AMERICAN “DIPLOMACY” WITH
ISRAEL AND PALESTINE
To TheWashington Post, July 21, 2018
Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and
David Friedman are playing a cruel game
of misdirection when they put the onus
solely on Hamas for the difficulties faced by
Palestinians.
Mr. Kushner and Mr. Friedman have per-
sonally funded illegal settlement activity.
They offer economic advancement for
Palestinians but say nothing of political
freedom from Israeli occupation.
The writers noted in their July 20 Friday
Opinion essay, “Hamas is the Palestinians’
enemy,” that Palestinians in Gaza have re-
ceived international aid, but nowhere did
they acknowledge that 70 percent of the
Palestinians are refugees whose families
were forced out of homes and lands just
across the Gaza boundary. The three writ-
ers are doing nothing to uphold Palestini-
ans’ right of return but obscure it and re-
duce those Palestinians killed demonstrat-
ing for it to rioters.
They laid blame solely on Hamas in a
week when Israel passed discriminatory
anti-Palestinian legislation denounced by
numerous human rights leaders. These
aren’t diplomats to cheer; they are ideo-
logues advancing White House policiesthat, from the United States to the Middle
East, are pushing discrimination over equal
rights and freedom.
Michael Brown, Asheville, NCINTENT OF THE NATION-STATE LAW
IS CLEAR
To theLos Angeles Times, July 22, 2018
Israel’s new nation-state law makes
continued United States full-bore support
problematic.
The new law rejects democracy and the
concept of equal rights for citizens—both
bedrock principles of the U.S. government.
With Israel’s new law violating those prin-
ciples, how can the U.S. continue to shield
Israel from accountability at the United Na-
tions, or give Israel about $4 billion in mil-
itary aid each year?
There is no reason for this law except to
bolster Prime Minister Binyamin Ne-
tanyahu’s status with right-wing voters and
to make it clear to the 20 percent of Israeli
citizens who are not Jewish that they will
remain second-class citizens.
Jeff Warner, Los Angeles, CATHE NATION-STATE LAW AND A
PALESTINIAN POET
To The Register-Guard, Aug. 3, 2018
Once again, Israel has proved that it is
a democratic state for Jewish citizens and
a Jewish undemocratic state for Palestin-
ian citizens. The recent passage of the na-
tion-state law has enshrined the apartheid
nature of Israeli society.
A recent example of this two-tiered sys-
tem was the sentencing by an Israeli court
on July 31 of Palestinian poet, Dareen Ta-
tour, to five months in prison for her poem,
“Resist, My People, Resist Them.”
Her crime, according to the Israeli state,
was to express resistance to its oppres-
sion and occupation through poetry—
through the non-violence of words. Para-
doxically, by jailing poets, Israel is dimin-
ishing the cultural richness of its entire so-
ciety.
Tatour, who has lived all of her 36 years
under occupation, is a veteran of Israeli
harassment. She follows a long line of
Palestinian writers jailed for their literary
expression of resistance. From October
2015 to July 2016, roughly 400 Palestini-
ans were arrested for their social media
posts, proving that they have no civil
rights.
The myth of Israel’s democracy has
been effectively challenged through the
poetry of Tatour, who wrote: “...Shred the
disgraceful constitution which imposed
degradation and humiliation, and deterredus from restoring justice...”
M. Reza Behnam, Eugene, ORTHE U.S. ALSO INTERFERES IN OTHER
COUNTRIES, JUST ASK IRAN
To the Idaho Statesman, Aug. 23, 2018
It is puzzling that as we rightly de-
nounce Russian interferences in our in-
ternal affairs, we miss the irony of our
own meddling in the internal affairs of
other countries.
Recently, Secretary of State Mike Pom-
peo launched a campaign to “erode sup-
port for Iranian leaders” and foment un-
rest in Iran. National Security Adviser
John Bolton and Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi have declared their support for the
Iranian opposition group Mojahedin-e-
Khalq (MEK). MEK has no legitimacy in-
side Iran. Its members have committed
numerous terrorist acts, and until 2012,
this group was on the State Department’s
list of terrorist organizations.
The blowback from the last regime
change in Iran orchestrated by the CIA in
1953 continues to reverberate to this day.
Iranians are keenly aware of this history.
They are also witnesses to the devasta-
tion caused by war and political turmoil in
their neighboring countries. Sanctions are
war in slow motion. A new round of sanc-
tions on Iran, if anything, will likely make
Iranians rally behind their government.
Iranians have the same right of self-de-
termination as any sovereign nation. We
would garner more cooperation in inter-
national relations if we grant the same re-
spect for other nations’ independence as
we do for our own.
Azam Houle, Boise, IDTHE WRONG APPROACH ON IRAN
To The New York Times, Aug. 7, 2018
Re “U.S. Brings Back Iran Sanctions,
Defying Europe” (front page, Aug. 7):
Sanctions will only lead to lose-lose
outcomes for both sides. Sanctions have
not worked with Cuba, North Korea and
Russia, and sanctions will not work with
Iran.
If anything, sanctions inflicting hard-
ship on 80 million Iranians will unite the
country behind the autocratic govern-
ment; sanctions inhibit the people’s long-
ing for freedom, equality and justice.
Sanctions will also penalize American
and Western companies; the vacuum will
be filled by other competitors worldwide.
The more desirable option is to rein-
state the Iran nuclear deal and to negoti-
ate all other concerns multilaterally.
Davood N. Rahni, Pleasantville, NY68 WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS OCTOBER 2018opm_68-69.qxp_Other Peoples Mail 8/29/18 4:38 PM Page 68