Example Letters to the Editor
(selected from over 200 published letters)
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Letter to Wall Street Journal on Palestinian Christians 13 April 2014 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303825604579515892375722808
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Letter to editor in response to a Zionist editorial Letter Finger Lake Times 4 May 2014
http://www.fltimes.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/article_107ee66e-d32c-11e3-af3d-0019bb2963f4.html
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As published in Cape Cod Times, December 26, 2012
In his Dec. 13 letter, Joseph Garodnick attacked the letter of Noreen Thompsen. But instead of dealing with the substance of her letter about human rights abuses by Israel in its colonization of Palestine, he chose to attack the messenger � one of her sources. That source happens to be me.
Garodnick claims I did not achieve tenure at either Duke or Yale; actually, I was never on a tenure-track position and did not seek tenure at either place. He then twice mentions my fields of genetics and biology as if somehow this diminishes my credibility or ability to write on human rights. I wrote two books on human rights and I did teach the subjects of history and human rights.
In this season of Christmas, I write from Bethlehem, a city now of 180,000 Palestinian Christians and Muslims who lost most of their lands and are squeezed into a ghetto, isolated behind a 30-foot wall, and suffering from over 30 percent unemployment. Talking about those things is a far better use of your pages than printing personal attacks on authors of documentary sources.
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Bethlehem, West Bank
The writer is a professor at Bethlehem and Birzeit universities.
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121226/OPINION/212260309/-1/OPINION02
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As published in Indian Country to support the stance on Native Americans who support justice and hence support indigininous Palestinians (they were attacked by Salberg of the misnamed ADL)
http://indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096417610
Dares to speak out
Michael Salberg of the misnamed ''Anti-Defamation League,'' in attacking Steven Newcomb ''Different circumstances,'' Vol. 28, Iss. 3, claims that the ''Israeli-Arab conflict'' is a ''political dispute over national borders'' which is not the same as other European colonization of Native American lands.
Yet, 7 million of the 10 million native Palestinians (Christians and Muslims) are now refugees or displaced people, and the number grows every day. Israel defines itself as a country for and by the Jewish people everywhere. Every Jew in the world is considered as a national of the state whether they want it or not (part of 'Am Yisrael). Any Jew, including converts, can go there, get automatic citizenship and live on Palestinian lands while Palestinian refugees are not allowed to return simply because they are Christian or Muslim.
Israeli artists declared in 2002: ''If the state of Israel aspires to perceive itself as a democracy, it should abandon once and for all, any legal and ideological foundation of religious, ethnic and demographic discrimination. The state of Israel should strive to become the state of all its citizens. We call for the annulment of all laws that make Israel an apartheid state, including the Jewish law of return in its present form.''
The ADL persistence in obfuscating reality is not new. The ADL has always tried to stifle free speech. The ADL was also fined and signed a statement pledging not to engage in further spying and collecting information after federal investigators found that ADL had paid investigative police officers to gather information on Arab-Americans and blacks active in the movement against apartheid South Africa (see www.counterpunch.org/adlspying2.html).
The ADL is not the only well-funded group attempting to recruit Jews to support dubious agendas by attacking anyone (Jews included) who dare to speak out. For an understanding of these attempts to silence free speech on this issue in Congress, in the media and at college campuses, people should read Rep. Paul Findley's book, ''They Dare to Speak Out.''
It is sad that our media gives space to a vocal minority that believes in racial or religious superiority and a minority that insists our tax money continue to be funneled to Israel in support of the segregationist, colonialist ideology of Zionism. So far we spent more than $400 billion of our taxes to occupy Iraq for control of oil and other Zionist plans to reshape the Middle East, and more than $1 trillion to support the Israeli government. (Highest recipient of U.S. aid. We gave it more than we gave to Africa as a continent.) Yet, one-third of Israeli children live below the poverty line, while Israel is using billions of our tax dollars to ethnically cleanse and oppress the native Palestinians.
Only a public outcry would force the U.S. government to change its policies of supporting oppression despite the strong lobbies in Washington. That is why groups like ADL attempt to stifle debate and any exposition of the truth. The attacks on President Jimmy Carter for his latest book on Israeli apartheid, like the letter by Mr. Salberg, are symptomatic. Peace will come, but only with justice and the return of the stolen lands to their rightful owners.
- Mazin Qumsiyeh, Ph.D.
Orange, Conn.
Dr. Qumsiyeh is of Christian Palestinian heritage and author of ''Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle.''
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As published in North Jersey Record April 13, 2008
http://www.northjersey.com/news/nationalpolitics/17572724.html?c=y&page=2
In "Some protest Israel's founding" (Page L-6, April 7), it would have been useful to readers to mention that more than 30 ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionist Jews picketed the Teaneck celebration of the 60th anniversary of Israel's founding.
They quoted me as saying 530 Palestinian villages and towns were forcibly relocated when Israel was founded. Actually, I said those communities were "wiped out" and Palestinian Christians and Muslims ethnically cleansed and herded to refugee camps, as is now well-documented by Israeli authors and declassified Israeli documents.
It is simply not true that the protest was "largely ignored" because everyone going in or out of the fair could not miss the rather amazing spectacle and many came over to talk, some friendly and some verbally violent toward our peaceful protest.
I found it shameful that the event was billed as a Jewish event for Israel when Israel consists of 20 percent native Palestinians, not counting refugees or Palestinians in the occupied areas, and most Jews do not agree with what Israel is doing to the Palestinians.
So I take this opportunity to repeat a challenge to open dialogue so that we can together work for peace instead of mindless cheering for "a side." I ask the Teaneck mayor, Jewish Federation officials and other people of influence to organize such a public dialogue.
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Oradell
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as Published in Andover Townsman Janyuary 18, 2007
http://www.andovertownsman.com/news/20070118/ET_002.html
Wheels speaker responds to 'dangerous language'
By Mazin Qumsiyeh
Wheels of Justice
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) engaged in defamatory and dangerous language in challenging the right of teachers who invited us to Andover. Briefly:
1) Needlessly describing those you disagree with as "anti-Semitic" cheapens and mocks the memory of all those who suffered because of their religion. We presented eyewitness accounts and non-violent resistance to occupations in Iraq and Palestine. Some of our eyewitness speakers are Jewish and even Holocaust survivors (80-year-old Hedy Epstein).
