March 28-April 3, 2002

mailbag

Mailbag

by the Readers

Israeli Response

(Re: "Peace of the Action," Trish Boppert, March 21)

Thank you for including comments by Rachel Feinmesser in your recent article on demonstrations at our consulate. While we appreciate diversity of opinion, we were hoping for a more balanced point of view. We feel strongly that the article did not accurately reflect the challenges and complexities faced by our small country at this critical time.

The vocal minority that demonstrates in front of our consulate on Friday afternoons does not accurately reflect the concerns of the majority of Israelis. To us, "peace" and "politics" are not simple issues on which one has "opinions." We pay for our beliefs with the lives of our children, our neighbors, our friends.

We hope you will give us an opportunity in the very near future to express more fully the point of view of the State of Israel, and to give your readers a balanced perspective.

Giora Becher
Consul General,

Consulate General of Israel Philadelphia

I was extremely disturbed to read about the weekly Friday afternoon demonstrators in front of the Israeli Consulate to protest "the Israeli occupation of Palestinian-controlled territory," including groups such as the Jewish Mobilization for a Just Peace, the American Muslim Society and the American Friends Service Committee in your article. To say they are misguided, ignorant, arrogant and misinformed is a generous understatement. The place their energies should be directed is the Palestinian, Jordanian, Egyptian, Iranian, Lebanese and Syrian consulates.

While every person has a right to his or her opinion, no person has a right to be wrong in his or her facts. What is most unbelievable is the sheer one-sidedness, naivete and tunnel vision exhibited by these people in the face of the reality of the offensive terrorism directed against innocent Israeli civilians during this intifada. To Yasser Arafat and the Palestinians, all of Israel is considered a settlement and must be taken by force, much as the prophet Muhammad, who achieved victory and supremacy in Arabia by stages and by the sword. The idea of winning a state "given to him" through negotiations is apparently repugnant. "By blood and spirit we will liberate you Palestine" is the anthem of the Palestinian masses.

It is amazing how culturally and historically ignorant are the American and European negotiators involved in this "peace process." They have bought into the Arabs' penchant for words and the Palestinians' passionate gestures of righteousness when all along it is nothing less than deception. If ever Arafat believed that he would have to give up once and for all the dream of eliminating Israel to achieve an end to the conflict, then by the time he reached Camp David II in the summer of 2000, he no longer believed so. Hence, his adamant refusal to sign a document "ending the conflict." The Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000 convinced Arafat that he, too, could achieve such a withdrawal if he used Hezbollah's terrorist tactics and made Israel bleed. Palestinian Authority Communications Minister Imad Al-Faluji visited Lebanon and announced: "Whoever thinks that the intifada broke out because of the despised [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon's visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, is wrong, even if this visit was the straw that broke the back of the Palestinian people. This intifada was planned in advance, ever since President Arafat's return from the Camp David negotiations, where he turned the table upside down on President Clinton. [Arafat] remained steadfast and challenged [Clinton]. He rejected the American terms and he did it in the heart of the U.S. ... My visit here in South Lebanon is a clear message to the Zionist enemy. We say: Just as the national and Islamic resistance in south Lebanon taught [Israel] a lesson and made it withdraw, humiliated and battered, so shall [Israel] learn a lesson from the Palestinian resistance in Palestine. The Palestinian resistance will strike in Tel Aviv, in Ashkelon, in Jerusalem, and in every inch of the land of natural Palestine. Israel will not have a single quiet night. There will be no security in the heart of Israel."

How prophetic those words have unfortunately become in the past 18 months since this planned uprising began. What is abundantly clear throughout history is that the Palestinians and Arabs have rejected the two-state solution offered to them in 1937, 1947 and 2000. The latter was the offer made at Camp David, and 1947 saw the United Nations Partition Plan, which Israel accepted and the Arabs rejected. They instead launched the war of independence, which Israel won but the aftermath of which was that Egypt illegally occupied the Gaza Strip, Jordan and the West Bank -- both of these territories were then conquered by Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967. Where is there, or has there ever even been, any sign that Arafat will now accept such a concept, let alone recognition of Israel's right to exist? None, and this is the real issue.

The first and foremost of all human rights is to be alive, safe and free from terror, and this is the paramount duty of Sharon and the Israeli government to its citizens who have been pushed to the brink. Once the terrorism stops, the violence will end and maybe, if cooler heads prevail, real peace can be achieved.

Lee Bender
Vice President

Pa. Region of the American Jewish Congress

Write and Wrong

(Re: "Chasing Shadows," Howard Altman, March 14)

Good for you, Howard! You are certainly under no obligation to work for the FBI, and as you point out, you're a god-damn reporter. Someone has to defend the Constitution, I'm glad you decided to take a stand. Keep up the good work.

Tom Harley
via e-mail

It seems to me that reporters are half the problem these days. In our society's need for 24/7 news, we put our entire society at further risk. If an amateur terrorist wants to learn how to blow up a bridge or poison our water, then he need only watch CNN or read a newspaper. This type of news candy is too rampant. And here you have a chance to help nab a national-security threat, but you recoil under the guise of reporters being marked "government tools." Remember, this guy came to you. You did not pursue this facility any further than the law allowed. Now this threat will sell these photos to the next guy who will post them in his newspaper or website. It's going to take more than the military to win this type of war. Shame.

A. Steel
via e-mail