible.

What qualifies Garfinkle as an expert on this conflict? Let's check the record. In an article written in the October 1988 issue of Commentary, Garfinkle says: "The demographic threat and the Arab uprising have shifted Israeli opinion to the Right; more than ever, the 'transference' of the Arab population from the territories has become intellectually respectable." In all of my visits to Israel I have never found one credible Israeli leader, scholar, soldier, or analyst who approves of "transference." Even the most conservative leaders of the Likud party condemn "transference" as "shameful" because, as leading Likud party member Benny Begin told me when I interviewed him in March of 1993, "the last time transference was used was against the Jews of Europe." Transference means extermination—and Garfinkle knows it.

Garfinkle ends his review with a compliment, saying that A Fire In Zion is "free of sharp bias, not a common trait in writing on this subject." I only wish he had tried to embrace the same objectivity in his review as he found in my book. Innuendo, personal attacks, slurs, half-truths, partial quotes; this is the kind of review one would not expect to appear in one of the nation's leading newspapers.

Mark Perry, Arlington, VA

History of Arms Embargo on Bosnia

To The New York Times, Aug. 27, 1994 (as published).

There is a pervasive myth that the Bosnian arms embargo was imposed by the United Nations Security Council and therefore awaits lifting by that veto-hamstrung body, which will probably never happen.

As both houses of Congress at various times have declared when asking the president to lift the embargo, it is not a United Nations but a United States embargo that is the villain.

The United Nations never embargoed arms for Bosnia. Yugoslavia, not Bosnia, was embargoed by Resolution 713 in 1991 before Bosnia became an independent United Nations member state. It is the only United Nations embargo on the books that refers to the former Yugoslavia.

It can be lifted only after consultations between the secretary-general and the government of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) was later declared an aggressor and sanctioned for its crimes and murders in Bosnia by Resolution 757.

It is farcical to assume that the Security Council intended an embargo of a victim of aggression that would last until the aggressor came to an agreement with the secretary-general.

The United States embargo was placed there by President Bush and continued by President Clinton. The fault is not in the United Nations, but in ourselves.

Persuasion of the United Nations is unnecessary. Lifting the United States embargo cannot be stopped by a Security Council veto. It could long ago have been done by a stroke of the presidential pen.

Robert H. Silk, New York, NY

The Right to Access

To The New York Times, Aug. 27, 1994 (as published).

The principle of humanity has been another casualty in Bosnia. A stunning illustration occurred last year in negotiations between a commanding general and an aid worker seeking access to a minority population. When she reminded him of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, he countered, "We know your principles, and we will make you change them."

The general is on the verge of succeeding. Essential principles such as refusing to reward aggression and protecting human decency are indeed in shambles. Yet the counsel of despair, that the world simply acknowledge that we have no more principles to defend, should also be rejected.

Human beings still have fundamental rights, even though honored in the breach, including the right to humanitarian succor and freedom from abuse. The international community, too, has certain rights, including access to people in need. The defense of those rights has gone poorly in the former Yugoslavia, but abandoning principle altogether is not the answer.

The conclusion of our report last spring bears repeating: pulling back the United Nations presence from the Balkans would heap a new humanitarian tragedy upon the existing one. Creative political solutions must be found to make peaceful coexistence possible. The stakes are far larger than Bosnia.

Larry Minear, Providence, R.I. (The writer headed a research team from Brown University and the Refugee Policy Group.)

Algeria's Legitimate Fundamentalist Government

To The Washington Post, Aug. 23, 1994 (as published).

Daniel Pipe's Aug. 11 op-ed column on the threat of Algerian fundamentalism was misleading. A religious movement is indeed fighting to wrest control of Algeria from the current regime. Mr. Pipes failed to mention, however, that this movement won the most recent elections, was driven underground by a corrupt regime that refused to submit to the electoral will of its people and suffered a vicious campaign of violence against its members and their families when the regime declared the election void.

The Islamic Front has its roots in the despair found among Algeria's poor as a direct result of the political oppression and Soviet-style economic mismanagement of the regime over several decades. Moreover, recent reforms to open the economy were undertaken in a manner which enriched the very same people who socialized and ruined the economy in the first place. The Islamic movement was the only viable opposition to the regime and was fairly elected by a people who wanted change. When the regime failed to honor the electoral results, it should not have surprised anyone that the people rose up in revolt.

Unlike their Iranian counterparts, the Algerian fundamentalists bear no particular hatreds or political grudges against the United States. They have expressed a desire to maintain normal relations with the West, and their agenda clearly emphasizes domestic affairs. Like the Christian version, Islamic fundamentalism is the political manifestation of a desire on the part of large sectors of society to restore traditional and religious basic values to what they perceive as a politically, economically and morally corrupt society. We cannot stamp out Muslim fundamentalism any more than they can stamp out the Christian fundamentalist movement here. It is folly to offer assistance to regimes that try to stamp it out, for in doing so we make ourselves targets of the same hatreds that gave rise to the Khomeini regime in Iran.

If over time their policies prove to be excessively repressive, expansionist or otherwise inimical to our own interests, the United States can take actions to contain an Algerian fundamentalist state. In the meantime, we should try to build relationships and open lines of communication with a movement that has a lot of legitimacy and popular suppport in that part of the world and that is going to be a force to be reckoned with for a long time to come. In any event, we have no business lending support to the current Algerian regime, which has lost all semblance of legitimacy among its people and whose days are clearly numbered.

Adam L. Benado, Washington, DC