2) We are also not "anti-Israel" since we believe in the rights of all people and believe human rights results in a win-win situation to all. Many Jews and Israelis take stronger positions than us (e.g. see books by Giladi, Shahak, Pappe, Halper, Mezvinsky). Israeli artists declared that: "If the state of Israel aspires to perceive itself as a democracy, it should abandon once and for all, any legal and ideological foundation of religious, ethnic, and demographic discrimination. The state of Israel should strive to become the state of all its citizens. We call for the annulment of all laws that make Israel an apartheid state, including the Jewish law of return in its present form."
3) The ADL collected information on Arab- and African-Americans active in the movement against apartheid South Africa, and settled a case out of court (agreeing to pay an undisclosed amount).
Congressman Paul Findley's book They Dare to Speak Out provides a good introduction to these and other methods of silencing debate. The attacks on President Jimmy Carter for his latest book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, like the unfair vocal attacks by a minority on Andover teachers who invited us, are symptomatic.
4) There is the mistaken notion that political Zionism serves Jewish interests or represents Jews (this is challenged by Jewish historians like Lenni Brenner and Norman Finkelstein).
5) We have spent more than $400 billion of our taxes to occupy Iraq for control of oil and other Zionist plans to reshape the Middle East, and more than $1 trillion to support the Israeli government (highest recipient of aid, getting more than Africa as a continent). In the last four years, we lost 650,000 Iraqis, 3,000 Americans, several thousand Palestinians and Lebanese, and several hundred Israelis. It is a serious subject deserving of serious debate based on facts (rather than hurling insults). Our speakers (including me) are willing to engage in civil public dialogues.
The school principal said at the public meeting: "If we can't make peace here, how do we expect them to make peace there?" Our Web site contains more information on what we really stand for such as our position on violence.
Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh is a Christian Palestinian American and coordinator for the Wheels of Justice bus tour.
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Delicate matters of diplomacy in the Middle East
Boston Globe, December 13, 2006
THE 160-PAGE Iraq Study Group report will fail because it does not address human rights and international law (except in describing the background of its authors -- for example, Vernon "Jordan practiced general, corporate, legislative, and international law in Washington, D.C."). While the report recognizes the centrality of the issue of Israel-Palestine, the United States is told to continue to support Israel and promote talks with "Palestinians (who acknowledge Israel's right to exist)." But Israel is not required to recognize Palestine's right to exist; Israel never defined its borders (so recognizing its right to exist under such unfair and vague terms means nullifying Palestinian rights in their lands); and there is no such thing as the right of states to exist in international law (they simply exist; no one demanded that Mexico recognize the right of the United States to exist). Unless the American public rises in unison to demand respect for international law and human rights, it looks like mayhem will continue and we the taxpayers will continue to pump billions to support Israeli apartheid and the US government's other pet projects of occupation and oppression in Iraq and elsewhere.
MAZIN B. QUMSIYEH
Orange, Conn.
The writer is author of "Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle."
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Letter published in the New Haven Register dated September 11, 2006
U.N. soft on Iran ? Then what about Israel ?
Joe Lieberman claims the United Nations should apply sanctions on Iran because it may look weak otherwise. Israel is in violation of 65 U.N. Security Council resolutions and manyfold more U.N. General Assembly resolutions. Yet, Lieberman consistently voted for billions of our taxes to go to Israel every year he has been in office.
More egregiously, Lieberman supported sending some $2 billion annualy in military aid, aid that is used to kill civilians intentionally, as documented by Amnesty International and other human rights organizations.
The U.N. humanitarian chief only recently condemned the illegal Israeli use of U.S. cluster bombs on village in South Lebanon . The United Nations estimates 100,000 such bomlets are left by Israel in farms and villages. Even after the cease-fire, 13 Lebanese civilians were killed and dozens maimed for life by these Israeli-dropped, U.S.-made bombs left in South Lebanon .
Lieberman's votes against U.S. public interest are inexcusable, but understandable considering the strong support he gets from the Israeli lobby.
To call him running as "Independent" is only a technical name, since he is certainly not independent of special interests. Voters have other choices in November: Ralph Ferrucci (Green Party) and Ned Lamont (Democrat) can offer alternatives not beholden to these special interests.
-Mazin Qumsiyeh
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Abramoff money funneled to extremists
New Haven Register 1/10/2006
The indictment and plea bargain of lobbyist Jack Abramoff maybe the tip of the iceberg. It is now well established (though not well publicized) that Abramoff used his connections to Congressman DeLay to get special interests to donate money to a charity he set up. He did not tell donors that money was being funneled for military aid to extremist Jewish settlers living on Palestinian lands and terrorizing native Palestinians. Further, it is known that Abramoff lobbied congressman Nye to award a government contract of $3 million dollars to an obscure Israeli company. And this maybe only two of many revelations to come. Part of the reason for the large bail set for Abramoff -$2.2 million- is that he was likely to flee to Israel as did some of his associates. Like all Jews (including converts), he is entitled to automatic citizenship in the state of Israel. Ironically, criminals like Abramoff can go live in Israel while Palestinian refugees are not given the right to return to their homes and lands.
Mazin Qumsiyeh, Orange
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Sent to Letters@newsweek.com
As you can see from this "honestreporting" (HR) "alert" you are being "targeted" with regard to issue of suicide bombings in Israel. HR members are encouraged to write letters to you. These letters will again regurgitate myths and propaganda in an attempt to prevent any real discussion. McCarthian tactics IMHO. I hope you will understand taht lettesr you get are not spontaneous or even from Newsweek Readers but from the hundreds of Zionist members of HR who religiously respond to alerts.
For HR alert to their members, see http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/The_Roots_of_Terrorism.asp
For an analysis of who these folks are and their intimidating tactics, see http://www.honestreporting.org/
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This letter is not by me but responds to a letter attacking me
http://www.theday.com/eng/web/news/re.aspx?re=7D461005-E6E7-422F-B8E0-8EEECE3A987A
�Accuracy' Organization Wrong About Mideast
Published on 11/27/2005
Letters To The Editor:
It is ironic when a group calling itself �the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America� is specialized in spreading misinformation on behalf of the government of Israel. The letter titled �U.N. not stating that Israel controls openings,� published Nov. 8 by the group's representative is a case in point.
