OTHER PEOPLE’S MAIL

Compiled by Dale Sprusansky

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE. NW WASHINGTON, DC 20500 COMMENT LINE: (202) 456-1111 WWW.WHITEHOUSE.GOV/CONTACT SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 2201 C ST. NW WASHINGTON, DC 20520 PHONE: (202) 647-6575 VISIT WWW.STATE.GOV TO E-MAIL

ANY MEMBER: U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WASHINGTON, DC 20515 (202) 225-3121 ANY SENATOR: U.S. SENATE WASHINGTON, DC 20510 (202) 224-3121

BIDEN EMBARRASSES HIS COUNTRY ON TRIP TO ISRAEL

To The Capital Times, July 17, 2022 Cowardice and humiliating capitulation to one of the world’s worst human rights abusers and international law breakers were on display at the start of President Joe Biden’s summer tour of Israel.

Biden was warmly received by the leaders of Israel, including Prime Minister Yair Lapid who called the president “a great Zionist and one of the best friends Israel has ever known.” While he could have used the opportunity to chart a new direction with what the international community regards as an apartheid state that systemically and with impunity violates the human rights of Palestinians, the president instead embraced the label and self-identified as a proud Zionist going back to the 1970s.

This follows on the heels of the U.S. State Department’s whitewashed “investigation” into the murder of PalestinianAmerican Shireen Abu Akleh by the Israeli military. Biden could have demanded accountability for her killing, but he didn’t. He did make a point though to tell Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s rapacious former prime minister, “You know I love you.”

Sure he does. The U.S shows that love with our taxpayer-subsidized $3.8 billion we give annually to Israel while we throw a few charity bones to the Palestinians.

Biden went on in an interview to say that military force was an option against Iran if it pursues a nuclear program, an alarmingly conciliatory statement toward Israeli leaders’ warmongering.

Watching the leader of the only country that has dropped nuclear weapons on human beings, the United States, threaten preemptive war without credible evidence that Iranians are using their nuclear capabilities for weapons of mass destruction (we didn’t learn anything from Iraq) isn’t just embarrassing, it's illegal (see U.N. Article 2, Section 4). It’s also against our own Constitution, which vests the war making powers with Congress.

Leadership is gravely needed here. Biden’s performance is abysmal.

Richard McGowan, Madison, WI

WHEN WILL THE GROUND BE “RIPE FOR PEACE”?

To the Chico Enterprise-Record, July 19, 2022 “The ground is not ripe for peace,” our president said during his July visit to Bethlehem. This is to explain why no steps will be taken regarding the Palestinian “issue.” It advises we remain patient as Israel expands appropriation of the region that the president assures us will one day be the “independent, sovereign, viable and contiguous” state of the Palestinians.

Palestinians watch settlements expand while Israeli leaders will not admit the possibility of a Palestinian state. “Restarting negotiations?” Israel is a powerful and wealthy nuclear state. Palestine is a bordering region which has no army, no autonomy, no great world power backer, no parity of power in negotiations. Palestine does not control Palestine. Israeli forces enter any town, village or household when they wish.

Under the Israeli military law that governs the West Bank (except the settlements), it arrests and imprisons without trial or even charge persons considered to be a threat (this is called “administrative detention”). Israel names local human rights organizations as terrorist organizations without evidence and refuses a neutral investigation of the Israeli killing of a Palestinian-American journalist.

What would make the ground ripe for peace? The “realist” option: the U.S. withholds its $3.8 billion per year in aid unless Israel observes international law. The “idealist” option: if Israelis and Palestinians stood across the field face to face, with equal power and respect, with mutual accountability to international law, searching for what we hope President Biden might mean when he says “the values we share.”

Jim Anderson, Chico, CA

A BINATIONAL STATE IS THE ONLY REMAINING SOLUTION

To The Dallas Morning News, July 25, 2022 President Joe Biden’s commitment to the “two-state solution” for the Israel-Palestine dispute is commendable but undermined by Israel’s settlement policies. It is long overdue for Washington to acknowledge that a territorial compromise along the 1967 border is no longer plausible. Zionist expansion has ensured that the “one-state solution” whereby Palestinians (Christian, Muslim and Druze) in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem are accorded full Israeli citizenship is inevitable. The only other conceivable option would be the creation of a confederation between the Palestinian territories and Jordan.

Zionism always envisioned a democratic Jewish state from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. Zionists conveniently overlooked the native Arab population. They now have to deal with the consequences of their territorial aggrandizement: a binational Jewish-Arab state.

George W. Aldridge, Arlington, TX U.S. SUPPORT CONTINUES EVEN AS BOMBS DEVASTATE GAZA

To The Mercury News, Aug. 11, 2022 Re: “Israel and Gaza militants exchange fire.”

