From: moishb@vipac.org Date: Fri 2 Jan 2004 Subject: Support Israel: Politics Has No Place in Humanitarian Causes Dear Mr. President: Best wishes for a happy healthy and peaceful year. Two recent articles in The New York Times generated interesting responses in the form of letters to the editor from that newspaper’s readers. An article about humanitarian aid to earthquake victims in Iran generated the following letter from a reader: “I am dismayed to learn that Iran will not accept help from Israel for those suffering from the recent earthquake. Do food water shelter and medical supplies have religion ethnicity or politics?” Another article regarding American soldiers injured in the Iraqi war and its continuing aftermath generated numerous responses of true sympathy regarding the fate of those hurt and maimed. The plight of injured American soldiers is an American tragedy every bit as big as the Israeli tragedy of the thousands of wounded by the Arab war on the Jews. We Americans are extremely sensitive to the plight of the downtrodden and have tried not to allow politics to taint our moral values. The treatment that the current Iranian regime accorded our diplomats during their revolution did not and will not make us any less sensitive to their disasters. The Iranian government’s nuclear program and its potential threat to the security of our country and allies is not a consideration in our offering aid. The insensitivity displayed by the Iranian Government toward their own citizens by allowing politics to take precedence over the saving of lives is hard for our “western” minds to understand. But we must realize that this is the mindset of the enemy we are facing in Iran Iraq and Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East. The Iranian Mullahs Al-Queida and Arafat’s PLO are all insensitive to the human factor. To achieve their aims they will not only murder innocent civilians in America and elsewhere but will sacrifice their own people. Arab teenagers are encouraged to commit suicide murderer to further political aims. Mothers eagerly sacrifice their children in order to murder other children. Terrorists commit suicide in order to kill thousands at the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon. It is no surprise that politics is placed ahead of humanitarian aid. We are facing an enemy that cares little for the safety and wellbeing of their own people let alone for those it has declared as the “infidel enemy”. Now more than ever before we have much in common with Israel: An enemy that wants to kill our citizens and to destroy our societies. We have experienced the murder of innocent civilians on 9/11. Israel has been experiencing the senseless murder of its children for the past ten years. We cannot afford to compromise with enemies who are insensitive to basic humanitarian issues. We must stand together with Israel against Iran and their Arab allies. Respectfully yours |