The report of the United Nations' special rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the Situation in the Palestinian Territories Occupied by Israel since 1967, posted by the U.N. on Sept. 27, states, �Although uncertainty surrounds the full extent and consequences of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, it seems clear that Gaza will remain occupied territory subject to the provisions of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilians in Time of War, of 12 August 1949 (Fourth Geneva Convention) as a result of Israel's continued control of the borders of Gaza.� (www.miftah.org) Further more, the respected Israeli human rights group B'tselem; The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories (www.btselem.org)
issued a report entitled �One Big Prison: Freedom of Movement to and from the Gaza Strip on the Eve of the Disengagement Plan� and reached the same conclusion.
The Day should not be in the business of amplifying propaganda. Before publishing Gilead Ini's charge of falsehood, the editor should have checked with a knowledgeable source such as Mazin Qumsiyeh, the author of the original article titled �Gaza turned into open-air prison by the Israelis,� published Oct. 8.
Mahmoud Mansour_
Groton
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Published in New Haven Register 8/18/05
The Gaza "disengagement" is not a concession nor is it a step towards peace. The reality is that Dov Weisglass (Sharon's right hand man) stated clearly that the "redeployment" scheme is to put the peace process "in formaldehyde." The media frenzy keeps the public busy talking about the removal of some 8000 settles from Gaza while Israel strengthens the hold of 450,000 colonial settlers on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank (inclduing Jerusalem). Palestinians continue to be squeezed into homelands (ala Apartheid South Africa's Bantustans)of which Gaza will be the first enclave/canton. In the meantime, Bush gave Sharon a letter which abrogates International law vis a vis the rights of refugees, the segregation wall, and growing the settlements in the West Bank. Thanks to the Israeli lobby AIPAC (two members of whom are indited for espionage two weeks ago), US Taxpayers will be expected to foot the bill. The Gaza "redeployment" is not a concession, it is a smokescreen and a media circus to cover up the continuing the colonial Zionist project.
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
Steering Committee Member, US Campaign to End the Occupation (http://endtheoccupation.org)
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Published in Commentary Magazine (March Issue, American Jewish Committee publication)
Though pretending to be a report on the Palestine Solidarity Movement conference held at Duke this past October (at which I was a speaker), Eric Adler and Jack Langer's article is an opinion essay containing the maximum amount of false rhetoric that can be compressed into 2,000 words ("The Intifada Comes to Duke," January). I will address only some of its distortions.
Messrs. Adler and Langer dismiss the notion that Israel is a human-rights abuser. But every human-rights organization that has looked into the actions of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the Palestinian territories has concluded that it targets civilians. Even the Israeli group B'Tselem stated that
since the beginning of the intifada, IDF soldiers have killed at least 1,656 Palestinians who took no part in the fighting. Of those killed, 529 were children. Many of these deaths result from changes in the rules of engagement, which now allow soldiers to open fire on Palestinians in a variety of non-combat situations, even when the soldiers are not in danger.
Messrs. Adler and Langer also dismiss the comparison between Israel and South Africa under apartheid, but Israel's laws--it has no constitution or bill of rights--show the similarity. All Jews are considered nationals of Israel and can accordingly become citizens and get government support, including housing on land confiscated from Palestinians. By contrast, native Palestinian Christians and Muslims, simply because they are not Jewish, may not return to their homes in Israel. A recently enacted law denies residency rights to Palestinians who marry Israelis. Three-hundred-thousand of the 1.2 million Palestinians with nominal Israeli citizenship are considered by law as "present-absentees," and their land has been taken. Over 530 Palestinian villages and towns have thus been ethnically cleansed and wiped off the face of the earth. Nearly 100 villages are "unrecognized" and are slated for removal.
Amnesty International and other human-rights groups regularly issue statements about the racism inherent in Israel's laws. All of this, as I said in my talk at the Duke conference, reflects a "diseased" ideology of ethnocentric nationalism and racism that we are familiar with from South African apartheid and European fascism.
Most egregious is Messrs. Adler and Langer's defamation of an American hero in writing that "activist Rachel Corrie . . . was accidentally killed in 2003 while attempting to block Israeli bulldozers from uncovering terrorist smuggling tunnels in Gaza." But eyewitnesses reported that the driver of the armored bulldozer intentionally ran over Corrie, who was wearing an orange
vest and gesturing visibly. The house she was trying to defend by such nonviolent means belonged to a pharmacist who, to this day, has not been accused of anything. His house, under which there are no tunnels, is still standing.
Using blatant lies to blame the victim is a common tactic of those who oppress and destroy. Shame. Since the U.S. government gives billions of our tax dollars to fund this charade, the least we can do is urge divestment from Israel and boycotts.
Mazin Qumsiyeh
New Haven, Connecticut
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Los Angeles Times, Published 2/13/05
It is Orwellian to think that the meeting declaring a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinians could bring peace or that Sharon can help bring "peace" (Your editorial on the latest summit). This latest in a series of "agreements" reminds us of the "treaties" and exchanges of peace pipes between Native American leaders and European settler generals. Nowhere in these discussions was there an acknowledgment or even mention of colonization as the root cause of the violence. Israel and its war criminal leader, like before, will keep prolonging the process so as as to continue building Jewish-only colonies/settlements on Palestinian land and completing the apartheid wall that will finish marking the Palestinian reservations/ghettos. Both Sharon and his right hand man clearly stated so in Hebrew to their fellow Likudnicks. In fact it is ironic that on the same day that the so called "peace" gathering took place, Israel's highest court gave the green light for continuing building the wall that is isolating Jerusalem from its Palestinian suburbs. All this is done with billions of our taxes and US governmental support. Shame.
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
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Connecticut Post, Published 2/11/05
The media frenzy about declaration of a ceasefire between a compliant Abbas and a triumphant Sharon is not a step in the right direction. There is simply no parity in violence or suffering between an occupying/colonizing power and an occupied and colonized people. This was true for Native Americans fighting white European settlers, it was true for blacks in South Africa fighting the apartheid regime, and it is true in Israel/Palestine. Today, some two thirds of the 9 million Palestinians are refugees or displaced people while Israel has a per capita income of $16,000 thanks to US taxpayers shelling billions every year to prop the occupation.
Even if one limits the suffering to the number of civilians killed, it is striking that many in the media suppress the fact that in the past four years alone 623 Palestinian children have been killed as opposed to less than 100 Israeli Children. Any one with an understanding of history of other colonial conflicts knows that native suffering cannot be remotely compared to colonial settler suffering. The charade in these ?ceasefire? announcements is that they fail to say one word about International law, ending the occupation, or even basic human rights. This bodes ill for any chance for durable peace, which can only be based on International law and human rights and not the severe imbalance of power.
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD, FABMG
http://qumsiyeh.org
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Detroit Free Press 1/12/05
Palestinian victims
Mike Thompson's Jan. 11 cartoon claims that Palestinians have "moderated" their stance from a position of driving Israel into the sea to "walking" Israel into the sea. The reality is that Palestinians were the ones literally driven, run, kicked and walked out into the sea and into the deserts over the past 57 years.
This process continues today with home demolitions -- thousands just in the past four years. Some two-thirds of the 9 million Palestinians in the world are thus refugees or displaced people.
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Orange, Conn.
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USA Today (Circulation 2.2 Million)
Published Monday 15 Nov. 2004
The death of ailing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat merely removes a red herring that Israel � and its patron, the U.S. � used to thwart international law.
The �Arafat is responsible� mantra was amusing considering that Arafat was imprisoned in a building and could not even use water without Israeli authorities allowing it to flow.
But Arafat was a convenient distraction while Israel continued expanding Jewish-only colonies and settlements; confiscated more Palestinian land � Christian and Muslim; killed more Palestinians � thousands in the past four years alone; and choked the remaining Palestinians in large ghettos/Bantustans surrounded by walls and fences.
Recent talk about a revival of the �road map� to peace is useless. As I see it, the so-called road map was written by Israeli lobbyists in the U.S. government and is a charade. In its more than 2,200 words, it is missing four crucial ones: �international law� and �human rights.�
Arafat will be remembered as one of the leaders of the Palestinian liberation movement and a symbol of Palestinian nationalism.
But he also agreed to the Oslo accords, sell-out agreements that avoided international law and human rights.
Arafat is dead. But there are still 5 million Palestinian refugees. And several billion dollars of our taxes each year enable this charade to go on.
Perhaps Israel will need to create another useful excuse for continuing its colonization activities.
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Orange, CT
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Most Of The World Is Opposed To Israel's Wall
The Day, Published on 8/12/2004
Letters To The Editor:
I am constantly amazed at the depth of depravity to which supporters of Israeli apartheid are willing to sink. An op-ed by Alan Dershowitz ("Israel follows its own law, not Hague decision," July 13.) and a letter by Sheri Angel (?Hague leaves Israel ?DeFence' less,? July 13.) are a case in point.
They both suffer from the delusion that putting people in ghettos with large walls, and starving them to death is abhorrent and criminal when done by Nazis (who also asserted it was about ?security?), but is fine when done by the Jewish state intent in finishing an ethnic cleansing that has left 6 million of the 9 million Palestinians as refugees, or displaced people.
The Dershowitz piece is particularly offensive since it is written by one who supported war crimes (demolishing whole villages) and who wrote a book full of lies that was shown to be plagiarized from an earlier propaganda book by Joan Peters. The analysis of the Dershowitz book by Professor Norman Finkelstein is seminal and is available to anyone on the web.
Apologists for Israeli apartheid at the International Court of Justice are as incredible now as they were then.
The whole world, except the U.S. government under the thumb of the Israeli lobby, is united in opposition to the apartheid wall and the genocidal ethnic cleansing in Palestine. We continue to give 30 percent of all our foreign aid to an apartheid state (population 0.1 percent of world population). Is it any wonder that while U.S. military power is at its highest, U.S. moral standing around the world is at it's lowest ever?
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Orange
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Letter published in Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle
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Hartford Advocate Published 7/22/04
The Evil of Two Lessers
John Kerry and George Bush and their running mates offer the same package. More corporate control of our media, more wars, more support of Israeli apartheid, more alienation, more debt, more discrimination against people of color, and more lies to the American people. The evil of two lessers or the lesser of two evils provide no real choice. If this is not the time for proportional representation, it is certainly time to demand Democrats and Republicans allow for instant runoff elections opening the way for real third-party choice. Otherwise the Republicans and Democrats have now been entrenched not as two different parties but as two branches of the same party; shall we call it the military-industrial complex? Meanwhile over 40 million Americans have no health insurance in the presumed richest and strongest nation on earth.
Mazin Qumsiyeh, Ph.D
Orange
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Providence Journal Friday, April 9, 2004 http://www.projo.com/opinion/letters/content/projo_20040409_arab.1057a.html
Zionist lies
In the 1950s, Israeli agents planted bombs in Egypt to be blamed on Egyptians and thus to sabotage the nascent Egyptian- U.S. relations (the Lavon Affair). Israeli agents also planted bombs in Iraq to scare Iraqi Jews into leaving for Israel (see the book Ben Gurion Scandals, by Naeim Giladi). And Israeli authorities were caught lying about the massacre of Palestinians (Benny Morris revealed these lies in his books).
Many in the U.S. media, however, continue to take Israeli statements at face value while qualifying even facts available from independent sources as merely Palestinian statements. Thus we hear such things as "Palestinians say that three civilians were killed," while the Associated Press, newspapers, CNN and Fox assert Israeli statements as facts.
The latest in this is the clear attempt to divert attention from the war crime of killing Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas leader -- who could easily have been arrested, instead -- and the isolation of Israel and the United States in the international community. (The United States had to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution on the killing of Yassin.)
So what did we get as a diversion? We got a well-publicized story about a would-be Palestinian child suicide bomber. Israeli authorities first claimed he was 12 years old; then they said that he said he was 14; then it turns out he is 16 1/2 years old.
Israeli authorities, parroted by the U.S. media, first claimed that he had been sent by al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and paid $27 for this. The groups accused later denied responsibility (this was not reported). Israeli authorities had no answers when asked by al-Jazeera to explain why someone would take $27 to commit suicide or why both TV and still cameras happened to be at the checkpoint.
We know that this 16 1/2-year-old is slow (probably because of malnutrition under occupation), and that he was atrociously used by someone. Like many other such incidents, we will never get the full story.
But that is not important to the Zionist spin machine, intent on making us forget occupation, colonization, ethnic cleansing and oppression. The spin machine accomplished its goal and passed another one over the gullible -- or perhaps not so gullible -- U.S. media.
No wonder that in Europe and the rest of the world (with much more rigorous journalism), Israel and the U.S. government are viewed as a danger to world peace.
MAZIN QUMSIYEH
Orange, Conn.
The writer is co-founder of the Palestine Right to Return Coaltion.
==================
Israel's Actions Nothing Short Of War Crimes, The Day, Published on 10/21/2003
Amnesty International said it �constitutes a war crime.� United Nations officials described it as violations of International law and humanitarian law.
The �it� is Israel's demolitions of more than 100 buildings and homes in Rafah, leaving more than 1,240 people homeless. Demolitions by the occupation army in the past two years have now left more than 10 percent of this town's people (over 7,000 of the 70,000) homeless.
A new Israeli military order also is �cleansing� the area between Israel's apartheid wall in the West Bank and the �green line� (Israel's pre-1967 borders). All this is done with our government acquiescence and participation � witness repeated vetoes at the U.N. Security Council and continued infusion of our tax money to the apartheid state of Israel. When are we going to put American interest ahead of foreign lobbies? When are we going to speak truth to power? Have our Congress and government also become Israeli-occupied territories? Is the United States an accomplice in ongoing ethnic cleansing (now 6 million of the 9 million Palestinians are refugees or displaced persons)?
Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, Ph.D.
Orange
==============
Taxpayers hand Israel billions as it ignores U.N. resolutions
Letter to the Editor, Published in New Haven Register, February 23, 2003
In reporting on the resumption of "talks" between the Sharon government and Palestinians, it seems few questioned the timing of this to coincide with requests for more tax money being doled to the Israeli regime.
In fact, it is not a coincidence that the same person (Dov Weisglass) who is coordinating these "talks" with Palestinians and Jordanians was in Washington to press for more than $12 billion in grants and loan guarantees from U.S. coffers in addition to what we already give Israel, the country in the Middle East with the largest stockpile of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons and with, according to human rights organizations, a horrendous record of human rights violations.
We currently give Israel billions every year arming it to the teeth while Israel "talks" about peace while continuing to violate over 70 U.N. Security Council resolutions. We do this while our cities are reeling in a recession.
How about being concrete for a change and withholding all aid to Israel until it implements international law, vacates the settlements, returns the stolen land to the native people, and allows those dispossessed refugees to exercise their inalienable right to return to their homes, farms, and businesses? In other words, let us stop talking about talks and a fraudulent "peace process" and start to act to bring true and lasting peace, a peace with justice and equality. All else has been shown to be a sham.
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Orange
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Boston Globe on Jan 25, 2003
"ON JAN. 18, I attended a rally in Washington against the war on Iraq with perhaps 200,000 or more fellow Americans, according to some wire service reports. There were business people, trade unionists, actors, musicians, professors, and students.
The demonstrators carried tens of thousands of signs and banners with an endless stream of ideas and messages. Among the slogans: "What would Jesus do?," "Money for jobs, not war," "Heil Bush," "Axis of Evil: Bush, Blair, Sharon," "No Blood For Oil.'' One of the chants I heard was: ''This is what democracy looks like, Bush is what hypocrisy looks like.''
It is absurd that Washington plans to waste $200 billion this number is now 2-3 trillion attacking Iraq and $12 billion to aid Israeli apartheid while our own state budgets wallow in deficits. Collective work helped abolish slavery, got us out of Vietnam, gave us civil rights, and defeated apartheid in South Africa. We can and must act
again."
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U.S. Media Coverage Blatantly Favors Israel, The Day, Published on 1/13/2003
I was contacted by the media to react to the "renewed violence" in the Middle East following suicide bombings in Tel Aviv. Predictably, CNN and all major U.S. networks had intensive coverage of this news, but where is the media coverage seeking local reaction and broadcasting harrowing pictures when Palestinian civilians are daily murdered by Israeli occupation forces? Why is it that U.S. mainstream media never have their journalists based in the occupied areas (all are based in West Jerusalem or Tel Aviv). Even Israel has a journalist stationed there (Amira Hass of Ha'aretz).
Israeli forces killed 15 Palestinian civilians, including several children, just between Christmas and New Year's Eve; there was not one breaking news story or video image broadcast of the victims. Much of the U.S. media instead kept talking about "relative quiet" as only Palestinians were murdered.
Every single human rights organization that investigated issued reports stating that the Israeli government and its forces harm civilians as methods of "collective punishment" of the colonized and oppressed natives. Amnesty International and the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem accused Israeli occupation forces of committing war crimes in Jenin, Nablus, and elsewhere. Not one human rights organization agreed with Israeli propaganda that Israeli forces do not target civilians and that Palestinians thus killed or injured are "mistakes" or "caught in the crossfire" or both. With over 1500 Palestinian civilians killed (including over 400 children), and over 20,000 civilians injured, this recording is beginning to wear thin.
Mazin Qumsiyeh, Ph.D.
Orange
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Israel no democracy, New Haven Register December 14, 2002
http://www.newhavenregister.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=6386981&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=7581&rfi=6
The myth continuously expressed by letter writers is that Israel is a "democracy" that wants peace.
However, as Bishop Desmond Tutu and all neutral observers note, Israel is an apartheid system sustained on violence. Or as an Israeli commentator said, it is not a state with an army but an army with a state.
Israel is the only country in the world that gives members of a particular religion (including converts) automatic rights (citizenship, land, homes, subsidies) that supercede and mostly replace those of its own "citizens" and native people who belong to other religions. Israel grants automatic citizenship to any individual who has one Jewish grandparent while denying citizenship to people born and raised in the country simply for not being Jewish.
Israel is the only country in the world that identifies its lands as belonging not to its citizens but to "Jewish people everywhere." Israel is the only country in the world that caused the largest remaining refugee problem in the world and refuses to accept international law and basic human rights of allowing the refugees to return to their farms, businesses, homes and lands.
Israel is the only country in the world that holds 3.5 million people (Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza) hostages in their own homes, denying them the right to travel, work, and even go to school, clinics, or places of worship.
Israel is the only country in the world that is violating over 70 U.N. Security Council resolutions and countless U.N. General Assembly resolutions with impunity.
