POWERFUL stuff, Michel, beautifully written. I'm not sure I would have even read it through pre-Sept 11. Perhaps a consequence of this attack on us will be a new appreciation for the struggle that Israel has been thru with these mind numbingly stupid Muslin terrorists. BBA ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michel Margosis" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2001 11:02 PM Subject: An open letter from Israel > Proudly, from my dear daughter Leah, > with love, > Michel > ----------------------------------------- - > > > An open letter from an Israeli to his neighbors, near and far. > > Dear World: > > It appears that you are just too hard to please. I > understand that you are upset with us here in Israel. Indeed, it appears > that you are quite upset, maybe even angry and outraged. As a matter of > fact, every few months or years, recently, you seem to become upset with us > all over again. Today, you are upset because we won't sit down at the table > and negotiate (what? Our own demise?) with our neighbors, our intractable, > uncompromising enemies, even while they continue to attack innocent > civilians--our children, women, and the elderly. Yesterday it was the brutal > 'repression' and 'occupation' of the Palestinians (to whom we gave back > control over 96 percent of the Arab population); last week, it was our > security needs in Lebanon; before that, it was the bombing of the nuclear > reactor in Iraq and the conclusion of the Yom Kippur War in which we > successfully defended ourselves against the onslaught of massive enemy > armies on two fronts on the holiest day of the year. In the first few days > of that sneak attack, when the Egyptians and Syrians were killing three > thousand Israeli youths, you were silent. It was only when we were at the > gates of Damascus and the road to Cairo that you got upset again. It appears > that, when Jews triumph and, therefore, live, we upset you extraordinarily. > > Of course, dear world, long before there was an Israel, we, > the Jewish people, upset you. We upset the German people, so that they > elected Adolph Hitler, mastermind of the "Final Solution of the Jewish > Problem" and we upset an Austrian people, who cheered his entry into Vienna, > and we upset a whole slew of Slavic nations--Poles, Slovaks, Lithuanians, > Ukrainians, Russians, Hungarians, and Romanians, who willingly participated > in his macabre, hideous orgy of brutal genocide. > > And we go back a long, long way in the history of world > upset. We upset the Cossacks of Chmielnicki, so that they just had to > massacre tens of thousands of us in 1648 and 1649; we upset the Crusaders > who, on their way to liberate the Holy Land, were so distressed at the Jews > that they felt compelled to slaughter untold thousands of us in communities > all over Europe. We upset, for centuries, the Roman Catholic Church, to > whom we gave our Scriptures, so that it just had to define our relationship > through persecution, exile, and inquisition. And we upset the archenemy of > the Roman Church, Martin Luther, who, in his call to burn the synagogues and > the Jews within them, showed an admirable Christian loving spirit and > 'turning the other cheek.' > > We upset every nation in Western Europe to the point that > they expelled us, and when they let us back in, because they needed our > talents, they forced us to live in ghettos, in sub-human conditions and > readily available for repeated riots and blood letting. It is because we > became so distressed and grieved over upsetting you, dear world, that we > decided to leave you, in a manner of speaking, to separate ourselves from > you and establish a Jewish State. The rationale and justification for our > new enterprise of building a nation was that by living in close contact with > you, as resident-strangers in the various countries that all of you inhabit, > we upset you, irritated you, and disturbed you. What better notion, then, we > proposed, than to leave you and thus show you that we really love you, > and--we hoped--have you love us in return. > > This is how we reached our decision to come home--to the > same homeland from which we were driven out 1,900 years earlier by a Roman > world that we also upset. We knew that our ancient land was made a > wilderness, sparsely inhabited by nomads and poor tenant farmers and made > home to jackals, wild goats and scorpions. The once fertile valley became a > swamp infested by malaria-carrying mosquitoes, the terraced hills were > neglected and swept barren by wind and rain, and the seacoast was devastated > and overtaken by yellow Nile silt-sand. However, we saw the land through the > prism of our Book of Books, and resolved to make it once more a "land of > milk and honey." > > Alas, dear world, it appears that you are hard to please. > Having left you and your Pogroms and Inquisitions and Crusades and > Holocausts, having taken our leave of the world at large, to PURCHASE our > land acre by acre (at much inflated rates) from those who held title to it, > drain the swamps and defeat the scourge of malaria, drive back the rolling > sands that the sea brought from the Nile to make the Sharon coastal valley > fertile once again, we attempted to live alone in our own little land. > Still, we continue to upset you. You are upset that the 5.5 million of us > expect, and insist that we have a right, to live here unmolested on our tiny > speck of land that was mostly despised desert before we arrived here, when > your planet has room for over 6 billion people. > > You claim that we oppress the Palestinians, impede their natural wish to be > a nation among the nations, and that really upsets you. You are deeply > angered over the fact that we do not give up the lands we took in the war of > 1967, which, to you, are clearly the obstacle to peace in the Middle East. > Washington is upset and Moscow is upset. London is upset as is Paris, Rome, > Oslo and even Brussels. Naturally, the Arabs are upset--the despotic rulers > of Syria and Iraq, the more civilized autocrats of Jordan and the Gulf > Emirates and the Egyptian moderates are upset, too, it seems, and counsel > war. > > Well, dear world, consider the reaction of a Jew from > Israel. In 1920, 1921 and 1929, there were no territories of 1967 to impede > peace between Jews and Arabs. Indeed, there was no Jewish State to upset > anybody. Nevertheless, the same oppressed and repressed Palestinians > slaughtered hundreds of Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Safed and Hebron. Dear > world, why did these Arabs--the Palestinians--massacre hundreds of Jews in > those years? Could it have been because of their anger over Israeli > occupation of their land? And why were 510 Jewish men, women and children > slaughtered in Arab riots between 1936 and 1939? Would you suggest that it > was because of Arab sensitivity to roadblocks at border crossings? And when > you, world, proposed a United Nations Partition Plan in 1947 that would have > created a Palestinian State alongside a tiny Israel, and the Arabs promised > a blood bath and went to war, and killed 6,000 Jews, out of a population of > 600,000; was that infraction of international law caused by their extreme > reaction to Jewish expansionism? And, by the way, dear world, why did we not > hear your cry of protest over Jewish victims in all those events? > > The Palestinians, who today kill Jews with explosives and > firebombs and stones are part of the same people who, when they had all the > territories they now demand be given them for their state, refused to make > peace and attempted to drive the Jewish State into the sea. The same twisted > faces, the same hate, the same cry of "itbakhun-al-yahud" "Slaughter the > Jews!" that we hear and see today, were seen and heard then. The same blood > thirsty mob who lynched two innocent young reservists in Ramallah last year, > proudly waving the blood-soaked hands and arms that committed the atrocity > to the frenzied crowd--and mutilated the bodies of dead martyrs in the Hills > of Hebron in 1948. They are the same people who refused Israel the right to > be born in 1948, and today dream of, and scheme, and design, and connive, > and plan for Israel's destruction. What they failed to do yesterday, they > fantasize of doing today and envision doing tomorrow--but we are told that > we must not "repress" them. They must be given a chance to manifest their > destiny. > > Dear world, you stood by and did nothing when millions of > our people died in the Holocaust and you stood by and did nothing in 1948 > when seven Arab states launched a war that the Arab League proudly > proclaimed would rival the Mongol invasion and massacres. You stood by and > did nothing in 1967 (in spite of ironclad guarantees given to Israel by > Great Britain, the Europeans, and the U.S. in 1956-57), as Gamal Abdul > Nasser, president of Egypt and leader of the Arab world, wildly cheered by > wild mobs in every Arab capital in the world, vowed to drive the Jews into > the sea. > > A few weeks ago my neighbor's two daughters, aged fifteen > and sixteen, were blown to pieces by a misguided, brainwashed young man who > was promised an eternity in an X-rated paradise by wicked religious > teachers, and my American cousin was killed a few days later by another > misguided youth who disrupted lunchtime business at Sbarro Pizzeria in > Jerusalem's down town. Where was world outrage then? Where was the UN with > its resolutions to condemn the perpetrators of violence? Who stood up and > pointed a finger and shouted 'racists' at these perpetrators and those who > trained and guided them? There was no sound, no fury, not even a whimper. > Your repeated silence spoke volumes, to be sure. > > And you would stand by and do nothing, again, tomorrow--if > Israel were facing extinction--as it is, each and every day. Only we will > not allow it. Since we know that the Palestinians daily dream of our demise, > we will do everything in our power to remain alive in our own land. If that > aggravates and annoys you, dear world, I sincerely regret it. I am sure that > you think you would be much better off if we could just disappear, evaporate > like a puff of smoke. Just try to see it from our viewpoint: think how many > times in the past you have disappointed us. We have given you so much love, > so much progress, so much wisdom, so much blessing. We gave you our ideals > and our faith, our God and our teaching of mercy and salvation. > > Above all, we have taught you the meaning of hope and of > human dignity. We don't know why you are so short sighted that you don't > know from where your blessings come. We suggest that you go back to the > sources. Read the Book. Your Book, which was our Book first. Love God--and > love your neighbors as yourself. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] > In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn