October 1991, Page 5

Letters To (and From) The Editors

 

The Campaign to Free Rula Abu Duhou

After reading the article in the Washington Report about Rula Abu Duhou, sentenced to 25 years in prison in Israel, and her Arab-American fiance in Chicago, I wrote a letter to Senator Albert Gore, Jr. Since he is the recipient of Israeli PAC money, I thought he might have influence with the Israelis. Senator Gore sent me the enclosed response to him from the Israeli ambassador in Washington. I think I am due an explanation. Was I "used"? Was the article true? Is Ambassador Shoval lying?

Henry Horrell, Nashville, TN

Text of Israeli ambassador's letter:

"Dear Senator Gore,

"Thank you for your letter of April 14th. I would like to share with you the following information regarding Roula [sic] Abu Duhou.

"Roula Abu Duhou was sentenced to 25 years in jail for membership in a hostile organization and for taking part in the murders of innocent people. Also, she confessed to the murder to Yigal Shahaf in the Old City of Jerusalem two years ago.

"With best wishes, Ambassador Zalman Shoval, Washington, DC"

A number of readers contacted their representatives in the US Congress and in the Canadian Parliament and received back from their representatives similar responses from Israeli embassies in Ottawa and Washington. Because of the continued interest, we are seeking a follow-up report. Meanwhile, for readers who missed the original article by Chicago free-lance writer Leila Diab in our December 1990 issue, she reported: After eight days of continuous, unspeakable physical torture, Rula Abu Duhou, a 19-year-old honors student at Bethlehem University, signed under physical duress a confession in Hebrew, a language she does not understand. After a further year of pre-trial imprisonment, she was sentenced by Israeli authorities to a 25-year prison term on the basis of the coerced confession. Ms. Abu Duhou denied under interrogation, at her trial, and subsequently all of the charges against her (and reiterated in Ambassador Shoval's letter), not only those concerning acts of terrorism but even that of affiliation with a banned political party. For further information concerning the authorized use of torture by Israeli authorities to extract confessions, and the refusal of1sraeli courts to invalidate convictions shown to be based solely upon such coerced, false confessions, we refer readers to the article by Stephen Sosebee on page 41 of this issue, and the "Human Rights " column on page 71.

 

How About State-by-State Votes on Aid to Israel?

I often read of a "Proposition" getting on the ballot in California. Why can't we get something like the proposition below on one, many, or all states' 1992 ballots?

"Should the US continue to send foreign aid to Israel? - Yes - No"

Since the former congresspersons on your Board would have the know-how for this, why don't you orchestrate this? At least tell us how and also tell us if each state should work on its own or should it be a national effort?

Garland F. Clifton, Washington, DC

We've discussed your excellent suggestion with Executive Director (and former Mississippi Congressman) David Bowen of the Council for the National Interest. CNI is preparing state-by-state information on how to get an initiative on the ballot. We'll keep our readers informed.

Since we're on the subject, this is as good a place as any to inform our subscribers and CNI members that, because of funding problems, CNI members will no longer receive the Washington Report as a privilege of membership. As they renew their CNI membership, however, they will be able to subscribe at the 1992 $10 opinion molder's rate rather than at the full 1992 $19 annual subscription rate. 7his is similar to our arrangement with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). Contact CNI (see coupon on page 39) for details.

 

All Americans Not Apathetic!

I am responding to Steven Sosebee's "American Apathy Over Killings of Palestinians " in the July issue. I am one American who does care about the Palestinians. The people who are apathetic are politicians—the ones subservient to Zionist agendas, who finance the murder of Palestinians, who betray the American trust.

Nothing less than the return of every single one of the Palestinians to all of their homeland and the unconditional recognition of Palestine as the rightful homeland of the Palestinians can be called justice. This is the solution to the problem. Until this occurs, Palestinians will continue to suffer, and we who sympathize with the Palestinians will continue to suffer as well.

That a people should be terrorized from their own land and then be labeled terrorists themselves; that they should be denied national sovereignty in the entirety of their historical homeland; that they should endure massacres and massive injustices and persecutions for over 40 years—this will go down in history as one of the blackest tragedies ever to darken the history of the human race. The Zionist domination of the US government will go down as the blackest scourge ever to darken the history of America.

Judy Keller, Grand Rapids, MI

 

Get With Recycling!

I am already subscribing. But be assured I will not renew the subscription to a magazine that is not published on recycled paper. Nor can the slick, shiny paper be recycled—what a waste of energy and paper!

Allene Long, Big Rapids, MI

We've discussed your concern, which we share, with the firm that prints our magazine. They say, as yet, there is no paper that can provide a quality reproduction of color photos and still be recycled. We'll switch as soon as the technology is there. Meanwhile, If there's something we or the printer should know to speed up the conversion, we'd welcome hearing about it. Maybe the breakthrough will come before your present subscription expires.

Let's, however, discuss whether it was a waste to print the color photo in December 1988, of the tiny, scared Palestinian boy about to throw a rock, or the photos of Kurdish, Bangladeshi, and Palestinian children on the covers of our present and recent issues. Thanks to libraries and newsstands, at least a million Americans have looked into the eyes of each of those children on our covers, along with perhaps half a million people in other countries. For some of the latter, it may be the first indication they've ever had that some Americans care about those children. For Americans, it may serve as a reminder that none of those children may grow up at all in the "new world order, " unless we get the poison of corrupting, war generating money out of the system from which US foreign policy emerges.

For starters, we hope that no one who looks at those children and resolves to save them will rest until every member of Congress who accepts odious pro-Israel PAC money in exchange for consigning Third World children to history's trash heap is driven out of Congress—with the opprobrium, scorn, shame and disgrace earned by corrupt leaders who betray their constituents, their fellow human beings and, yes, the American dream. Are you sure Mother Earth would think our work is "a waste of energy and paper"?

 

An Appreciation of Our Writers

I have just finished reading Rachelle Marshall's Special Report in the Aug./Sept. '91 issue of the Washington Report. I want to commend Ms. Marshall for courageous and indispensable journalism. As an American Jew I want peace in the Middle East for all people. Palestinians must have their freedom. If, instead, they are to be continually brutalized and their spirit destroyed then we, Americans and Jews who support such a policy of dehumanization, are guilty as were the silent Germans of Hitlerian infamy. The ad in this issue of the Washington Report by JCOME, which I support, shows a photo of the Israeli poet, Natan Zach, as voicing his support for JCOME and for justice for the Palestinians. I would find it very valuable to read more extensively remarks of this Israeli poet, for generally we get all too few sentiments from Israel of views that we in the peace movement here or in the world need to hear. Of course, Dr. Israel Shahak is always great. Side by side in the Washington Report, he and Rachelle Marshall are precious and necessary voices from inside and outside Israel, fearless voices bringing us the truth that will not be silenced.

Rubin Falk, Asheville, NC

We think you'll enjoy hearing again from all three, Dr. Shahak, Ms. Marshall, and JCOME in this issue.

 

You Frighten Me!

Enclosed you will find a check for $100, to be used to pay for "opinion molder" subscriptions or wherever else you feel it will do the most good. I must admit you frighten me when, as in your last issue, you use terms like "we've never been in worse shape financially" and "if the extra 7,500 copies ... aren't paid for. . . we're history. " Can you put up with a little emotionalizing and opinionating on my part?

I view the publisher, the editor and the Washington Report as national treasures. There simply can be no discussion of even the possibility that you might go out of business. With virtually the entire American news and broadcast industry strongly pro-Israel (I think they are often mendaciously so), your news/commentary publication and the AET's role in supplying balanced books on the Middle East are indispensable. Without you, the country will go back to where it was a decade ago.

If you are losing money, or barely breaking even, with your present subscription rates, it seems to me you must do something to get yourself on a solid financial basis. Maybe you need a sliding scale, by which people pay what they can afford, or something of that sort. I am retired and on a pension. But after resigning as a colonel in the Air Force and going back to school to get a doctorate in political science, I became very interested in the injustice that I felt was being done to the Arabs in Palestine. Subsequent years spent as a defense research analyst strengthened my convictions.

My point is that you have a special kind of readership. There are a great many of us who feel a community of interest in what you are trying to do. Tell us how we can help and we will do our best. This is what I mean by a  "sliding scale." Take us all into consideration and aim at each of us.

My second point is the necessity for putting in place a regime that can continue your work at its present quality level but without the original founders. How you can attract, groom, and retain new, good people who will take on more and more responsibility, I do not know. But I do know it is immensely important if your work is to bear fruit in a permanent change in US policy.

Let me close on a note of praise. I find it almost inconceivable that an effort as high quality, as fair, and as all-around effective as yours should be blooming in the pro-Israel American desert. Please don't let it fail. There are many of us, I know, who will do our best to help you.

John K. Moriarty, Fairfax, VA

Unfortunately we have not overstated the case. We won our short-term gamble on printing extra copies of the August/September special issue to help those working against the $10 billion in loan guarantees. Enough readers like you funded special mailings to their state legislators to pay the extra costs. We haven't solved our long-term problem, however. Since if we make it through 1991 it will be by pure sleight of hand, there's not much we can do now about the future. Yet, of course, it's our dream to leave behind an enduring institution that will be furthering American-Middle Eastern understanding long after the Palestinians finally have their justice, and the Israelis, their security. See the Publishers' Page for more on the subject, and we deeply appreciate your concern.

 

We Don't Miss Much

Has The Link scooped the Washington Report? Unless Archonist readers have simply missed something, The Link for August has reported first about a confrontation in Virginia between Christian conscience and Israeli arrogance in regard to the Palestinian issue. An Episcopal bishop expressed views in May against Zionist abuses of Palestinians and against aid to Israel. Virginia Jews then generated a rhetorical volley against the bishop. Three other bishops-representing the Roman Catholic, United Methodist, and Episcopal faiths promptly supported the first bishop.

William L. Knaus, Mendota Heights, MN

Archonist readers must have been on vacation when publisher Andrew Killgore reported on page 34 of the July Washington Report on Virginia Catholic, Episcopalian and Methodist bishops coming to the defense of Bishop C. Charles Vache of the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia, whose appeal to Christians to come to the aid of Palestinians under Israeli military occupation became the subject of a savage personal attack by the Norfolk-based regional director of Bnai Brith's Anti-Defamation League, and more measured criticism by the president of the Jewish Community Federation of Richmond. In any case, as you will read on page 67 of this issue, the Episcopal Church in the United States now seems to reflect, however belatedly, the views of its courageous bishop in southern Virginia.

 

"On Gaza Beach"

Your magazine gets better and better. Enclosed is a most revealing article-cum-confession by a disgusted Israeli, doing guard duty at one of Israel's supposedly more "humane" internment camps. This article speaks volumes. I continue to spread your message whenever I have the opportunity. Yesterday I even sacrificed my current Washington Report by giving same to the chairperson at a local meeting investigating our "war crimes" in the Gulf war. It becomes increasingly clear that Saddam Hussain is not alone when it comes to spreading devastation and death among the innocent.

E.A. Bernstein, Paradise, CA

Thanks to you and other readers who sent us copies of "On Gaza Beach "from the July 18 New York Review of Books. So far we have been unable to get reprint rights, which the publication says are retained by the author in Israel. If we get them, we'll share his shocking and moving article with our readers in a future issue.

 

You're Naive But Informative

I generally subscribe to the analysis and views contained in the writings of Noam Chomsky and Alexander Cockburn, and so I basically disagree with what seems to me your rather benign and (may I say) innocent appraisal of US government policy and/or the reasons for it, with respect to Israel and the Middle East in general. If policy makers in Israel didn't have their own reasons for their shameful policies and behaviors toward Palestinians, the US would have had to invent them. I firmly believe that Israeli policies have been and are by and large in accord (for the most part) with the American elite's imperial aims. Be that as it may, and even though it seems to me that I have read some racist/anti-Semitic writings in your pages in the past, I feel that you are fair in presenting a wide spectrum of political views and that you print informative articles of opinion and fact that are largely absent from the daily press and monthly magazines of large circulations.

Therefore, I enjoy reading your publication and am purchasing two subscriptions for the editorial page editors of the daily newspaper of my city, and one nearby.

Name and city in Michigan deleted by editors

You're entitled to your opinions on American and Israeli policies. Nor does our view that you are scape-goating the US for Israeli excesses entitle us or anyone to call you "anti-American." So let's examine what you just called us.

We don't mind being called "benign" or "innocent." But you have no idea how devastating for people who have been personally involved in the civil and human rights movements since World War II it is to be called "racist" and "anti-Semitic." Obviously you don't really believe what you say so casually, or you wouldn't call us "fair" and  "informative" in the same letter and ask us to enter gift subscriptions in your name to editors in your area.

So we'll make you a deal. We'll refund your money and we'll pay ourselves for the two subscriptions which were already begun by our circulation department before we saw your letter. Meanwhile, please read carefully the magazine in which "it seems to "you that you have "read some racist anti-Semitic writings ... in the past. " We carry a lot of opinions, as you note, including articles by Zionists defending the present, racist government of Israel. But we don't think you'll find what you describe in anything written by Washington Report staff. Perhaps, if you read more carefully in the future, you'll also choose your words more carefully. We're withholding your name and city because we don't scold people publicly unless they have a medium at their disposal with which to scold us back.

 

A Comment on Stealth PACs

I am writing in response to the AET book Stealth PACs, which I recently discovered, more or less by accident, at a local bookstore. The questionnaire included in the book did not give me an adequate opportunity to develop my thoughts about the book. In general I agree with you and I do believe that getting information out about the inordinate influence of the pro-Israeli lobby can be one of the key ways of getting Congress and the administration to reconsider its one-sided policy in the Israeli-Arab conflict.

I would like to comment on just one passage of your book. On page 155 your editor writes:

"Some of these lobbyists make no apologies for supporting any member of Congress who supports Israel, no matter how bigoted his politics, or how questionable his civic or personal morals. The inevitable public perception is that such ardent supporters of Israel have no real interest in making the United States a better place for all of its citizens but only in making Israel a more secure and prosperous place for Jews. [my emphasis]

This is the only point in the book on which I have reservations. It think that a special point should have been made here (or elsewhere) to correct this public perception. For I believe that one of the most powerful arguments in favor of changing US Middle East policy is precisely that the current course of Israeli policy has very little to do with making Israel more secure or prosperous—quite the opposite. You are probably in agreement with me that a policy of rejectionism on the territorial question and maintaining high levels of repression against the Palestinians can only prepare the way for an even more serious and endemic state of war; and that real rather than artificial prosperity for Israel would involve trading and living in harmony with its neighbors.

I recall reading as well in your book that Jewish peace groups in the US are isolated from other groups that criticize Israeli policy. (I do not know, since I live most of the year outside the country.) Well, I am certain that one of the best ways to break down this barrier is to emphasize that your point of view does take into account Israeli interests, not defined in a narrow military way but in terms of real peace, security and regional prosperity.

This is a mere detail. In general I congratulate you on your work, which only a narrow-minded person who confuses politics with religion could mistake for anti-Semitism. I have recent discovered your magazine, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, on the local newsstand. I plan to subscribe and in the meantime have brought this magazine to the attention of the members of a summer seminar on the Middle East now being held on the campus of Smith College and sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee.

You may be interested to know that there is currently, and for the first time, an interesting public debate in France about the "Jewish lobby" or, as I prefer to call it, the pro-Israeli lobby. If you are interested, I can send you some information when I return to France.

James A. Cohen, University of Paris, France

We would be happy to receive your report from France, and we totally agree with your comment, which, thanks to your letter, now will be reflected in the final chapter of the new, third edition of Stealth PACs. Because the second edition sold out faster than we anticipated, there is a hiatus. The third edition, however, will be available in October.

 

Happenings in Russia

We don't hear Zionists talking about the fact that one of the three young heroes killed in Moscow resisting the junta's coup was Jewish. Such facts don't fit into Zionist plans to populate the occupied territories with frightened Russian Jewish refugees. Nor do new appointments of Jews to high-level positions by both Gorbachev and Yeltsin. Nor, I suspect, will we learn that 18,000 Russian Jews in Israel already had applied to go back by November of 1990.

Jean Rogers, President, Palestine Human Rights Campaign of GA, Stone Mountain, GA

 

Saudi Arabia Heard From

I have chosen not to renew my subscription because I have discovered that since the Washington Report is readily available here in Saudi Arabia, it is cheaper for me to purchase it from the newsstand rather than pay postage.

Regarding one letter in the July issue concerning the confiscation of passports by employers here in Saudi Arabia, I had been told the same thing.

I discovered that it is not necessarily true, judging from the almost constant notices I see in local English-language newspapers requesting that if anyone finds so-and-so's passport, please call, etc. There are, amongst Western expatriates here, legends of Saudi behavior that have a life of their own, but often conflict with actual personal experience even of the persons hearing or retelling the stories. The ability to maintain a two-tiered mentality like that is not new, of course. "Some of my best friends are Saudis, but ......

I've enjoyed the bios recently on Saudi personalities worthy of note. How about doing one on Dr. Mohammed Tawil, the General Director of the Institute of Public Administration? He certainly seems to have a Kingdom-wide reputation.

Paul G. McClure, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

We'll do others as space permits. The trouble is that we keep tabs on about 40 countries but only have 96 pages a month, some months.