Israel is the only country in the world for which every single human rights organization that visited issued reports stating that the government and its forces seem to target civilians and exhibit reckless disregard for human life. Not one human rights nongovernmental organization agreed with Israeli government propaganda that they are careful not to kill civilians and that civilians killed are "accidental." In two years, over 1,700 Palestinian civilians were killed by Israeli forces, including over 300 Palestinian children.
I could go on, but for the sake of space I would only add that it is not only correct to call Israel an apartheid state but it is more imperative that we Americans stop funding and investing in such an oppressive regime.
After costing the U.S. treasury $149 billion in aid and interest, we now hear Israel is asking Congress for $14 billion more. That is certainly more than what Connecticut gets from our federal government.
When Congress convenes in January, will they have heard from the American public about this pork barrel giveaway of our taxes? Will they vote in U.S. interests or as dictated to them by the powerful Israeli lobby?
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Orange
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Religion does not create murderers, Boston Globe, March 5 2002
Thank you so much for the thoughtful editorial on hate (March 3, 2002). As a Palestinian Chiristian, I am ashamed of the vile and un-Christian hate language that emanates from individuals like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. In villifying Islam and Muslims, they contribute to the paranoia and hostility that had swept our nation pumped up by some irresponsible leaders and even some in the media. I encourage fellow American Christians to invite Muslims for dialogue. You can start also a dialogue with Arab Christians who speak the language and who know what is going on. Terrorism is not a religious phenomenon. Terrorism by few Israelis did not distinguish the religion of its Palestinian victims (over 1000 Palestinians killed and over 30,000 injured in the last one and a half years) and vice versa (over 250 Israelis killed and over 2000 injured). Similarly, victims of the 9/11 terrorism also included many American Muslims. To victimize them again by blaming Islam for violence is shameful. You are 100% correct in your assessment that a religion "does not create murderers; the twisted human psyche does that when it forgets that the bedrock of all faith is love."
Mazin Qumsiyeh, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
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Sincere condolences, Haaretz 6/4/01
Upon hearing the news of the wedding party turned to tragedy by collapse of the building in Jerusalem, my shock and sadness were intense. It only got worse and turned to tears when I later saw the video footage and read about the alleged construction problems. The video footage reminded me of the footage of my sister's wedding. I was touched by the ordinariness and beauty of this event and then the tragedy that ensued. I grieve for the victims and my thoughts and prayers are with the families and with you all. Please accept my sincerest and humble condolences.
I am a Palestinian American who works for human rights, including the Palestinian refugees' right to return to their homes and lands. I believe that all people of Israel/Palestine must and will eventually live in one democratic and secular state with a constitution that protects all its citizens and treats them equally. We are so similar and it is a shame that political ideas (Zionism and other forms of nationalism) divided us. In 1967, as a 10-year old child in Beit Sahur, I witnessed something that still touches me to this day - a reunion between my grandfather and his Jewish best friend from high school. Two old folks who had not seen each other between 1948 and 1967. Two old folks who cried like children. Both are gone now. I thought of this, and how much I miss the wisdom of my grandfather as I saw the recent events and the tragedies and the victims of violence in our homeland.
My grandfather wrote to me in 1974 that if he was to give me one piece of advice for the future it would be to realize that the world changes and that we have to remove our own shackles, which come to us from society and culture. It is time we started thinking and reflecting carefully on the futility of separation, nationalism, and militarism. It is time to insist on and teach ourselves to live together in equality and humanity. If the Berlin wall tumbled, Apartheid in South Africa was dismantled, and Europe is unifying, why can't we do the same? Imagine if the billions of dollars we spend on weapons were spent to better our economies, desalinate sea water, develop closer relationships and friendships, and provide therapy for the over 17,000 injured in the recent violence.
In the midst of our tragedies, let us work together for a better world.
Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, Ph.D.
Coordinator, Media Committee
Al-Awda, Palestine Right to Return Coalition
Orange, Connecticut
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Dubious Honors, Hartford Courant October 20, 2001
This year, two Israeli leaders have received honors at the University of Hartford. One, Israeli President Moshe Katsav, made racist remarks. The other, Aharon Barak, president of Israel's Superior Court, sanctioned land confiscation from one religious group to benefit another.
A Jewish human rights advocate asked me to imagine if a country had no constitution but a set of basic laws that say its land belongs to Baptists as a nation (or Bahai, Sufi or Shinto). The law distinguishes between Baptist nationals (found all over the world) and citizens who actually live there and gives nationals many rights not accorded to non-Baptists under its control.
Imagine a country with specific programs to ensure its designated capital remains at least two-thirds or more Baptist (by denying residency rights and building permits to non-Baptists) and does not allow non-Baptist refugees and internally displaced people to return to their homes, stating openly that this may upset the Baptist nature of the state.
Imagine if its parliament enacted a law that prohibits parties from running in elections if they deny the Baptist nature of the state. Imagine a national flag with a prominent cross and a national anthem that talks about Baptist yearnings. Imagine if that country's Supreme Court allows the executive branch to build and run Baptist-only roads, towns and villages on lands confiscated from native citizens.
To reduce their mingling, and for Baptist security, non-Baptists are segregated in small "bantustans" that are surrounded by army checkpoints so that they cannot travel between them and, thus, are effectively confined in prisons without the need for the Baptists to feed them. Baptists nearby - many living on confiscated land - control most of the resources, (use seven to 10 times more in water per capita in an area with a water shortage) control most of the agricultural lands, receive government subsidies and go to work and schools unhindered by any checkpoints.
A country with all these characteristics and basic laws not only exists, but also gets $5 billion of our tax money annually without any tangible benefit to the United States. These Israeli basic laws were unfortunately upheld by its Supreme Court. Israel is also in violation of more than 80 United Nations General Assembly and Security Council resolutions as well as in violation of U.S. laws pertaining to use and dissemination of U.S.-supplied weapons and technology.
What is next - an honorary degree for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (responsible for many massacres including Qibya, Gaza, Sabra and Shatila), the king of Saudi Arabia (whose government is in many ways worse than the Taliban of Afghanistan), Slobodan Milosevic or maybe to Osama bin Laden?
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Orange
The writer is a co-founder of al-Awda, the Palestinian Right to Return Coalition.
==============
The Forward (a Jewish Publication), Published December 14, 2001
I am responding to the article in the Forward on "Radical Islam, Neo-Nazis Are Seen Sharing Hate Rhetoric". Our group (Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition) was identified as "Muslim Group." This is farthest from the truth. Al-Awda is a coalition of Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Budhists and others working for the recognized human right of refugees to return to their homes and
lands. Our primary objective is to educate the international community to fulfill its legal and moral obligations vis-a-vis Palestinian refugees based on The International Declaration of Human Rights, International Law and through the implementation of United Nations Resolutions upholding the inalienable right of Palestinians to return to their homeland and to restitution of their confiscated and destroyed property. Based on scientific research, we also argue that this is achievable without jeopardizing human rights or self determination of other people.
The second problem with the article as I see is it misused half of our answers to the question about racist individuals. What we really said was that occasionally people who are anti-Jewish or white suprematist TRY to join our committees and maybe even try to post their messages on our lists (sometimes
even succeeding using aliases etc.). We promptly remove and ban them immediately. We remove any hate-filled messages from other individuals including those who clearly advocate refusal to return refugees based on the maintenance of "Jewish character" or who advocate solutions similar to those advocated in South Africa (separation and control). We believe in non-violent work by all people for pluralistic societies devoid of racism and discrimination. This is obviously at odds with racism in all its incarnations. In this, we and many of teh thoughtful readers of the Forward are completely in agreement.
On a more general note, I myself am not Muslim and at least 200 of those active in our movement are Jewish. In fact we have two very large committees to reach out to the Jewish and Christian communities. Somehow trying to indicate that opposition to Israeli policies is an issue for "radical Islam" is wrong not only on this front but also because the use of such slogans as "Radical Islam" is not very helpful to understanding political, economic, and cultural forces. It would be important also to define radical since I personally consider myself radical in insisting on human rights and thus condemning terrorism whether
practiced by states or individuals. Again, I am sure this is shared with many readers here.
Mazin Qumsiyeh, Ph.D.
Chair, Al-Awda Media Committe
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Washington Post
Lee Hockstader's report (8/17/01 "Reports of Torture by Israelis emerge") reminds me of the similar "revelations" in the Washington Post about the White South Afrtican Police in the early 1980's. As then, this was only the proverbial "tip of the iceberge" being viewed through the fog of the misinformation in Western media. Amnesty International for example has consistently released reports for many years on Israeli abuses of human rights. The chorus of human rights organizations (and now media outlets) that start to reflect some of the reality on the ground is growing.
Suffering for 53 years under Israeli rule or in exile due to nothing less than a systematic process of ethnic cleanssing, Palestinians have had enough. This time, there will not be a silencing of this uprising, an uprising that is taking on a form similar to the movement that finally toppled Apartheid in South Africa.
Israel recently hired two large PR firms and is intensifying both its media campaign and its war campaign (funded by our tax dollars). Israeli apologists have been filling the editorial pages of newspapers including the Washington Post. No amount of media spin, tribal mythology, or force can stop the yearning of eight million Palestinians, 2/3 rd of them dispossessed and the remainder captive in their own lands, for a simple and very powerful idea called freedom and self determination. People of all faiths are beginning to realize the futility of this continuing war of subjugation and are talking about the return of refugees and rebuilding a country for ALL its people. It is a shame that many are fighting tooth and nail to prevent this from happening.
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
Chair, Media committee of the Palestine Right to Return Coalition (http://Al-Awda.org)
=================
Apologists for Israel distort truth-- Riverdale Press (New York) 8/23/01
To the editor:
Israeli opologists published heated letters to the editor in this paper but failed to address the points raised by the supposedly offending letters from critics of Israeli apartheid.
I recall similar emotional letters published many years ago that attacked civil rights activists as "leftists," "commies," "nuts," among less pleasant names. They also remind me of the similar "revelations" in the Washington Post about the White South African Police in the 1970s and early 1980s talking about terrorism of the ANC in it's fight against the "civilized" white South Africa.
As then, this was only the proverbial "tip of the iceberg" being viewed through the fog of the misinformation in Western media. Amnesty International for example has consistently released reports for many years on Israeli abuses of human rights. The chorus of human rights organizations (and now media outlets) that start to reflect some of the reality on the ground is growing.
Suffering for 53 years under Israeli rule or in exile due to nothing less than a systematic process of ethnic cleansing, Palestinians have had enough. This time, there will not be a silencing of this uprising, an uprising that is taking on a form similar to the movement that finally toppled Apartheid in South Africa.
Israel recently hired two large PR firms and is intensifying both its media campaign and its war campaign (funded by our tax dollars). Israeli apologists have been filling the editorial pages of newspapers including the Washington Post. No amount of media spin, tribal mythology, or force can stop the yearning of eight million Palestinians, 2/3 rd of them dispossessed and the remainder captive in their own lands, for a simple and very powerful idea called freedom and self determination. People of all faiths are beginning to realize the futility of this continuing war of subjugation and are talking about the return of refugees and rebuilding a country for ALL its people. It is a shame that many are fighting tooth and nail to prevent this from happening.
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
Chair, Media committee of the Palestine Right to Return Coalition
(http://Al-Awda.org)
======================
Time Magazine, Published November 13, 2000
A massive, modern military power funded by our tax dollars is using incredible force against an occupied civilian population yearning for freedom and resulting in clearly massive casualties on the Palestinian side. The US government has never been an honest broker. It is short-sighted to think that peace can be accomplished under conditions of apartheid and occupation and without reference to international law and basic human rights.
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD, Orange, CT
=================
Submitted to watc@npr.org 10/15/2000
Dear NPR News,
Linda Gradstein's report on the funeral of one the two Israeli soldiers who was killed by a Palestinian crowd in Ramallah was one of those things that really, really stands out as the epitomy of propaganda and biased reporting. Let me explain.
Gradstein's report told us all kinds of details about the dead soldier, against a background of sobbing, wailing and mournful recitation of Kaddish. In order to be doubly sure that the killing was tinged with anti-semitism (rather than the rage of people under occupation at their oppressors following the funeral of a 12 year old child in Ramallah), there was a soundbite of Israel Meir Lau, Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel mentioning his time in Buchenwald. We heard the young, pained voice of the dead soldier's eight year old daughter, saying she never wanted him to go to the army. We learned that the man in his civilian life sold children's toys and candy. We even heard the horrifying way in which the soldier's parents in Bulgaria watched the awful video of his killing not knowing it was their son and only learned the awful truth after a knock on the door by the Israeli ambassador.
