Perspective: Arab leaders victimized Palestinians

David Adams' intended purpose is good. However, when he wants us to understand why America is hated and recounts the plight of the Palestinians, he acts, in effect, as an apologist for the murderers who have attacked our nation. Even more important, he spreads misinformation, ignores history and fails to point to the most basic underlying problem of the Middle East: that of impoverished masses, including the Palestinians, that have suffered continually under despotic regimes (with few exceptions) throughout centuries.

First, it is not the Israelis who placed Palestinians into camps. Palestinians were betrayed by the Arab nations that threatened them into leaving their homes while those Arab states invaded Palestine in order to destroy the U.N.-sanctioned state of Israel in 1948. But the Jewish state prevailed.

Palestinians who remained in Israel were granted citizenship, and Israel absorbed a million-plus Jewish refugees who were forcibly expelled from the defeated Arab countries. Palestinians who had left were not allowed to return, considered by the Israelis a potential "fifth column" that could endanger the fledgling country, still in a state of war.

The Arab countries of Jordan and Egypt occupied the balance of what had been Palestine, including most parts of what would have been the Palestinian state. In Gaza, the Egyptians built camps and confined the Palestinians. Similar action was taken in Lebanon and Jordan, and confinement in those camps was used to foment the sort of hatred among the occupants that, over decades, defies logic and history and justifies to them the terrorist acts taken at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Arab countries and their despotic regimes have encouraged the continuation of poverty, ignorance and intolerance among their people in order to serve their own purposes, mainly their continuation in power. Palestinians are victims of Arab leadership, not of Israel or the United States.

Let's fight the hatred by directing Palestinian anger where it belongs and educating their people, not by accepting the same divisive lies and propaganda that have contributed to this cycle of violence.
-- Martin L. Altner, Safety Harbor

Refugee realities

Re: To fight back, we have to know why we're hated.

While David Adams was working in the Palestinian refugee camps 20 years ago, did he ever ask just why the refugee camps were still in existence more than 50 years after the founding of the state of Israel. I saw those same camps myself more than 30 years ago, on the eve of the 1967 sneak attack on Israel.

I have known many Palestinians who were helped to this country and started life over and became U.S. citizens. Is there no other country anywhere that would help those people resettle? In 1967, it was felt that the people were kept in the camps as propaganda and for recruiting fighters and stirring up unrest. Is it possible that is still the case?

Israel is a fact. Maybe if others accepted that and moved on, they would be able to better themselves. Rather, they are still trying to push all the Jews into the sea. Make no mistake, that is still their goal.

The fact is the terrorist extremists want to destroy all who are not of their culture and beliefs, not just the United States and Israel.
-- Marilyn J. Day, Beverly Hills

Local links to terror

Re: Save our anger for terrorists, not Arab-Americans, Sept. 16.

We agree with Robyn Blumner's plea that we "save our anger for terrorists, not Arab-Americans" -- and we would add, not Muslims. On the other hand, it is becoming evident that we should also be urged to reserve our anger for terrorists and not for Israelis and Jews.

The Times column by its Latin America correspondent David Adams (To fight back, we have to know why we're hated, Sept. 16) displays a monumental ignorance of the causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Suffice it to say that he ignores many historical facts as he describes the litany of Arab claims. While Adams may mean well in his effort to help us understand why we are hated, there is a danger in this one-dimensional recitation.

By not providing an account of the establishment of Israel from an Israeli and, indeed, an American perspective, we undermine the justice of our position. From the hate mail some of us are already receiving, this is already beginning.

In regard to the "know-your-enemy" theme of columnist Adams, the Times would do well to remind readers of some very significant local links to terrorism. Tampa was the base for the Islamic Committee for Palestine, an organization suspected of money-laundering for Hamas. The ICP was founded by University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian. The manager of Al-Arian's ICP was Tarik Hamdi. Hamdi is the one who provided the satellite battery for the bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. More startling is that he arranged an interview with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan for ABC News. Other Tampa links included the visit to Tampa by Sheik Abdul Rahman, the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing. Of course, Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, the current head of Islamic Jihad, was brought to USF by Sami Al-Arian and Mazen Al-Najjar via the World Islam Studies Enterprise.

We must ask the question: Why are these two men, suspected by our government of links to terrorist groups, treated with such deference by the St. Petersburg Times?
-- Norman N. Gross, president, Promoting Responsibility in Middle East Reporting, and chairperson, Anti-Hate Committee, Greater Florida B'nai B'rith, Palm Harbor

Educate yourselves

Re: Save our anger for terrorists, not Arab-Americans.

David Adams commentary on the need to understand what would cause such anger toward the United States, is critical in the current situation. Americans are remarkably underinformed about historical and current realities.

A simple Web search today revealed a U.N. assessment in 1998 that over 40,000 more children under the age of 5 are dying today in Iraq from malnutrition and health related complications than in 1989. (UNICEF report, April 30, 1998) The number is more than 50,000 for children over the age of 5. These deaths are directly attributable to the terms of the U.S. sponsored embargo.

Undoubtedly this situation is complicated by many cultural, political and economic factors, as are all of the Middle Eastern conflicts. But just to know this fact alone makes it easier to understand what might generate a rage that seems out of proportion to everything that we know about the situation.

Before we take action that perpetuates a cycle of violence already out of proportion, we need to educate ourselves, to put ourselves in the shoes of those who feel so violated that they would kill 6,000 innocent people. None of it is justifiable. So let's make sure we are fully informed about the bigger picture before we take aggressive action.
-- Mark Johnson, St. Petersburg

Encouraging commentary

For the past week I have felt discouraged and anxious listening to the comments and conversations of people around me who are angry, who want the U.S. government to seek swift retribution for the terrorist acts that took place Sept. 11. So many people are eager for revenge but uninterested in a greater understanding of what leads people to acts of desperation and fanaticism. I have been encouraged to find in your paper, several letters to the editor that make me feel I am not all alone in my hope for a just resolution that doesn't involve the additional taking of innocent lives.

On Sept. 16, the Times published two columns, one by books editor Margo Hammond and the other by David Adams, your Latin America correspondent. Both pieces were intelligently written, very thoughtful and insightful. Thank you for including them.
-- Laurel Graham, Tampa

Appeasement won't work

Re: Dialogue, not reprisals, letter, Sept. 16.

Here is a news flash for the letter writer who feels we must open a dialogue with the terrorists responsible for the evil attack on our country so that we can "find out what they want and meet them halfway." We already know what they want: the complete destruction of America and Israel.

So what sort of halfway point shall we propose to these fine gentlemen? Shall we offer to destroy half of our country for them and, if so, shall it be east of the Mississippi or west? Or perhaps we could just abandon Israel and hope they'll leave us alone.

Seems to me this approach was tried unsuccessfully in 1938. Appeasement of Hitler did not bring world peace then and appeasement of Islamic terrorists will not bring world peace now. Talk about not learning from history!
-- Alvin G. Wood, St. Petersburg

Back to Perspective

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright

From the Times
Opinion page