Letters to the Editor, March 26, 2004

-----Original Message-----
From: gardengrow@earthlink.net [mailto:gardengrow@earthlink.net]
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2004 9:47 AM
To: editor@aljazeerah.info
Subject:

YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A TERRORIST! DEATH TO ALL TERRORISTS AND THEIR SUPPORTERS.

Saw your article on RO; Israel does not purposely target innocent people. Terrorists hide behind innocent people and think they'll be safe. Israel has proven them wrong.

YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE A NEUTRAL EDITOR ASSHOLE; BUT AS I THOUGHT YOU ARE NOT ONLY NOT NEUTRAL YOU ARE A DAMNABLE TERRORIST SUPPORTER.

Editor: What does RO stand for? What article are you referring to? Who's the author? What's the date of publication?

So far three Al-Jazeerah contributing readers have been threatened: Mike Whitney, Jane Stillwater, Jack Lakavich, and Armand de Laurel have been threatened by or received hate telephone calls. They have reported them to the police.

Actually, Armand de Laurell had received another threatening telephone call from outside the US on March 24, 2004 that he reported to the police.

These intolerant callers do not want an objective accounting of what's going on in the world. Their behavior demonstrates that they neither believe in democracy nor in free speech.

The Editor of Al-Jazeerah is publishing the letter to show readers a sample of what he receives from those who do not believe in civil liberties, including freedom of expression.

I am quite unable to comprehend why the Palestinians neglect the most potent weapon in their armoury - a direct visually effective comparison between the brutal Nazi occupation of France/most of Europe and the Israeli forces brutal occupation of Palestine (following the land grab). The comparison may not be entirely accurate across the board since the Israelis would certainly deny having a policy of racially based extermination. Nevertheless, there are sufficient points of comparison to render the accusation at least partially valid and, in these times where the propaganda battle is apparently being won by the Israelis/Americans, it might provide a salutary perspective. The sight of columns of main battle-tanks proceeding through shattered towns being greeted by silent Nazi salutes would be electrifying for public opinion with huge worldwide impact. It would point to the supreme irony! of a people once sorely oppressed now neglecting almost every standard of civilised behaviour, engaging in unlawful assassinations and trampling the human and civil rights of others (which they of all peoples in the world should respect) underfoot.

I believe that the assassination of Shaykh Yassin was a moral victory for the Palestinians. It proves that Zionists are the "bad guys" beyond the shade of a doubt. It seems to foretell the coming political victory for Palestine, similar to the assassination of Malcolm X.

It's the racists' way of admitting they know they are wrong, when they knock off a religious leader.

I don't understand your outrage about killing of Yassin. It is not the fact that he was killed that is surprising to me, but the fact that he was allowed to live for so many years!

Everyone would agree that Yassin was a leader of Hamas which was responsible for deaths of many innocent civilians. Many of those involved in its actions paid with their lives for them and retribution came rather swiftly.

Yassin, however, enjoyed a long life. My question is why? He was not in hiding. Just the opposite, his location was always well known. Perhaps there was something else about this person that I don't know. Can you please explain.

Editor: There was an Israeli failed attempt on his life few months ago. You seem to lack basic information about Palestinians and their conflict with the Israelis. You also mention Israeli victims of the conflict without mentioning thousands of Palestinian victims. Look at the Human Price and Deaths sections to see for yourself.

From the Palestinian, Arab, Islamic viewpoint, Palestine is the property of Palestinians who lived uninterruptedly there from time immemorial until now. They are the descendants of all the peoples who had ever lived in the Holy Land. This includes Cana'anites, Philistines, Arabs, Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Iraqis (including Abraham and all his descendants), European Crusaders, and Ottoman Turks.

World Zionism, established in 1897, had a project to move Jews from everywhere to Palestine. Zionists succeeded in establishing Israel in 1948 on the ruins of Palestine. Most Palestinians, like Shaikh Ahmed Yassin became refugees, that is homeless and stateless, living in refugee camps.

In 1967, Zionist Israelis occupied the rest of Palestine (the West Bank and Gaza Strip) together with Egyptian Sinai and Syrian Golan Heights.

Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have been resisting the Israeli occupation ever since and Ahmed Yassin was one of their leaders.

Anyone killed defending his homeland against foreign occupiers and invaders is considered a Martyr in Islam and revered in all nations.

Shaikh Ahmed Yassin has been given more coverage in world media than the average person because he was the founder of one of the Palestinian resistance organizations, Hamas.

I would just like to thank you for providing this website. I am a Christian American who is very interested in the Middle East. This site provides great insight that is not available on any American station. I am 18 and I am sick of the endless Zionist propaganda spewed by the media and in the schools. After September 11th occurred, we were taught that all Muslims are evil that they are all "evil doers." Of course Israel is the good guy and the Us Government will not dare to answer questions about the role of the Mossad in the 911 attacks. Not all Americans are brainwashed by the media. I want you to know that. We are fighting the Zionist propaganda and we are fighting to get Bush out of office in November.

Brandon, Alabama

"Never before have we, as a nation, stood in greater danger of losing our civil liberties as we are today. We, the people of this great nation, are being punished for the transgressions of our leaders and their consorts." Frank Serpico

Editor: Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq by Sheldon Rampton, John Stauber (2003)

Slough

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.

John Betjeman

Iraq not Slough

Go friendly bombs and make them bow
They’ve no defences at all now,
And we can awe and main and kill.
With aerial impunity!

Go, bombs and blow to smithereens
Let’s decimate Iraqi teens,
The sick, the weak, the young, the poor,
Peaceful games were such a bore.

Chew up the place they call Iraq-
With our most superb attack.
We press the buttons and they die
And Bush is full of glee.

For months he’s laboured very hard,
To test the latest armoury,
Agent Orange’s no use here
We’ll get them with MOAB

Of course the war is fine and just
They’re foreigners whose bones are dust,
The endgame is a splendid thing,
The righteous love to joke.

And spare no thought for kids who die in bed
Their bodies torn, their limbs in shreds,

For prophets of the stinking oil,
Let’s give them hell.

It's not their fault kids do not know
Why they should have to suffer so,
It's not their fault they often go
shopping with their mothers.

At home the raucous rednecks shout
Endemic violence abounds
Gun law at home and now abroad
Don’t give a fig for friend or foe.

The military we treat with care
We worship their primeval glare
They sport a sympathetic air
But they are killers.

Come, friendly bombs knock Iraq down,
From city great to tiny town
It’s like a Sunday School picnic

&! nbsp; Collective Collective punishment - for Daddy.

Adapted