 

Channeling the Rage

I am a teacher (Sterling College), Pastor (Staff Chaplain, Missouri Dept. of Corrections) and Chairman of the American Correctional Chaplains Association Ethics Committee.

For several years my family and I have spoken out about the injustices committed by Israel against the Palestinians in the West Bank. I have also spoken out against AIPAC and the power of a foreign lobby group dictating American foreign policy. I also find disgusting the fact that my tax dollars go to support a government (Israel's) with whose actions I am in disagreement.

As long as our government turns a blind eye to injustice, someone must speak out for justice in this region for all people—Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Thank you for your magazine. I find it very balanced and newsworthy.

Fr. John A. Henderson (SS Peter and Paul Church), Boonville, MO

We'll draw your attention to our occasional articles printed under the heading "Channeling the Rage.-- What should ethical people do when their government uses their tax dollars for unethical purposes, making them a party to immoral conduct? We don't see blocking the entrances to government buildings as an answer. That is the road to anarchy. We toy with the idea of withholding a part of our taxes. But that is the road to prison, something breadwinners can hardly do to those who depend on them. How does an ethical, conscientious and law abiding person "channel the rage"? We invite our readers, particularly clergy members like you, to submit ideas for others to consider.

 

The Importance of Water

Thank you for your article by K. Casa on water use by Israel, the real reason behind its occupation of Arab lands. It would be good to have more articles on water use in the Middle East, including Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. Today Jordan is facing a severe water shortage. Also note that Libya is building a major pipeline to transport water across the country.

I continue to enjoy the Washington Report and use it in my own broadcasting and writing. We have so much work to do to educate, but we are surely making some progress. Continue your fine work.

Dr. B. N. Aziz, New York, NY

 

Bravo From Berger to Walz

"Bravo!" for the Rev. L. Humphrey Walz's splendid article in the July issue of the Washington Report on the history of Middle East peacemaking. As much as anything I have read in all these years, it reinforces my long-standing conviction that relations between Jews and Christians can be—and to some extent already are—complicated by the imposition of Zionism/Israelism upon historic Judaism and the too-often acceptance of the shotgun misalliance by inadequately informed Christians. I find the "guts" of the problem in his statement that it is the understandable practice for "individuals" to try to talk "peace" with the organized American Jewish leadership."

What I think he knows, but elected not to say for any one of a number of understandable reasons, is that in the US there has never been among Jews the kind of structured, participatory democratic procedure which exists in the mainline Christian churches. What is conventionally called the "organized Jewish community" is a collection of disparate individuals, elected or hired, which comes together on an ad hoc basis when there occurs what pro-Israeli partisans consider a "crisis" in US/Israeli relations.

This is the so-called "Presidents Club," which encompasses some 60 presidents (or their mouthpieces) from as many disparate "Jewish" organizations. I would be willing to wager that not 25 percent of the individual Jews who, for a variety of reasons, may belong to one or more of the "represented" organizations, knows beans about the "Presidents Club."

In the 1963-64 Fulbright hearings, it was disclosed that the club was a Zionist conceived-and-financed organization. It was the best the Zionists could do after their failed attempt to establish a so-called "American Jewish Conference," which tried to set up actual voting booths for Jews throughout the country so the "Conference" could claim it democratically represented a functioning "Jewish community. " Nothing came of this effort to transplant an essentially East European concept of minority rights and official recognition of ethnic/religious identifications to American soil.

Unfortunately, the most effective source for examining the authenticity of this "front" would be the United States government. It possesses the power of declaring which funds are entitled to tax-deductibility. It has legislation, long on the books, requiring proper identification of "Foreign Agents" and legislation barring US aid to countries where proper investigations reveal a systematic violation of generally recognized human rights. The Zionist/Israeli axis has only the threat of political blackmail to discourage the even-handed application of existing law to these problems.

I have been around too long to entertain more than the most anemic hope the ballyhooed Bush/Baker "peace plan" will endure long enough to require some attention from the Congress. But if Baker succeeds in organizing his international conference, and if our Arab friends can argue somewhat more sophisticatedly than they have so far, at last, a full, free debate in the United States may finally materialize. If all those "ifs" become some part of the political realities, perhaps a probing examination of heretofore uncritically accepted cliches may result.

Thanks again for the excellent article.

Rabbi Elmer Berger, American Jewish Alternatives to Zionism Inc., Suite 2015, 501 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10017

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