A letter from Laura
Peers,“A Letter from Laura” which is pasted below is a doozie, a bona fide doozie. Not many people on the mailing list know who Laura is for reasons Samia explains in a brief introduction. Everybody on the mailing list knows who Samia is. Samia Khoury is my primary connection into the female population of Palestine.
I read Laura’s letter slowly and carefully. When I got to her mention of the King David Hotel (highlighted) I thought that I should forward the letter to Sami Joseph who’s a Palestinian Refugee living with his family outside London. Sami had a family member who was killed in the bombing of the King David Hotel. Sami is a retired engineer, a grandfather, a Lutheran, a septuagenarian and a long-time on-line friend of mine who hasn’t been allowed even to visit his homeland in decades. Sami and Fr. Stephen Sizer know each other in the UK. Sami and Bishop Riah know each other. While I was reading Laura’s closing paragraph (highlighted) I decided to send the letter to the whole list. I especially want Dante and UncleChri to see it: “Palestinians have the right to defend themselves” is one of the one-liners that the three of us use regularly in The Podium. The Podium is AOL’s most active political chatroom. The Jewish Community is always well-represented in The Podium.
Peace,
Roy+
P.S. “Where there’s a will, there’s a Sabeel.”
Laura, my sister-in-law has asked me to circulate the following letter as she has not joined the electronic mail circle. She reads a lot and does not miss one item in the weekly Time magazine. She is writing the following in response to a letter written by Mr. Jeremy Slomnicki in the inbox of the Time Magazine issue of April 16 in which he emphasizes the need for Israel to defend itself because of “Palestinian Terrorism.” She did not respond to the Time magazine because she wanted to say more words than allowed, yet she is hoping that in one way or another it will reach Mr. Slomnicki.
Samia
“I am writing this to remind Mr. Slomnicki and all the Slomnickis of the world that the first perpetrators of “Terrorism” in our region were the Jewish underground in Palestine during the British Mandate. Israel did not exist then, but Jewish terrorism started before 1948. I do not know how old you are Mr. Slomnicki, but if you are under 60 years you probably need to learn about the bombing of the King David Hotel Wing of the British Secretariat in July 1947 in which one hundred Palestinians were blown up. The bombing took place on a Saturday to spare Jewish liveswho were off on that day. Ironically the man behind the bombing was Menahim Begin who later became one of Israel’s prime ministers. King David was just the beginning followed by many other terrorist acts, such as the Semiramis hotel when a whole Palestinian family perished and the Palestine Post offices. The list is endless, but fortunately it has been recorded by many historians and ironically some Jewish ones of conscience who had the courage to expose the truth. But surely you must have heard of the “calculated” massacre of Deir Yaseen, a peaceful village near Jerusalem when a defenseless population was massacred, mostly women and children. A gruesome sight that triggered a scare that led to the fleeing of many Palestinians from their homes. After 1967 The Jerusalem Post quoted Mr. Menahim Begin regarding Deir Yaseen: “It was a blessing in disguise because it helped create the State of Israel.” Of course those who did not flee were driven out at gun point in other parts of Palestine.
With regard to your letter Mr. Slomnicki that Israel has the right to defend itself, we are really tired of this cliché. Surely Israeli has the right to defend itself and so does every nation, but not when Israel is the aggressor, the occupier, the oppressor and the fifth strongest army in the world loaded with a stockpile of nuclear weapons. So from whom is Israel defending itself? From a defenseless, dispossessed, and occupied population separated by walls and check points while their homes are demolished and their farms and olive trees are razed. Are you comparing a resistance of an area under siege by the use of crude home-made missiles that might have injured a few people but hardly caused any damage, to the Israeli air strikes of populated Gaza that killed hundreds? The attack on the Jenin camp was another act of “terrorism” and not by underground militias, but by the regular and sophisticated Israeli army. So it is ironic that you should really be so worried about “poor” Israel’s need to defend itself. And so is the implanting of the settlers and settlements on Palestinian land an act of terrorism, especially that those settlers are there as colonizers with the sole aim of driving away the Palestinians. They raid their homes, block them from reaching their farms and groves and use every means to deprive them from living a peaceful life.
I would like to quote a letter that appeared also in the Time magazine inbox written by Mr. Claus Frausing from Copenhagen in the April 9, 2012 issue: “Israel’s irresponsible behavior is dangerous for the security of the rest of the world. Israel is extremely superior from a military point of view. Thanks to the US. But because Israel has never been able to establish true alliances of friendships with its neighbors, it is surrounded by hostile populations. A power whose security is based on military superiority alone can only act militarily. This is the real threat to the World not the possible nuclear power of Iran.”
Not only does Israel want to be the only country that owns nuclear weapons in the region, it wants to be the super power of the region. It succeeded in having the USA fight its war to eliminate what they perceived as a potential threat, a potential threat, Iraq, under false pretexts, and now their next target is Iran. Mr. Carter also alluded to that in the Time magazine at one time that if Iran has one war head, Israel has 300. So Iran will definitely not attempt to attack Israel knowing its strength. Surely The Soviet Union and the USA during the years of the Cold War were aware of each other’s strength and none would have attempted an attack because both countries would have been destroyed. The key word was restraint.
Because we Palestinians live under Israeli occupation, because our territories have been surrounded by separation walls, separating us from our Palestinian families and communities, and because we cannot move further than 20 miles without having to go through an Israeli military check point it is we, Palestinians, Mr. Slomnicki, who have the right to defend ourselves.”