May I wish you Mr. President, the First Lady, your family, our nation, and all our Jewish and Christian brothers and Sisters a most blessed and merciful Passover and Easter.   As one raised by the generosity and love of American Christians I am a living testament to the humanity of Christianity and Americans who offered me their love, their support, their homes, and their encouragement to pursue an education in the land of Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington.

Mr. President:

As you, I, and millions of others, primarily residents of the northern hemisphere enjoy the safety, security and comfort of our lives to pursue "life, liberty, and happiness", billions of our fellow humans do not.  I should know, for I was one of them until fate brought me into contact with caring Americans.

The impoverished world, especially the Muslim world, is full of turmoil and anxiety, filled with fear of our powerful planes and bombs, lest we in haste and without logic and reason lead or be led to end their meager lives and existence.    We were unjustly and barbarically attacked on 9-11 and it is our right and duty to respond to those who brought death to our shores.   I and the American Muslim community support you in this just cause of bringing the terrorists to justice.

Justice, however, Mr. President is the highest ethical and moral obligation of humanity ordained by God's  endowment to us of reason and logic.    I have been on those "other" shores, Mr. President, where American cluster bombs, Napalm, rockets, missiles, tanks, and ships dropped "Made in America"  bombs and missiles on an entire city, Beirut, in 1982.   It was God's will to save me on several occasions from being a faceless, human less "Muslim" statistic from Sharon's wrath, although 20,000 Lebanese and Palestinian were not so lucky.   Neither President Reagan, nor Alexander Haig, nor our clergy, nor our media, nor our citizens saved Lebanon from total annihilation but it was 400,000 brave Israeli's who ended the war.   Odd how our government and media turns the world upside down for the sanctity of a Jewish or Christian life (which they should) but is silent, oblivious, and uncaring when thousands of the "others" die from bombs, hunger, thirst, or disease.   Yes, Sir, I am angry, and frustrated and my blood boils when I see needless death anywhere caused by anyone.  I've seen too much of it, Sir, unlike yourself, Condi Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle who see the world as a chess match and victory through "smart" bombs not "smart" ideas.  My vocation is healing and my blood is coursing through several American Marines and Diplomats, victims in Beirut.  I know pain and horror, not the virtual kind from cozy offices, intellectual exercises and satellite images.

No greater tragedy, injustice, or stain on our nation's morality and credibility exists today than our manipulated and domestically driven support of Israel and Sharon who never misses an opportunity to stick it to you and our nation as he did in refusing your "request" to let Arafat go to Beirut.   You courageously spoke of a Palestinian state yet you were unable to even deliver Arafat to Beirut, Sir, so why should the Arab rulers and people believe that if only submit to Sharon you can deliver a peace plan?

I can't imagine what its like to be President of this nation and to always be walking on egg shells lest you offend about 200,000 Jewish Americans lobbyists who are the only ethnic group in America with a Liaison officer in the White House.  America has even honored the Holocaust by funding the "National" Holocaust Museum (your budget for 2003 even increased the annual funding for the Holocaust Museum by about $4 million while keeping the same budget for the Kennedy Center) while not spending a dime to honor its own World War II Veterans.   That Mr. President is a sham to our honorable military and our nation.

Jewish Americans can demand to see the President at anytime, they can turn on their media assembly line with editorials, TV appearances, columns, emails, faxes, letters, phone calls, and turn on or off the spigot of campaign donations for ONE singular purpose--Israel:  right or wrong, Likud or Labor, military offensive or peace negotiations while making "irrelevant" our Government's national purpose, the United Nations, our foreign allies, even the lives of American marines and diplomats who've died in the Middle East for the overriding reason of our blind support of "Israel"--a nation claiming peace yet makes war as it did in 1948 (5 Arab armies did attack Israel after its six months of murder and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians), 1956 (President Eisenhower was the ONLY President to ever stand up to Israel), 1967 (even Begin and Dayan admit they attacked first where there was no threat), 1978, 1982, 1987 - 1990, and for the last 18 months our paid for F-16's and Apache helicopters decimating a population in refugee camps.

As the former decorated Israeli officer and former Knesset officer Mr. Uri Avnery writes "Israel has two weapons in America:  the Congress and the Media."  I will spare you the many, many quotes from other Americans like John Foster Dulles and Senator William J. Fulbright on Israel's influence in Washington D.C.

The fog of media lies for the last 53 years has prevented peace in the Holy Land.  Richard Cohen of the Washington Post a few days ago wrote to encourage the American Jewish Community to give you "cover" to reach a cease-fire.   I'd like to point out to you that at the Lusanne Conference in 1949 the Arabs accepted UN Resolution 181 and Israel refused.  Here's what Ambassador Mark Etheridge reported back to President Harry Truman. 

Ambassador Etheridge reported to Truman:

Sharon has been called a "Liar" by every Israeli leader since David Ben Gurion.  In an Israeli Radio Broadcast of a Cabinet meeting Sharon angrily told Peres:  "don't worry about America, we control America"

Here's what your "friend" Sharon says about telling the truth. 

Sharon's doublethink
By Uzi Benziman
Haaretz Newspaper

Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak "The Generous One" was quoted in Ha'aretz June 3, 1998 to say sharing the frustration of the Palestinians:

Is it possible Mr. President that our nation's foreign policy is submissive to Israel's interest simply because of political greed and sought after media popularity?  Are Israeli mothers losing their teens in terrorist attacks in Cafe's because my America is spineless and our politicians are looking for the next donation and next media "sound byte du jour"?  Are we to alienate 1.3 Billion Muslims as per your Attorney General's statement and McCarthyite action against anything "Islamic" in this country?  Is the Department of Justice now waging an ethnic war and profiling of anything Muslim?  Even your favorite Protestant Evangelists such as Reverend Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Hal Lindsey are jumping on the anti-Islam bandwagon to hasten Armageddon by killing Jews and Muslims in preparation for Jesus' second coming, peace and blessings be upon him.

Why is Israel the only nation in the world with a VETO power against world peace and American foreign policy?

Mr. President, Islam is a faith from the ONE God of Abraham (P), although followers of all faiths have failed God throughout history.  We should judge faiths by their Scriptures, not by the action of their followers lest no faith survive compassionate scrutiny.  Muslims around the world are victims of their own governments, the legacy of the Cold War, nationalism, and our own misguided "war on terrorism" and "axis of evil" that is neither focused nor rationally planned.   Harassing American Muslim charities, educational and religious institutions without legal due process is anathema to our Constitution especially given that no other religious or political institutions like the Jewish Defense League and Kach that are involved in acts of terrorism are treated the same.  Given our mosaic immigrant population there probably is not a single "terrorist" organization in the world that does not receive funds and support from Americans tied to those nations.  Yet our Israeli spoon fed "terrorist" list is primarily Muslim and primarily involved in anti-Israeli occupation resistance.

Is that Mr. President what you would consider a successful campaign to win the "hearts and minds" of those Muslim who will survive the military onslaught of Israel, Russia, India, China, and our American "war on terrorism"?

Our open ended "war on terrorism" as we and Israel define it will do nothing but maintain the "status quo" of autocratic Muslim regimes and breed massive and eternal resentment of America.  Globalization is becoming "GlobalbombMuslimization".  America wins when America shares of its wealth and humanity not its greed and military superiority.

I beseech you to have the courage of your convictions, of your Christian faith, of the legacy of America's founders as I quoted below, of the supreme national interest of this nation that resides in your hands, that you not squander our destiny, that you not allow the manipulation of the American people who are generous yet naive on foreign policy, but who will gladly support you above all else if you tell them the truth and with boldness demand an end to the innocent killing of Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Holiest of all Lands.

I join the world's perception that our foreign policy is hostage to Israel's interest which is manifested in killing and occupying for the sake of illegal "squatters" on Palestinian land (about 400,000); manifested in the powerful Jewish American lobby (about 200,000), driven and supported by a strongly Pro-Israel media that is manifested in five or six Media Conglomerates, manifested in our pandering Congress (Read Paul Findley's "They Dare to Speak out" or George Ball's "The Passionate Attachment", or J.J. Goldberg's "Jewish Power"; or see the courage of Jews for Justice in the Middle East:  www.cactus48.com).

It's time for you to tell the world that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be resolved based on UN Resolutions 242, 338, 476, 478 i.e. what your father stated in a Joint Session in Congress "Land for Peace".  Enough lies, myths, speeches, spins, plans, envoys, "horror du jour", editorials, and television "experts" of the discredited ilk such as Steve Emerson, Daniel Pipes, and the "Kill Iraqi" crowd from the A.I.P.A.C.'s Washington Institute for Middle East Affairs.

All of us came to this country for a higher purpose and with a nobler belief in humanity's free spirit, thought, speech, and hard work.    As an American Muslim I can't even get my letter to the editor published in the Washington Post or New York Times to defend my faith much less criticize Israel.

Europeans, Asians, Latinos, Africans, and Muslims hate our POLICIES but LOVE our country and people.  Please, Mr. President, don't squander any more time and innocent lives so that you can win a re-election decisively and prove your ability to garner Jewish American votes for a Republican candidate.  During your last election only 20% of Jews voted for you while 75% of Muslims did, yet there is not a single American Muslim in your administration, nor are we respected enough as citizens to deserve even courteous responses from our Congress, Administration officials, or have our voices heard in the media. 

As the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said:  "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH".

Can you stand up to Ariel Sharon?  If you do, you will find that Israeli's will support your peace initiative, you'll find all Arab and Muslim countries on your side, and the American people will support you as they supported your father when he initially denied Shamir $10 Billion to expand illegal settlements, you'll find the entire United Nations on your side, and most importantly Jewish, Christian, and Muslim lives will be spared while you and our nation do conquer "terrorism".

It's your choice:   Support Israel, or Support World Peace.  It's really that simple.

May God grant you the wisdom, courage, and freedom to do what's in the best interest of America, Israel, and world peace.

Respectfully,

Mohamed Khodr

*~*~*~*~*~*

James Madison

"[T]he citizens of the United States are responsible for the greatest trust ever confided to a political society. If justice, good faith, honor, gratitude and all the other qualities which ennoble the character of a nation and fulfill the ends of government be the fruits of our establishments, the cause of liberty will acquire a dignity and luster, which it has never yet enjoyed, and an example will be set, which cannot but have the most favorable influence on the rights of Mankind."

George Washington, "Farewell Address," 19 September 1796

"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all: religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great nation to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.

In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave.

Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy.

So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions...and it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation."