An ally, not a pawn

Letters

Editor: The Nazi genocide of European Jewry was a success. Only seven per cent of Jewish children remained alive at liberation. I am one of those surviving children. And I have a question. Why were the Americans so late? Why did they not join the British and Canadian forces earlier?

Bonnie Klein ("Invite debate, reflection," Bulletin, Oct. 4) writes: "It is not 'against' the United States or Israel to believe that hatred of U.S. imperialism, escalated by a war against Iraq, will put Israel even more at risk than it is now," making it quite clear that is what she hates, including of course, the possible "imperialistic" attack on Iraqi installations capable of making weapons of mass destruction.
However, had it not been for Israel's 1981 pre-emptive strike on Iraq's nuclear reactor, Israel might have faced a genocidal attack already in 1991.

Klein's compassionate response to the Palestinian woman's claim in the film Gaza Strip" that "They want to drive us into the sea" demonstrates how well this woman has learned to use the slogans of her leaders. It is not Jews who wish to drive Arabs into the sea but it has been the rallying cry of Egypt's Gamal Abdal Nasser, Syria's Hafez el Assad and Iraq's Saddam Hussein in the past and of Yasser Arafat who says it still today.

There is good reason to believe them for they have all tried, not in effort to secure the "occupied" territories but to destroy Israel and kill its Jews, a war of genocide.

Israel's offer at Camp David and Taba in 2000 to hand over the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in exchange for peace was rejected by Arafat. (See Foreign Policy July/August 2002 for the details of Arafat's betrayal as reported by the chief negotiator, Ambassador Dennis Ross). Accepting a Palestinian homeland would have interfered with Arafat's real objectives, the elimination of Israel. He wants to murder our children and willingly uses his to do so.

Klein stated: "All I know is that to blindly allow Israel to be a pawn in a war that serves U.S. economic and strategic interests will only increase anti-Semitism and endanger Israel and all Jews."

She has it wrong. Anti-Semitism is increasing at an alarming rate and Israel is in grave danger right now. Israel is not a pawn. It is an ally. And its moral strength is tested daily. Anti-Semitism increases when anti-Semites know or sense that Jews are powerless and have no allies. Render Israel powerless and you and I, Klein, are sitting ducks.

For Saddam, the Iraqi scud barrage on Israel in 1991 was merely practise. For Israelis it was confinement, gas masks and fear of annihilation. Thank God that the United States has strategic interests in the area. If not, we might now be calculating the percentage of Jewish children left alive and I would have to ask for a second time in my life, why were the Americans so late?

Robert Krell
Vancouver

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