Letters

Letters

We like you too, Bill
I wish with all my heart I was the other Bill Gates for one week! A week where I would support you and all environmental and social causes – their needs with his billions! – to fight the insanity of what happened on November 2, 2004.

Sadly, my wife and I are on a fixed income. After rent and gas there is nothing left! We have to go to the food pantry for God’s sake. And God forbid if we have universal health care for all!

Yes, Nov. 2, 2004 was a horrible day. All we can do now is light candles in the New Dark Ages that are coming upon this nation and world. Because of the complete stiff-neck, stupid polices of the last 2.4 years. I just don’t understand this complete lack of thinking. Like our plunging into another Vietnam? And the total lack of thinking against hard-core facts, especially the facts relating to climate change. Bush refuses to see that global warming is real! Hello.

The National Geographic, Sept. 2004 issue makes it very clear to a conservative that these changes (polar melt down) are real. But real the conservatives refuse to be!

I can go on and on. But I am writing to you and letting you know our prayers and thoughts are with you as we together try to light candles of hope here and in this New Dark Age of despair and stupidity in our Government. Please, don’t give up! Keep fighting back against insanity.

Bill and Carol Gates

Do walls make good neighbors?
I read with dismay the article, “Farming Under Fire” by Kate Rogers Gessert (Winter, 2005 EIJ). The article was completely biased against Israel, contained factual errors, and was inflammatory. Here are a few major points:

In the opening paragraph, the author attempts to make a moral equivalancy between the war crime of homicide bombing by Palestinians and the unintended killing of Palestinians by Israeli Defense Forces while trying to halt this vile terrorism. For the Palestinians, every Israeli death of children, women, the elderly as well as active adult males and soldiers is a victory. That is their intended result. For the Israelis, every noncombatant’s death is a failure.

The author states that the purpose of the separation barrier is to grab land and water and make life miserable for the Palestinians. It is as if the sole purpose of Israel’s actions toward the Palestinians is to punish them and make them suffer. This is a lie. The purpose of the barrier is to prevent Israeli murders by terrorists. In the region where the fence has been completed, it has done just that. The number of attacks there have been reduced to zero. The fence is temporary, and, in the event that the Palestinians will come to their senses, stop terrorism, and agree to negotiate, the entire fence could be taken down.

The International Solidarity Movement is an organization that supports terrorism. Clear evidence has been uncovered showing that members of this organization have assisted terrorists conceal weapons and have attempted to hide terrorists. The funds for the ISM come from the terrorists themselves.

The author talks about the Israeli destruction of a Palestinian’s home, as if there was no reason for it. I am not familiar with this particular case (it may not even be true), but homes of terrorists, their families, or of those used directly in conducting terrorism are the only ones destroyed. In other words, the owners of these houses do not have clean hands. Nevertheless, I personally am opposed to this Israeli policy because it is counter productive. The owners are given cash grants by the PA (in the past by Saddam Hussein) to rebuild their houses even better that the one that were destroyed.

It would not only be more fair but much more interesting if the article would discuss farming in Israel. The Israeli’s have developed revolutionary agricultural methods, including drip irrigation, to produce high yields with very little water.

I hope that the level of your articles can be raised beyond Ms. Gessert’s biased and naïve piece. It is also unfortunate that you chose to unnecessarily inject yourself into the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Michael Wollman

I abhor the killing done by either side. People of good will on both sides are being victimized by the conflict. There are likewise people on both sides who profit from the violent status quo.

Allegations have certainly been made that the ISM supports terrorism, but the arguments I’ve seen have been less than persuasively argued and documented. As for your apparent assumptions that all Palestinians are terrorist supporters, or that any Palestinian penalized by the Israeli military is by definition guilty of terrorism, I would suggest that blanket statements of that kind benefit no one, do not adequately reflect the complex reality on the ground in the Middle East, and misrepresent not only the majority of Palestinians who are innocently going about their lives but also Israelis who oppose their government’s policies.
— Chris Clarke