Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Response to anti-Israel Letter to the Editor in the Daily

This is in response to this letter to the editor by civil engineering graduate student Humza Chowdhry:

In my opinion this is more propaganda and hate speech than fact. In my opinion we Americans (as a country) did far worse to the American Indians than the Israelis are (mostly wrongly) accused of doing to the Palestinians. In my opinion the principal obstacle to any progress toward Israeli-Palestinian peace is the refusal of Hamas to recognize Israel, or to recognize Israel's existence, or to recognize Israel's right to exist.

Would we accept it if Indians started blowing up school busses or pizza parlors and demanded that we leave the Americas or die? Of course we would not!

In my opinion we are aiding terrorist killers by not speaking out more against them. That is why I am saying something here.

The idea that Israel should even have to defend its right to exist is even more absurd as would be saying we have to defend our right to exist as a nation to the American Indians. When the early Jews moved to Palestine starting about a century ago, the Jews did not steal their land from the folks already there, like the Americans did from the Indians. They bought their land from the existing property owners at a fair price. They bought what was then swamps, drained the swamps and turned them into productive farm land. On the other hand we stole the the best land from the Indians and forced the Indians into the worst land.

I am neither Jewish or Israeli, but if I were I would be proud to be. Does that mean Israel never makes a mistake? No, but which person or nation never does? I know I have made mistakes. But, I do not think this is one of them. I hope someday to go to Israel to see for myself. In my opinion Israel is the best friend this country has in the middle east.

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