Washington Report, December 1988, Page 28

Letters to (and from) the Editor

A Basic Lack of Knowledge

Dear Editor:

I was very pleased with your magazine as well as with your selection of books. It is important that Americans learn more about the history and cultures of the Middle East. Unfortunately for both Middle Easterners and Americans, the US government has made many—far too many—mistakes in this region. I believe that these mistakes are made because of a basic lack of knowledge about the region. I would suggest that you also include background articles on Middle Eastern subjects such as: ancient cultures (i.e., Cannanite, Hittite, Assyrian, Chaldean, Phoenician, Philistine, etc.); historical heroes of the region (i.e. Hannibal, Alexander the Great, Constantine, Zenobia, Sargon, Saladin, etc.); and the peoples of the region (i.e., Maronites, Assyrians, Kurds, Alawi, Greeks, Armenians, Shi'ites, etc.). I know that you might contend that these subjects are out of your field, but I firmly believe that American attitudes toward the Middle East will never change until there is a basic respect for the peoples and cultures of that region. As long as Americans regard Middle Easterners as uncultured, uncivilized, irrelevant "nomads," they will continue to disregard our sound advice.

I would appreciate it if you could send me some information concerning your goals and objectives, as well as any suggestions you might have as to how I might be able to help.

Stan Shabaz, Washington, DC.

Eyewitness to Israeli Crimes

Dear Editor:

My fellow Jew, Dr. Douglas Miller, indulges in a stream of mean-spirited generalities in his letter in the October Washington Report hoping to intimidate non-Jews into silence about Israel's crimes. Conspicuously absent in his long tirade are facts. I challenge him to refute a few I have gathered in reports dated July and August from people who spent three weeks in Israel's occupied territories, sponsored by a number of organizations including New Jewish Agenda, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Riverside Church, and New England Catholic Peace Fellowship as part of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee's "Eyewitness Israel" program.

*"I interviewed a 9-year-old boy after he was caught by soldiers. They stomped on him until they managed to break his pelvis. I saw a couple of girls whose eyes were put out by rubber bullets which are basically steel slugs with rubber coatings and fired at close range. It's a common practice." —Robert Anderson, Rainbow Community Center, Pittssburgh, PA.

*"Brutalization by the Israelis is widespread. What they are doing is so horrible I was in shock the first few days."—Joseph Roach, broadcast producer, Salt Lake City, UT.

*"A family told me how their home was invaded by 20 soldiers using a jeep to break in. Then they beat up all the men. Then they threw the TV set on a 9-year-old, breaking his leg."—Alan Greenbaum, registered nurse, Seattle, WA.

*"I was struck by the amount of violence inflicted on the Palestinians." —the Rev. Carlos Jaynes, Methodist minister, Des Moines, IA.

*"As a lawyer I find the legal system outrageous. Everything is a military court. There's no pretense of being fair."—Julia Devin, public defender, Washington, DC.

Isn't it time Americans told Congress to stop giving Israel $3 billion a year to help commit these atrocities?

Edna Toney, Katonah, NY.

Calling for a Diamond Boycott

Dear Editor:

In 1984 Israel exported $1.05 billion worth of cut diamonds. Of this $1.05 billion, $250 million is value added which is one-third the value of all their industrial exports.

Thirty-nine percent of the world's diamonds are cut in Tel Aviv and 39 percent in Antwerp.

I am at a loss for an explanation as to why the Palestinians and the international Arab community hasn't organized a diamond boycott.

DeBeers controls 80 percent of all diamond sales. I expect they would lean heavily on Israel for a settlement if its profits were threatened.

James Creelman, Roxbury, MA.

Despairing at US Policy

Dear Editor:

The Washington Report is getting better and better, and I congratulate you. However, your voice and a number of others seem to have had little effect upon the candidates for political office, including Dukakis and Bush. I despair at US policy.

That recent events are not wholly without effect upon the American public is shown by two letters in the Carroll County Independent of September 7, which are enclosed. This county in northeast New Hampshire, extending from Lake Winnipesauke on the south to the White Mountains, is solidly Republican and conservative, but a number of retired Foreign Service officers, military officers, and others with international experience live here.

The struggle of the Palestinians for their freedom from Israeli occupation is a war of national liberation, which in international law permits acts of terrorism under certain circumstances against the occupying forces and authorities—not against non-combatant civilians, however. You should go into this in the Washington Report; the liberation struggles of former European colonies in Africa, Asia, and mutatis mulandi, what is now the United States.

The PLO should recognize Israel's right to exist, explicitly and publicly. Arafat is demonstrating weakness in the face of his extremist allies and enemies in failing to do this. However, as discussed above, he does not need to renounce terrorism against the occupying forces, any more than Begin and Shamir had to renounce terrorism against the British.

Keep up the good fight.

Louis A. Wiesner, Chocorea, NH.

Dear Mr. Wiesner:

It's always a pleasure to hear from Foreign Service Officers, active and retired, who have served in the Middle East. Letters from the active ones we don't reprint so that they can live to fight another day. Yours we reprinted with pleasure and, now that we have space in "Other People's Mail" again, we hope to reprint one or both of the excellent letters you sent from your New Hampshire newspaper in this or a subsequent issue of the Washington Report.

Borrowed Time

Dear Editor:

The government of Israel is offering potential investors almost $5 billion in trust certificates with a promised average interest of about 9 percent. These are guaranteed by the US through the Defense Security Assistance Agency of the Department of Defense. Hence, any default is likely to wind up on the back of the US taxpayer.

That such a default is all but inevitable is a natural conclusion from facts advanced by respected Israeli economists: per capita, Israel has the world's largest foreign debt (five times Mexico's, 10 times Brazil's), the greatest budgetary deficit and, under Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the highest military costs.

Having a budget regularly close to, sometimes in excess of, gross national product is often blamed for so much of Israel's economic decision-making getting into the hands of rival partisan politicians. They, in turn, are seen as competitively authorizing, and then mismanaging, financial outlays three times the amounts their government collects in taxes, thus compounding the problems of keeping up with trust certificate obligations.

Several other financially hard-pressed Middle East countries are reportedly offering similar trust certificates with parallel US guarantees. They also have comparable economic problems stemming from poor bureaucratic planning and over ambitious military projections which could tempt them to fall back on their American guarantors when faced with cashing the coupons or repaying the loans.

Before our Defense Department guarantees any more such trust certificates, could it not require the borrowing governments to undertake fundamental economic reforms and to start groping for reasonable peace engendering policies? Would this not, in addition to protecting the American taxpayer, be good for the aided countries? And would it not be helpful for our own country to try a little harder to set those distant borrowers a more encouraging example?

Which congressmen sponsored the Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Program Appropriations Act, 1988, under Title III of which these certificates are being launched?

L. Humphrey Walz, Janesville, Wl.

Truth Hurts

Dear Editor:

The October issue of the Washington Report was, as usual, exemplary. The information contained in your publication confirms the shameful, inhumane acts reported by the visitors returning from tours of the West Bank and Gaza.

Apparently the truth hurts. The letter from Douglas Miller of Miami Beach, FL. is typical of the attacks that will continue to be made on your publication regardless of the facts.

While the killing and beating of unarmed Palestinians continues in the occupied territories, the Israelis and their sympathizers have accepted this as a way of life. For the Israelis, who are unable to drive the Arabs out of their own land, the overcrowded concentration camps can only lead to the other methods used by the Nazis.

I plan to visit the occupied territories in the future. I suggest Miller do the same.

Robert A. Hay, Richmond, VA.

Best Ally

Dear Editor:

Your magazine is so very informative. However, one must ask, according to our Bible, was not the entire Holy Land promised to the Hebrews? And is not Israel our best ally in the Near East, aside from Saudi Arabia?

Syria is a protege of the Russians. And they help terrorists. Israel, however, offers our Navy the only place in that area for bunkering and repair facilities. You are correct about the Palestinian situation. Why their brother Arabs have never helped them resettle in the vast Arab areas is very sad. Look what they do to each other in Lebanon. I just saw that the Israelis launched a satellite and are working on their own SDI. If this small country can have a kind of SDI why cannot this huge strong nation have our own to protect us from Russian accidental firing of nuclear bombs? We need the SDI, do we not? The Israelis have the will. We seem not to have the will.

Thank you.

Leslie, Philadelphia, PA.

Enough is Enough

Dear Editor:

You could not have picked any better pictures for the front and back covers of your October issue. These pictures explain why Palestinians are saying "Enough is enough." Thank you very much and keep up the good and honest work.

Khader Hassan, Hemet, CA.

Revise PAC List

Dear Editor:

I like your new Washington Report cover and format. EXCELLENT! CONGRATULATIONS!

I'm renewing my subscription, as well as my gift subscriptions to the Winchester-Clark County Library and to Kentucky Wesleyan College. My check to cover all three, $25, is enclosed.

Your "Special Report" on "Candidates & Pro-Israel PACs" is of particular interest. Thank you very much. I hope this list will be revised as future re-election campaigns draw nearer.

Overall, you're to be commended and congratulated for the effort you put into "our" Report, and the excellence of the contents. I only wish your circulation could be multiplied many fold.

John A. Tabor, Winchester, KY.

Youth Identifies

Dear Editor:

We are sharing with you a letter our 14-year-old son, a Palestinian/American, wrote to the editor of the St. Petersburg Times. It was published on March 22, 1988.

The intifadah captured his attention more than we could. His Palestinian identity is now certain. I am sure it brought thousands like him back to the fold. If the Intifadah accomplished nothing less than that, it's a great accomplishment, for it is his generation, born and reared in America, who will be counted on to win the battle for Palestine that was lost here half a century ago. His letter follows:

"I am a 14-year-old Florida-born Palestinian American. Watching the nightly news for the last three months, I've learned a lot.

"If this country is ever occupied by any army, I will throw rocks and everything else that I have at the soldiers. I expect every American will do the same, for we Americans believe the only honorable alternative to freedom is death.

"How can we then expect any less of the Palestinian children who were born with the yoke of the Israeli occupying army on their necks? How can we, in good conscience, supply the bullets that kill and the gas that suffocates the cries of freedom in those children? I've read many times in your newspaper that we are giving Israel about $4 billion a year. Why should we do that when millions like myself in public schools have to be content with ketchup as a vegetable in our lunches?

"The last three months have helped mold my identity and made me realize how lucky I am to have been born in America. Yet I feel the pain and the agony of those Palestinian kids because I realize I could have very well been born in Palestine and then I'd have no choice but to do the same, knowing that I have no future, no dignity and no freedom. One of my best friends is an American-born Israeli boy my age. We sleep and eat at each other's houses and get along very well. The reason is because we are equal in this land; he did not take my land or force me out of my house like the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians in Palestine. I learned tonight from a television program that Jesse Jackson is the only politician who has the courage to criticize the brutality of the Israelis. How about the other politicians? Why are they silent? What can they inspire in us kids? How can we have trust in this cowardly bunch?

"My country, America! Help free my people and help save the Israelis from themselves, because what goes around comes around.

"Sami Thaiji, 9th grade student, Seminole, FL."

Thanks for an excellent job.

Ed Thaiji, St. Pete Beach, FL.

Volunteer for PAC Phoning? Yes!

Dear Editors:

I have recently begun reading the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. I agree most heartily with the general editorial position of the Report, and most specifically, with the Report's aim of informing the American public regarding the complex issues in the Middle East.

In the October 1988 issue the article "What's Special About Pro-Israel PACS?" refers to "volunteers" manning telephones to respond to calls generated by ads placed in newspapers. The purpose of my letter is to inquire whether The Washington Report has need of volunteers in New York City to perform similar tasks?

I hold a bachelor's in Arabic studies with a concentration in Palestinian Affairs. I would be most happy to volunteer my services to help support your efforts.

With many thanks for your fine work.

Karen E. Riley, New York, NY.

Dear Ms. Riley:

We do need volunteers as regional representatives for follow-up in three areas:

1. Library donations. We often receive general donations for such projects as "subscriptions to the Washington Report for 20 libraries in my state" or placement of second copies of books purchased by the donor (at the AET book club two-for-one rate) in "a library of your choice." This requires liaison with local libraries which is very time consuming for our tiny Washington staff.
   
   
2. Newsstand and bookstore placement of the Washington Report and related publications.
   
   
3. Follow-up with potential group or individual subscribers in your area.

We're ready to discuss these ideas with you, and with like-minded people throughout the United States.

PAC List Praised

Dear Editor:

Enclosed is a check for $100.

We hope this will help buy additional "tiny display ads" in newspapers and magazines around the United States.

The tactic to advertise your list of congressional candidates who have accepted pro-Israel PAC ads is brilliant.

Mrs. David E. Foster, Gordonsville, VA.

"Semitic Palestine" and More

Dear Editors:

Last year I sent you a letter subtitled "Semitic Palestine," concerning the generally non-Semitic and non-Palestinian descent of the present Zionist inhabitants of Israel, with significant documentary references.

At the same time I described the late Douglas Reed's book, The Controversy of Zion, which gives the most complete and documented account of the origins and nature of the destructive forces of political Zionism, including the Ashkenazi's Mongoloid (Khazar) non-Semitic origins. As the book was banned for a generation I thought the only copy available here in Morocco represented an extremely hard-to-find out-of-print work and I broached the subject of a possible reprint through your auspices. Then I learned that a California book house had reprinted it in paperback. I also sent you a letter giving the address of those booksellers and offered to review it for you. To date I have not seen any mention of this. I should appreciate knowing if my letters "got through." I have written mostly on Middle Eastern affairs, under the pen-name of "Bruce Conde" for the past 47 years, but, like Douglas Reed, have not been popular among pro-Zionist Israelis or their supporters.

A.B.A. de Bourbon, Prince de Conde,

Major General, Royal Yemen Army (Ret.) Tangier, Morocco

Dear Mr. Conde:

Apparently most of your letters didn't arrive. Please do try again. We are familiar with your writing over the years and spent many happy weekends in the 1960s pursuing some of the suggestions in your guidebook for visits to out-of-the-way areas in Lebanon. All of that was while you were following even more interesting political and geographic trails in Yemen. Your contributions toward helping Americans understand the peoples of the Middle East, and vice versa, will always be welcome.

US Jobs Lost to British

Dear Editors:

In Saudi Arabia on a short assignment for my American company, I have noted columns from the Washington Report reprinted in the Saudi press. A pleasant surprise!

One disappointment here, however, is that the British are getting the important contracts that formerly went to  American firms. Possibly in 1989 this trend could reverse itself.

Good luck in your efforts to inform the American people.

George Sexton, Norfolk, VA.

Dear Mr. Sexton:

Thank you for your letter and continued support. Because of congressional opposition to sales of US defensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, the Saudis are looking elsewhere instead of to their traditional US suppliers. The decision to buy British rather than US aircraft, ships, and services cost the US $36 billion in 1988 according to US government estimates and $68 billion according to Saudi government estimates. That's between one and three million American jobs lost, using Pentagon and Department of Commerce estimates of 40,000 US jobs lost for every $1 billion in US sales lost. We don't think this trend will reverse until President-elect Bush starts putting US Middle East policy on a more even-handed basis. Only then will members of Congress, who are a lot more vulnerable to Israel-lobby pressure than is the President, begin to get their own house in order and start considering the needs and concerns of their constituents instead of the orders from AIPAC.

Educating Clerics

Dear Editors:

Enclosed please find a check in the amount of $375 for renewal of the subscriptions shown on the enclosed printout which was sent to me with your letter of August 17, and the names and addresses of the 23 clerics who accepted the Jewish Community Federation Middle East support for a trip to Israel.

Some of these clerics spoke before an audience of members and guests of the Cleveland chapter of the United Nations Association. Only two of them saw or talked to any Arab Palestinians. Two of them went to Ramallah at the urging of one of their friends in Cleveland,

We feel that they need an education, and request that a letter be sent to them stating that the Report is a gift from the Northeast Ohio Committee on Middle East Understanding.

Should any of the old subscribers renew the subscription on their own, we will be happy to send along the name of a new subscriber.

Said S. Kabalan, Cleveland, OH.