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Dear
editor: I am an American citizen from a Palestinian origin. I have always noticed that Israel exerts a lot of effort to ensure the American public thinks of Palestinians as only Muslims. Israel, with the help of the main stream American media, does not want the American people to know that Palestinian Christians are united with Muslim Palestinians in their opposition to the Israeli occupation. And that Palestinian Christians are the victims of the daily killings and homes demolition by the Israeli occupying forces in the same way that Muslim Palestinians are. For years I have noticed how Christmas in Bethlehem, Palestine, gets very little if any coverage in your newspaper. The occupying Israeli forces continue to humiliate Palestinian Christians by enforcing daily curfews. And the Christian world continues it's suspicious silence over the crimes that Israel commits against the Palestinian people as a whole. In yesterday's edition (Dec. 16, 2002), the LA Times had an article covering early Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem. Palestinian Christians were referred to as Christians only. And the whole article turned out to be about Israeli forces arresting alleged Muslim terrorists in Bethlehem. It sounds like the LA Times subscribes to Israel's concerted effort to make sure the world thinks of Christians there as non-Palestinian. This type of misleading coverage by the LA Times is no different from occurrences when news about Israelis killed by Palestinians gets splashed all over the front pages, while the news of Israeli killings of Palestinians (Christian and Muslim alike) rarely finds more than a few small lines hidden in an article about Israelis' alleged fight against terrorism. The Zionist dream of Israel as a safe haven for Jews in the stolen land of Palestine will never materialize as long as the Israelis will continue to frustrate and kill the original inhabitants of the land; i.e., Palestinian Christians and Muslims. The American experience proved to be the right one for Jews looking for a safe place to live; protected by the American Constitution. I will never understand how we Americans can be proud of our secular Constitution but find it acceptable to support a religious state; i.e., the Jewish State of Israel. Palestine is a land that is holly to all three religions. Our annual support in billions of dollars to Israel should go instead towards supporting the establishment of a secular country where everyone can live in peace; in the spirit of the American experience. Jews need to realize that their Zionist dream of a religious state can be nothing more than a prelude for another Holocaust. Let us Americans encourage all the inhabitants of the land of Palestine/Israel to do things the American way. One country under One GOD. Eyad
Khalil, |