Subject: American Muslims For Jerusalem's Campaign Against Israel
Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2000 10:01:37 -0500
From: mark rosenblit <markrosenblit@home.com>
Organization: @Home Network
To: president@whitehouse.gov, newsom@ndf.org
President William Clinton and Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Eric Newsom:
As you may know, American Muslims For Jerusalem (AMJ) is one of a number of domestic nonprofit organizations that conducts an ongoing propaganda war against the State of Israel. Its current complaint against U.S. meetings with Amos Yaron, Director General of the Israel Defense Ministry, is merely the "flavor of the week". AMJ claims that it is morally offensive for the U.S. to deal with Yaron on account of his indirect responsibility for the Sabra and Shatilla massacre of 1982 perpetrated by Lebanese Christians of the Phalange Party, and that he should accordingly be tried for crimes against humanity. Mr. Yaron was then a part of the Israeli military forces which controlled the general area in which the camps were located, but which did not themselves enter or otherwise attack the camps. A little history is in order: The decision to enter the camps and effect the killings was ostensibly made by Phalange commander Elie Hobeika. Mr. Hobeika led his forces into the camps and personally supervised the massacre. Unbeknownst to Israel or to his fellow Phalangists, Mr. Hobeika was then on Syria's payroll as an agent provocateur. The order to enter the camps and perpetrate the killings actually came directly from Syria's President Hafez Assad, and was part of a series of covert actions directed by Syria, such as the assassination of Lebanese President Bashir Jemayil, designed to thwart Israel's then emerging political relationship with Lebanon. Mr. Hobeika is now a respected member of the Lebanese Parliament. It is more than obvious that if AMJ was really concerned about punishing those responsible for Sabra and Shatilla, it would also demand of the U.S. government the following:
1. Inform the Lebanese government that it is not acceptable to the U.S. government that a mass murderer serves in the Lebanese Parliament. Downgrade contacts with the Lebanese government until Hobeika is expelled from Parliament and turned over for trial.
2. Suspend contacts with Syria until Hafez Assad is no longer head of government or until he is turned over for trial.
AMJ will not demand these sanctions against those Arab personalities with direct responsibility for the massacre because AMJ does not really care about dead Arabs (at least not when they are murdered by other Arabs). It only cares about slandering Israel. Please keep this hypocrisy in mind when you are barraged with emails, letters and phone calls sanctimoniously demanding, as a moral imperative, that Amos Yaron be declared persona non grata by the U.S. government.
Sincerely,
Mark Rosenblit