To The Editor:
When it comes to critical thought concerning the Middle East, your paper is willfully lacking, and Shavana Abruzzo’s latest piece is no exception (“Why celebrate the murder of a little girl?” “A Britisher’s View,” 7-24 issue).
Make no mistake that the death of a little girl is sad. Yes, it is very sad indeed, just as it was very sad when Menachem Begin and his Stern Gang massacred 100 men, women and yes, children at Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948.
That was only one of the myriad nasty incidents that Zionists perpetrated on Palestinians over the last 60 years — actually longer if you count a few incidents in the 1930s. The catalogue of transgressions is rich and plentiful.
I just want to ask Ms. Abruzzo if she’s okay with that. Was that atrocity, Deir Yassin, okay with her? Apparently it was, since I don’t believe she’s ever mentioned it. One might also very well ask if Deir Yassin hadn’t happened so as to amplify the hostilities, then might the death of that four-year-old Israeli girl been avoided?
You see, with you and your apologists for Zionist aggressors, there’s never ever an ability to discern cause and effect. Well, I’d like to say that there is, contrary to what Nietzsche and Hume might have said about reality in general. I would also remind Ms. Abruzzo that Hezbollah would not exist were it not for Israel’s earlier invasion of Lebanon in the 1980s.
See, cause and effect again. You simply can’t escape it. It’s there like a gigantic rhinoceros, so you kind of sort of have to deal with it.
Also, how does Ms. Abruzzo feel about the Lebanese children, who died in the 2006 war? She never mentions them. I wonder why?
I would also challenge Ms. Abruzzo’s assertion that “Israel has shown that she is willing to transact good-faith decisions on behalf of her citizens.” It’s very hard to take that statement seriously when it was only a few months ago that Olmert gave the go ahead for new settlements on the West Bank. Yeah, that’s not exactly a demonstration of good faith and good will.
The truth is that Israel has never acted in good faith vis a vis the Palestinians. Read your Benny Morris, it’s all there. That’s what makes cynical PR moves that use the tragic death of a four-year-old girl for political purposes all the more distasteful. But I’m sure Ms. Abruzzo finds the facts to which I’ve alluded to be too troubling to warrant an answer.
However, Ms. Abruzzo’s chop logic continues to abound. She states: “Israel does not declare national holidays to celebrate the deaths of its enemies…” If this is true, then what in the world does she call the big jubilant 60th anniversary celebration that took place a few months back? No doubt she will do a nice little semantic tango around that one.
Nick Smith
Red Hook
