1st Letter from Ms. Calista L.
Blanchard to
Mr. Jeff Jacoby
Mr. Jacoby,
After reading your recent editorial,
I felt compelled to write to you.
What is occuring now in the Middle
East and beyond is not a war with the "Jews" as you stated
but rather a war with the government of Israel and Zionists. That Judaism and Jews
have become the unfortunate embodiment of the former is not the fault
of the Palestinians. It is because of those Jews so inclined to
blindly follow and support the illegal and inhumane policies and
acts of Israel that they are targets of Palestinian anger and frustration.
Perhaps there are leaders using the
term "Jews" when addressing their followers. Perhaps they are
using the term Zionist or Israeli. It is a play of words at this point,
and I think that you must know this
already. No one is attacking the
religious beliefs of the Jews. People
are fighting against the political
and military actions of an occupying
state.
I am not going to address all of
your ridiculous statements. You know as well as I do that you are
deliberately writing to incite more barriers
for peace and that is a disgrace to
science of Journalism.
Nevertheless, for your information,
Mr. Jacoby, I include the following
facts:
1.) The fighting did not begin late
in September but has been going on
since 1948 when the State of Israel
was put into place. In the past 52
years, there have been countless
injustices and atrocities perpetrated
by Israel against the Palestinians
in an on-going effort to cleanse
Palestine of Palestinians to make
room for Jewish Immigrants. The latest upsurge of violence can be
attributed to the frustration, hardship and demoralization experienced and
built up in Palestinians for the past 52 years. It can also be
attributed to the increasing antagonistic actions of Israel. You fail to mention
in your writing the ongoing house
demolitions, land and property
annexation, apartheid, failure to
restrain armed Jewish Settlers from
acts of violence and destruction
against Palestinians, blatant
ignorance to United Resolutions, and
military occupation of Palestinian
Areas.
2.) There have been scenes of
shocking barbarity committed by the Israeli too and if one was to tally up
a scorecard, Israel would have more blood on her hands. But is this
really the point? How can you condemn the "barbaric actions" of
one person and forgive the "barbaric actions" of
another? Your one
sidedness in respect to this leaves one to conclude that you value Israeli life
over that of any other type.
3.) Israeli officials have not been
pleading for an end to the fighting.
Give me one example of a plea from
any person in the Kneeset or
otherwise. The Palestinians have
been pleading for an International
inquiry and protection from Israel
and Israel refuses! If they truly
wanted an end to the fighting they
would not refuse. If they truly
wanted an end to the fighting they
would stop hiding behind the
unconditional support of the United
States and take responsibility for
their actions. But in order to take
responsibility they have to be
prepared to be ethical and follow
the law, and it is apparent that Israel
cannot do that.
4.) Jihad means "struggle"
and that is what the Palestinians face on a
day to day basis because of the
occupation. Why condemn them for using their own language?
5.) There is no war against the Jews
as you boldly state. However, Jews continue to blindly support
Israel and her crimes, and as a group they are lending their religious
identity and becoming inextricably tied to the violence of the Zionists.
6.) Israel has one of the most
powerful militaries in the world because
of the United States. Palestine does
not have the luxury of being
supported by the United States and
they do not have access to all of the new and improved killing
machines that Israel does. Why do you not report that Israel is even
testing some of their newest weapons against the Palestinians as of late?
7.) Israel's textbooks for their
children are very anti-Palestinian and
racist. It is possible to show you
examples. Your accusation about
Palestinian textbooks is without
foundation. Show an example. Israel has been part of numerous massacres
against civilians and have destroyed many places of worship in
Palestine since 1948. (If you want a list, I will provide it, but I think
you already know this)
8.) Most important, Mr. Jacoby,
stating that Palestinians are using
their children as shields is yet
another attempt to dehumanize the
Palestinians. If effect you are
saying, see? these Palestinians are
animals....they do not even care
about their children. It is racist and
true to the policy of Zionist
Propaganda. Furthermore, it is not the
point. It still does not make it
morally acceptable for IDF sharpshooters to murder children. Furthermore,
you forgot to add that
the IDF has taken it upon itself to
change international law to decide
that a child is no longer a child at
the of 12, rather than
international law statement of 18
years old.
9.) The conflict will end when the
Palestinians are given their rights
back. The conflict will end when
Israel abandons her dream of inhabiting all of Palestine. The conflict
will end when greed and selfishness is no longer the driving force behind
the Israeli entity. The conflict will end when the world wakes up and
sees beyond the propaganda.
I am sorry that you have become victim
of the Zionist Philosophy. Your writing skills are excellent. However, it is a shame that
they are being used for something less than humanity.
Sincerely,
Calista L. Blanchard
WITH OCCUPATION THERE CAN NEVER BE PEACE
________________________________________________
1st & Last Reply from Mr. Jeff Jacoby
to
Ms. Calista L. Blanchard
Dear Ms. Blanchard,
Nearly everything you write is
wrong; you are simply parroting
propaganda and would not be able to
substantiate most of it from
credible sources. I know there is no point in
debating with you, but two statements of yours prompt a response.
The fighting did not begin in 1948
with the creation of Israel, as
You suggest. It began decades
earlier. Arabs in Hebron, for example,
massacred the Jews living in their
midst in 1929 -- not for political
reasons, but because they were
encouraged by their leaders to hate Jews. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem,
Haj Amin al-Husseini, spent much of World War II as a guest of the Nazis
in Berlin. While the Jews of Palestine volunteered to fight with the
allies -- even though they were bitterly opposed to the British -- the
Arabs supported the Germans, and even expressed the hope that the
Germans would teach them how to deal with the Jews as they were being
dealt with in Europe.
Palestine did not belong, in terms
of international law, to either
the Jews or the Arabs. After the
Ottomans lost World War I, the League of Nations assigned Palestine
to Great Britain on the understanding that it would be used to create a
national home for the Jews. (Many other chunks of the Ottoman Empire
were turned into independent Arab and Muslim states.)
Instead of doing so, Britain
unilaterally lopped of 78% of Palestine in
1922 and turned it over to the
Hashemite family -- it became
Transjordan. It then refused to
allow the remaining 22% to become a Jewish state, and
instead relinquished the
decision to the United Nations. The UN voted in 1947 to split the rump
Palestine into a Jewish state and an(other) Arab state. The Jews agreed. The
Arabs refused. When Israel proclaimed independence in its share of
Palestine on May 15, 1948, six Arab armies invaded to wipe it out. They
made it clear that their goal was to exterminate all the Jews. That was also the
goal in 1967 and in 1973.
I am also struck by the absurdity of
your phrase at the end: "With
occupation there can never be
peace."
Of course there can be peace with
occupation. The United States
occupied Japan at the end of World
War II; the allies occupied Germany. There has not been a warlike
peep out of either one in 55 years. Moreover, the "occupied"
territories were occupied from 1948 until 1967, and Nobody spoke a word about
Palestinian rights. Not even Calista Blanchard. That is because the "west bank" was occupied by Jordan
and the Gaza Strip was occupied by Egypt. It was only when Jews fighting in
self-defense became the new occupiers of those pieces of land that the
world suddenly
objected to occupation. It had
nothing to do with occupation, and everything to do with the ethnicity and
religion of the occupiers.
Sincerely,
Jeff Jacoby
________________________________________________
2nd Letter from Ms. Calista L.
Blanchard to Mr. Jeff Jacoby
Mr. Jacoby,
Thank you for your reply. I read it
and could not help but laugh.
Calista Blanchard could not possibly
have spoken out against the
treatment of the Palestinians at
anytime between 48 and 67 because
Calista Blanchard was not born until
67. However, there were many
speaking out.
Anyway, to respond to your
accusation that my signature is absurd, I
can only ask you if while we were
occupying Japan, were we demolishing homes, annexing land while
sending American Citizens to live in the place of Japanese Citizens?
Were the Allies creating large numbers of refugees and a system of
apartheid in Germany? Did we or the Allies denigrate any of the occupied
countries' peoples to a lower position in their own society?
I suppose in light of your
information, I should change my signature to
WITH OCCUPATION BY A GREEDY AND
VIOLENT STATE INTENT ON HAVING THE OCCUPIED LAND FOR THEMSELVES, THERE CAN BE NO
PEACE.
