Dear Secretary Powell:

While Israel flagrantly rebuffs our President's demand and your call for an immediate withdrawal from Palestinian towns where dozens of Palestinian civilians have been murdered, Jewish members of the House International Relations Committee call President Bush's war on terrorism "hypocritical" following the lead of Israeli leaders, Israeli media, Jewish American lobbies, and some in our media. Despite this outrageous rebuttal and characterization of our country's prosecution of the war against terrorism, the Congress on cue and with habit votes for billions of aid to Israel without as much as a discussion to pressure Israel to not undermine our foreign policy on keeping our international coalition together, especially with the fragile Muslim nations. Apparently to Israel the 6000 dead Americans are simply "extrajudicial killings" or "collateral damage."

Why, Mr. Secretary, does our government seem to always capitulate to Israel's demands and pressure? Why does our government not call upon the American people to support the demand for final peace between Israel and the Palestinians based on U.N. Resolution 242, a resolution we supported in 1967, that will simply leave millions of Palestinians with 22% of their previous land in the occupied West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem? The American people would overwhelmingly support the President and you on such a peace course. Why is it Mr. Secretary that in the realm of foreign policy does our government seek Jewish Americans or Pro-Israel Americans to fill sensitive posts without any consideration to appointing Arab Americans or Muslim Americans, to provide a balanced approach to our foreign policies?

It seems to most Americans that our foreign policy agenda is dictated to us by Israel, its small but powerful Jewish American lobby, and its sympathetic media editorials, columnists, and "experts"?

We are fighting in the Muslim world without a single American Muslim in our foreign policy apparatus to provide an thorough understanding on Islam and the Muslim world. Our government is just as ignorant on Islam as is our media, yet seeks the advice of Jewish Americans with a greater loyalty to Israel than to America. We deny such statements reflexively as pejorative and untrue but we do so without any research into their accuracy. Millions of Americans are denied access to you and to our media pages or television unlike the easy access of just one Jewish American--Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, who probably has your home number.

I know Mr. Secretary you speak Yiddish, but do you speak American English? We may destroy the dead land and bodies of Afghanistan but it never seems we ever have the courage to face up to the Jewish American lobby with its media, Hollywood, and financial influence. I am an American Mr. Secretary but because of my faith and ethnicity I am excluded from your willingness to listen to me or even consider my point of view. I've risked my life to save American marines overseas has Mr. Foxman risked his luxurious life for the sake of America? No matter if we kill Bin Laden and totally annihilate Afghanistan, America and the world will never know peace because of our undivided blind support of Israel's military aggressions, land annexation, murder of Palestinian civilians on a daily basis, demolishing of homes, uprooting of olive trees, stealing valuable water, and pouring the sewage from Jewish settlements onto Palestinian villages and refugee camps. We as Americans need peace in the Middle East not for their sake but for our sake, for our peace of mind and for our children's future.

No country, not even Israel, is worth American blood and insecurity.

For the past 30 years I've spoken to many American groups on the Middle East and one thing I'm confident of is that the American people are generous, kind, caring, and fair. If provided with the right leadership, Mr. Secretary, they would overwhelmingly support a just and fair solution to the MidEast conflict that provides peace and security to Israel and Palestine as two independent states based on UN Resolution 242.

Mr. Powell, as the most popular politician in America, would you provide such leadership? Do you have the courage to wage peace as you do to wage war? Or will you like all previous politicians, do your "civil service" time and abandon America's national interest for future profit making with some Yiddish speak lobby?

Mr. Powell, the time is now or forever hold your peace and oversee more funerals of Palestinians, Israeli's, and Americans. Your choice, your destiny. What will it be?

Mohamed Khodr M.D.

Mr. Mohamed Khodr is an American Muslim physician and a native from the Middle East. He has worked in Academic Medicine and Public health with national and international health experience. He is a freelance writer who often writes columns on the Palestinian cause, Islam and on America's Foreign Policy in the Middle East. He lives in the Washington DC area.

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