Letters to the Editor, April 20, 2004

Al-Awda –Palestinians

Uphold Their Right to Return*

By Genevieve Cora Fraser

Ripped from their roots

The people of the Land

Wait suffering

Starved, thirsty

Beyond oppressed

Assaulted by fascist

Annihilators of the rights

Dignity, lives, liberty

Self -Determination fills

The ancient souls

Of the People

Of the Holy Land

A resolves so intense

The earth shakes

With the need

For the Holy Land

To be returned

To the Sacred People

Of the Land

Not procured

By a false Zion

Stealing the sacred

Fire of lives

Who uphold

Their rights defiled

By the evil intent

Of a military regime determined

To assassinate

Rights so

Fundamental

The earth screams

In agony assaulted

By the Zionist

Defilers ripping sacred

Roots from a soil

Washed in the Blood

Of prophets, saints

Martyrs

Washed in Blood

Of the Lamb

* Inspired by the 2^nd Al-Awda International Convention April 16-18, 2004

OPEN SECRETS-Israeli Nuclear and Foreign Policies-

Israeli Professor Israel Shahak reveals that what the rest of the world is told about Israeli foreign policy is entirely inconsistent with what the Israeli press reveals to its citizens. He demonstrates that, with the help of its lobby in the U.S., Israel is conducting a covert policy of expansionism and aims to gain political control, not just of Palestine, but of virtually the entire Middle East. Paperback, 194 pp. http://www.whtt.org/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=197

M. T.

To have 'A WAR' it takes two equitable equally equipped armies, otherwise it's simple unlawful perpetration.

American's like Israeli's both having the intimidating 'big bomb'(WMD) - is fighting ferociously to obtain more land to expansion on. Saddam Hussain is only used as the excuse..

I fervently urge the American electorate to dismiss G.W. Bush when comes November 2004 election, with whom constitutes the whole difference to a decent America.

I am president of the NE Georgia Peace Corner Group. Would you please add our group to your list of peace activist groups? Our website is at www.peacecornergroup.org.

Opinion on role of US media

I am really shocked to read the opinion by a learned man, like Sam Hamod. He must know the the editorial staff of every news giving entity is infiltrated or outright bought by US government. I have yet to see in my 34 years stay in USA, an honest opinion in any of the news papers, TV, Radio or magazines, when US involvement is in question. From the Gulf of Tonkin attack in recent past to WMDs of Iraq, from creation and funding of Al Qaida members and occupation of Afghanistan, the government has always been right.

If they kill innocent Afghans or other Muslims, they are always right. There is a word in USA called, "Patriotism" and it is supposed to mean that you have to support the US government if it supports the Butcher of Baghdad, or even if the president of USA takes that role of the Butcher of Baghdad directly.. Be it Saddam as the Butcher or father Bush! or son Bush as the Butchers.

If any one talks against the foreign policy of the government, he/she is labeled as lacking or devoid of patriotism. The policy of the present government is making George Washington, other elders and fighters for the independence of USA, cry in their graves. The US constitution they drafted was closest to real Islamic constitution in the whole world then and even now it is one of the closest to Islamic principles. But the Government is going totally against those very principles, and against the men that fought for independence more than 220 years ago.

I am at a loss for words after the Rantisi assassination. There is no law or justice in the world.

I do not know what to say. What is the point in expressing outrage? The legitimate law abiding governments of the western world are condoning the public, on TV daily genocide of the Palestinians. In the USA we see a movie a day on the "holocaust". This daily movie tells us the Nazis were bad people for killing Jews in WWII.

Today, in the year 2004, 60 years after world society publicly decided that the mass killing of a people is a bad thing, we have debates between intelligent, well educated western leaders about whether or not what is being done to the Palestinians by the Israelis is bad or not.

What is the difference between genocide in 1940 and genocide in 2004? The only difference I see is that the Israelis control every single western government. All of which stand by mutely and stare at the floor at the latest Israeli atrocity.

The President and fellow Republicans made a lot out of the decision to cut taxes and the resulting $300 tax rebate for each American tax payer.1 The tax rebate, though originally suggested by Democrats, was one of the very few actions President George W. Bush has taken that was sincerely popular with a majority of Americans.

One interesting thing about this rebate was that in the process, no mention was made whatsoever of the fact that this same government gives each Israeli citizen - most of whom are not even US taxpayers and contribute nothing whatsoever to the US - an average $446.00 each and every year.2 At a time when millions of Americans are unemployed and millions more are working for less than a livable wage; while government is cutting back Medicare and Medicade and making it illegal for seniors to buy affordable drugs from abroad; and the federal government is cutting back on all social services across the board, why is it that we are still sending literally billions to the world's last formally and officially racist state?3

The answer to this is question is simple enough, most of the US Congress is in fact composed of people paid specifically by the Israeli lobby to serve Israeli interests.4 Unfortunately, most Americans can't pay their "representatives" to represent them, so as usual, those with the money get their way. Further, since the Israeli lobbyists tend to contribute to both Democratic and Republican candidates for a particular seat, the people ostensibly being "represented" by these candidates are really given no choice in the matter. For example, in the 2002 Colorado Senatorial race between Thomas Strickland and Wayne Allard, both had already sold their votes to various pro-Israel lobbyists. Over their careers, Strickland had already accepted $43,370 and Allard accepted $50,500 to vote for Israel at the expense of their "constituents" who didn't have the money to pay for representation.5 The Israeli lobby has successfully created an environment in which Israeli interests come before American ones in Washington and by buying all the major candidates, they ensure that the American public is given no choice but to support continued spending to defend Israeli Hafrada (Apartheid).