You said that nearly everything I
mentioned was wrong. I wish that you would have elaborated on that. I have not parroted
anything, Mr. Jacoby. The words I
write come from what I have learned by study and from travel. I have learned from the residents of
the West Bank and I have learned
from the residents of "Israel". I have learned from
reading
pro-Israeli columnists such as yourself as well as pro-palestinian
columnists. I have learned from Palestinians themselves, those
who live in Palestine now and
those who were forced from their homes in 1948. If you have heard the facts that I have stated
to you before, do not accuse me
of parroting in order to soothe your own guilt on the matter of
truth.
However, if you peer into the columns of other pro-israeli and
pro-zionist writers and into some of the nauseating pro-zionist
web-pages, you shall undoubtedly see that most of what you
said in your original piece
is nothing more than emotive regurgitation of other
Zionists and racists across the country. Emotive banter does
not equal factual data. It
only incites hatred and misunderstanding.
You said that Palestine did not belong to either the Jews or
Arabs.....but what about individual homes and villages? To
whom did they belong? The
Palestinians who lived in them or Zionist Immigrants? Certainly you cannot claim that Russian Jews
and European Jews had more right
to a Palestinian home than the family who had lived there for
generations! And what authority did
Great Britain have to lop anything off and promise it to anyone? There were people living on
this land Mr. Jacoby. Real Live
people with families and histories. There were Muslims, Jews, and Christians living in
Palestine for a long time. In peace.
When the Zionists began putting their dream of "the zionist
state of Israel" into
reality (in the 1890's) the violence began.
It began first in the hearts of those early Zionists. The only
thing preventing their dream
were the inhabitants of Palestine. They began much earlier than 1948 importing their henchmen into
Palestine. Shall we go further back,
Mr. Jacoby?
Just answer for me in a straight way these questions:
1.) Do you deny that 100's of thousands of refugees
(Palestinian) were created in
48?
2.) Do you deny that over 500 Palestinian villages were
ethnically
cleansed?
3.) Do you deny that the Zionists have perpetrated countless
Massacres on the
Palestinians, in and outside of Palestine?
4.) Do you think it is acceptable to shoot children?
5.) Do you think it is acceptable to ignore International Law?
6.) Do you find violence against israelis worthy of
condemnation and
violence against Palestinians laudable?
7.) Is Israel occupying Palestine?
8.) Do you think it is ethical to not report the facts or to
report only
half the story?
I do hope that you and your family have a wonderful
Thanksgiving.
Calista L. Blanchard
________________________________________________
Letter of Complaint from Ms. Calista L. Blanchard
to The Boston Globe
Dear Boston Globe Editor:
On November 19, 2000, I had the unpleasant experience of
reading Jeff Jacoby's
commentary on the Middle East. As a human being, his words sickened me. As an American his words
angered me. His article came across
as unprofessional and racist. Being a native of Boston myself, I
was struck by his attitude in such a
way that I felt compelled to write to him.
Mr. Jacoby promptly wrote back to me, dismissing my letter as
being
"almost entirely wrong" and "parroting
propaganda". While I can
personally and professionally handle such idiotic criticisms,
what I
cannot, in good conscious, handle his statement that "of
course there
can be peace with occupation". He superficially referred
to the
"occupations" of post WWII as examples of peace
co-existing occupation. Mr.
Jacoby's reasoning is very unbecoming of a person who has the
responsibility of writing for a
National Newspaper, a newspaper that I for one, have always respected. If one follows
his logic, it could be said that
there could have been peace under Hitler's occupations throughout
Europe. Furthermore, his racism and
anti-Arab/anti-Arab sentiments were such that I question the Globe's intentions and sense of
journalistic integrity. I am
deeply disturbed by his racism and historical interpretation. If he were not a
"journalist", I could chalk his sentiments up to yet another everyday
roadblock to ultimate peace.
But, he is a journalist and his professional character is more
than
questionable. The Boston Globe has a responsibility to its
readers to
represent journalistic integrity and denounce racism. I
respectfully
demand that the Boston Globe immediately do something about
this matter.
I believe that Mr. Jacoby owes people of Arab descent and
people of
Islamic Religious belief a public apology or forfeit his
position as
commentary writer. Freedom of speech does not include the
right to
incite hatred and racism among the readers. I also believe
that the
Boston Globe owes it to its readers to address this article
and writer
publicly, indicating that there is no excuse or apology for
racist
journalism and rudeness to Boston Globe readers.
Sincerely yours,
Calista L. Blanchard
WITH OCCUPATION THERE CAN NEVER BE PEACE
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