Once again Israel has bombed Gaza. This periodic military action is casually referred to as “mowing the lawn.” It is designed to make life so miserable for the Palestinians that they are forced to leave their homeland.

This is the fifth attack on the desperate two million residents of Gaza. Seventy percent of these Palestinian families own homes and farms in greater Israel but have been refused the right of return. Israel has confiscated their lands to build illegal Jewish-only settlements. These violations of international law are unconditionally supported by the U.S. taxpayers to the tune of over $10 million a day.

Ten million dollars a day would go a long way toward improving our health care and educational systems. Spending our tax dollars this way would ensure a brighter future for our children and would not violate international law.

Forrest Cioppa, Walnut Creek, CA ISRAEL’S TARGETING OF HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS

To The Press Democrat, Aug. 29, 2022 I am outraged at so much unnecessary suffering in our world. How long will the boots of the powerful remain on the necks of innocents? News from Palestine is especially grim. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Israeli organization B’Tselem have reported that Israel is an apartheid state. Six civil society organizations, such as Al-Haq (Arabic for “the truth”) and Defense for Children International-Palestine, which records and reports abuses committed by Israel on Palestinian children, have been officially declared by Israel as terrorist organizations. Their offices were raided, records taken and doors welded shut by Israeli soldiers. Our government, Israel’s biggest supporter with $3.8 billion in tax dollars yearly, is allowing this to continue, making us complicit.

Are we friends of Israel when we support its moral self-destruction or the slow genocide it is committing? The claim is always security, but annihilation of indigenous Palestinians and blatant territorial expansion are the reality.

Please contact your representatives and insist that they work for security and equality for all living in Palestine/Israel. U.S. MUST STOP GIVING AID TO ISRAEL

To the Portland Press Herald, July 15, 2022 Talk about irony. Talk about hypocrisy. Talk about being two-faced.

The U.S. correctly supports democracy in Ukraine by opposing Russian aggression and war crimes and providing assistance to the Ukrainian people.

Yet at the same time we send billions to Israel, a country with a higher per capita income than the U.S., and sell it weapons, thanks to the Israel lobby wielding power over our “representatives.” This occurs even as Israel and the cowardly Israel Defense Forces use our money and weapons to kill and injure innocent Palestinians, including women and children—and helps “settlers” injure Palestinians and destroy centuries-old Palestinian olive orchards.

However, the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which opposes Israel’s actions, is gaining influence and will gain more, especially now that Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have correctly named Israel as an apartheid state.

Support for Israel is wrong on many levels, and I ask our representatives to speak out and act against these wrongs.

David Plimpton, Cape Elizabeth, ME CANADIAN COMPLICITY IN ISRAELI VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS

To SaltWire, Aug. 21, 2022 I am responding to a recent letter by Jonathan Usher from North York, Ontario regarding the “Israel practices apartheid” bus ads.

These Metrobus ads only state the findings of several well-recognized human rights organizations—Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Independent Jewish Voices and two Israeli human rights organizations, B’Tselem and Yesh Din. You can be assured that when any of these organizations release a statement, they are comprehensively researched. The fact is, each and every one of these groups have found there is clear and explicit evidence of systemic persecution of Palestinians.

Usher does not refute the mountain of evidence of Israel’s behavior. Instead, he boldly declares that the ads are “anti-Semitic.” This tactic of accusing critics of Israeli state actions of being anti-Jewish seems rather old and tiresome and deflects from the reality that these human rights reports address. Anti-Semitism should in no way be tolerated, but this criticism of Israel should not be smeared as being anti-Semitic.

In 1973, the United Nations released the first international convention condemning the crime of apartheid and institutionalized racial segregation. Using this explicit definition, these human rights organizations can confidently use the term “apartheid” when describing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and within Israel.

They have documented evidence of Israel’s “system of control.” These features include such things as the ID system, everexpanding Israeli settlements, separate roads for Israelis and Palestinians, military checkpoints, marriage law, the massive separation wall, the use of Palestinians for cheap labor and disparities in access to land resources between Palestinians and Israeli settlers.

Canada needs to condemn the violence that apartheid perpetrates on the Palestinian people and demand that the Israeli government immediately stop further settlements on Palestinian land.

Palestinians have long suffered under Israeli rule. Between 1947-1949, some 750,000 Palestinians were forced to flee their home and villages. It is estimated that some 500 Palestinian villages were destroyed by Israeli militias. Today, we have millions of Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza or neighboring countries, hoping one day to return, many with deeds or keys to their properties.

The extent of Israeli crimes against Palestinians is now being investigated by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The government of Canada cannot ignore the findings of these prominent human rights groups. Canada needs to condemn the violence that apartheid perpetrates on the Palestinian people and demand that the Israeli government immediately stop further settlements on Palestinian land.

Carmel Conway, St. John’s, NL ■