By contrast NPR has NEVER reported the funerals of any of the one hundred Palestinians killed. Theirs stories remain untold. Ofcourse since the killing continues I am saddened to say, you will have many other opportunities to redeam yourselves and report on at least one Palestinian funeral (they have been going on at teh rates of an average of 4-5 per day for the past two weeks).
The killings of the two soldiers is abhorrent. But I cannot understand what we were supposed to learn from Gradstein's report on this funeral. All funerals are sad and hearbreaking but why single out only soldiers funerals but not the over 100 Palestinian civilians killed. The lynching of Isam Jude (a 40 year old farmer and father of five Children) by a mob of Jewish settlers who tortured him first with hot irons was not even mentioned on NPR.
One hundred other Palestinian civilians have been killed, at least twenty two of them children. At least thirteen of them were citizens of Israel (so called Israeli Arabs). One was an 18-month old girl called Sara, machine-gunned to death by an Israeli settler in the back seat of her father's car. NPR never even reported her name. Another, just a few days ago was a nine year old boy, Sami Abu Jazar, who fell dead still wearing his school uniform and carrying his satchel, when he was struck in the head by a rubber-coated steel bullet. I never heard his death mentioned on NPR. What about Muhammad Al-Durra? What was his story? What did he want to be if had been allowed to grow up? How did his mother feel watching her son being executed on television?
Not one Palestinian or Palestinian citizen of Israel got the reverent treatment given to this soldier of an occupying force. This was pure propaganda with the clear intent of humanizing and dramatizing the death of an Israeli, while Palestinians are kept nameless and faceless.
Further, Gradstein credulously repeated the Israeli version that the two soldiers were simply reservists who got lost as if it were indisputable fact. Palestinians maintain that they may have been part of an undercover unit, of the kind that has frequently carried out assassinations and unlawful killings. It was such a unit that killed an elderly Palestinian man "by accident" about one month ago.
I do not know the truth about this, but what I can say for a fact is that Israeli assertions are scarcely credible. It is not possible to just "take a wrong turn" into Ramallah. As Gradstein surely knows from her frequent forays into the occupied territories, Ramallah is completely surrounded by an outer ring of Israeli checkpoints. There is an inner ring of Palestinian checkpoints, which are all clearly marked with Palestinian flags and painted concrete blocks. Israeli signposts clearly mark the beginning of "Area A." In addition, Israel currently has a ban on its citizens entering Palestinian controlled "Area A." Hence, a car with Israeli plates with two men in civilian clothes would surely have been stopped. If the car had Palestinian plates, then it may have gotten through. But what would two innocent reservists have been doing driving around the West Bank in a car with Palestinian plates if they were not trying to pass as Arabs? These are basic questions that anyone who even pretended to be familiar with the territory would ask before accepting the Israeli version.
I have yet to hear any, let alone a convincing account, of how the two soldiers stumbled past all these checkpoints in broad daylight without noticing. This kind of one-sided manipulative "reporting" is irresponsible, inciteful and unacceptable.
Yours,
Mazin Qumsiyeh,
Orange, CT
===========
Raleigh News and Observor 12/18/1998
Misguided Attack
I am shocked at President Clinton's bombing of Iraq. The reasons given were especially disturbing. His statement taht he did this before the Holy Month of Ramadan so as not to offend muslims is ironic. I do feel the 20 million Christian and Muslim Iraqis, as well as people of all faiths all over the world, are deeply offended at the deaths of innocents and teh unneeded destruction. UI ask that Clinton simply give us the truth: 1) What is to be accomplished by this bmbing (does he have any proof of WMD in the places bombed)? 2) What is the end game of his policy in Iraq and how is he going to do it? 3) why are we carrying on with genocidal embargo/sanctions that is killing thousands of children every month (according to UN statistics) and not in the least bit affecting Saddam?, 4) Why don't we bomb Tel Avive, since Israel is in violation of doxzens of UN Security Counci resolutions as well as the fourth Geneva Comnvention n Human Rights? Many questions, few answers. I was an opponent of impeachement, now I am not so sure (but for different reasons).
Mazin Qumsiyeh, Ph.D., Durham
================
Durham Herald Sun 1/8/1998
Democracy in Israel is a classic myth'
......
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Raleigh News and Observor 9/28/1997
Recognizing Injustice
A first step to bring peace would be an honest admission of the terrible injustice done to teh Palestinians (both Muslims and Christians). ...
Mazin Qumsiyeh, Ph.D., Durham
==========
Duke Chronicle, 9/11/1997
Israelis, Palestinians must search for Justice
The Chronicle reprinted a column from teh New York Times titled "Palestinians have shown lack of commitment to peace in Israel." It is one of William Saffire's classic brand of misinformation and outright lies. The article is as racist as its headline demonstrates.....
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Raleigh News and Observor 7/9/1997
Israel's transgressions
For a week before Independence Day, the N&O carried teh daily wire stories of "disturbances" in teh Israeli occupied territories. It was fitting that on Independence Day, you also published the Bill of Rights. As I read this I reflected that teh Jewish State violates most of these basic individual rights. Examples include promotion of one religion at thr expense of others, collective punishment, lack of due process of law for natives, arbitrary arrest and land confiscation, denying citizenship to resident non-Jews (recent revocation of residencey rights to hundred of Christians and Muslims but not Jews in Jerusalem), and the imposition of an apartheid regime on the remaining Palestinians. Last month was the 30th anniversary of the deliberate Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, and since then the US has transferred over $100 billion tax dollars to Israel, whose per capita income is better than many Western Countries. Isn't it about time we stopped subsidizing belligerant states?
Mazin Qumsiyeh, Ph.D., Durham
Other published letters
Arafat's peace attempts negated by Sharon, The Day, 4/2/02
- A rant, a ray of light soundoff, Hartford Courant, Northeast Magazine 5/12/2002
- Israelis are denouncing occupation as Well, New Haven Register, 5/29/02
- Washington Times, 6/30/01
- Citizenship, Nationality Are Different, Hartford Courant, July 3, 2002
- Argument against Palestinian state is false, Republican American, July 9, 2002
- Nothing racist about USS Liberty inquiries, The Day, 11/05/2002
- U.S. should stop investing in apartheid Israeli system, New Haven Register, 12/14/02
- U.S. Media Coverage Blatantly Favors Israel, The Day, 1/13/2003 |