Letters to the Editor: On the huffingtonPost column on Obama MidEast Peace, and on the USS Liberty murders

ON BARACK OBAMA, HIS APPOINTMENT'S AND HOPES FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ray-hanania/obamas-growing-pro-israel_b_141964.html


Dear Mr. Hanania,

I just want to thank you so very much for your article, "Obama's Growing Pro-Israel Cabinet Should Not Worry Allies of Just Peace." I know President Obama and First Lady Obama are surely the smartest people in the White House certainly in decades, probably centuries, and perhaps ever -- and at a time when we need it most. So I trust them. Even so, I really found your logic extremely helpful in showing the wisdom of these choices, which can look so "un-change" or change resistant. It looks as if he's surrounding himself with so many of the old, white, Beltway, male guard (and I'm white). I voted for him and worked for his election here in Minnesota precisely to get a different experience in the White House and leading the country and world. So what you wrote and the fact that you wrote it as a Palestinian is really, really valuable for me -- so very helpful. I will watch for your articles as we go along with this incredible new era.
Thank you!
Sincerely,
Denise

Dear Ray

I just read your column on Huffpost and was rather heartened by it. I am British but have been living in the US on & off for nearly 10 years. I was delighted by Obama's victory, but I must admit I was quite disheartened when I discovered on another blog last night that Rahm Emmanuel has very close connections with Israel & pro-Israel groups. Although I follow American politics to some extent I hadn't known anything about him before. I hope you're right, and I think you are, that he is a very different creature from the awful Jewish neocons who to some extent shaped Bush policy (Perle, Frum & the rest). Personally I would like to see the US put more pressure on Israel to remove the settlements & work towards a peace that would be at least reasonably fair & durable even if not entirely just (that's probably not possible).

Your strong faith that Obama's heart is in the right place with respect to the Israel/Palestine problem, is very reassuring. Some of the bloggers commenting on your column were much more cynical. I tend to be a bit sceptical about what Obama can achieve, much as I admire his charisma & intelligence. So, despite the cynics & sceptics, let's hope you are right. Anyway, thanks for a very useful column.

Geoff C


For the record, I'm Jewish, I'm pro-Israel, and I agree with you.From a purely pro-Israel point of view I want a just settlement in the middle east. First because Jewish ethics do not allow any Jew to condone the plight of the Palestinians. And second because there are just so many times Israel can win a war against its neighbors. Unfortunately, you are correct in your fear of Benjamin Netanyahu. He is crazy. Unlike Sharon, he is neither able to see the big picture nor listen to anyone who does not agree with him. If he is elected batten down for further struggle.The most important thing Arabs could do to promote the type of just peace you support would be to say they supported peace -- in Arabic, on the Arab street. Netanyahu loves Hamas and Hezbulla because they give him a raison d'etre. Every time someone in the Arab world (and most Israelis understand that Iran is not Arab) threatens to destroy Israel, Netanyahu wins support. When someone talks about a just peace in Arabic, it wins support for Livni and the Peace Now community which the war in Lebanon has almost destroyed.Keep up the just struggle!By the way.

I do have one picayune quibble about your article. You began by saying, "Like all Arab Americans, I was disturbed when Barack Obama selected U.S. Senator Joseph Biden as his running mate." I agree that many were concerned, but not all. Because I live in Canada I do not know many Arab Americans, but I do know a lot of Arab Canadians, and I doubt they are all that different from there southern counterparts. Just as there are lots of Jews who support Hamas and the PLO, there are Arabs who support Israel, and even Isrrael's right wing. Perhaps both groups are fanatics, but they serve a valuable purpose by reminding others that this dispute is not really just about religion or ethnicity.

Sincerely,
Robert K


Dear Ray,

A cousin of mine, Jeff Baloutine, just forwarded your latest piece on the Obama emerging cabinet. I, too, was worried, at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I came into your line of thinking, one you explain with excellent detail in contrasting what Obama is arming himself with vs. the nuts Bush had in his tree.

I think you are right. You leverage a stubborn root with a shovel whose handle is made from the same wood.

As thanks, I'll send you a link for a long piece, "Obama and the Middle East" I just published in the Antioch Review in Ohio.

http://www18.georgetown.edu/data/people/gmo4/publication-37377.pdf.

Cheers,
Greg O.

ON THE USS LIBERTY ATTACK AND SEN. JOHN MCCAIN"S RESPONSIBILITY"

http://www.arabisto.com/p_blogEntry.cfm?blogEntryID=1318

Great article about senator McCain and killing of liberty.

WALID M.


Editor: I thank Ray Hanania for a great column on the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty in 1967. The government wants us to forget parts of our history, in which some of our sons died in the hands of some of our "allies." This has been hidden and covered up for years and years. It is time to know the truth.
Mahmood M
Temperance, Michigan


Dear Hater:

Stop supporting bin laden and hamas. Stop supporting stoning of rape victims, strapping bombs to babies, non education of women and honor killings and people won't have a problem with you.
You have made it clear you support killing all jews by your support of Holocaust deniers and the leader of Iran who is Osama Bin Laden's closest friend, a child molester and leader of the 1979 taking of the american embassy.

you want all jews dead. You have made it perfectly clear.

The difference between you and civilized people is best exampled in what you'd do if your daughter came down in the morning wearing something inappropriate. to you anything short of a head to toe burqa is in appropriate of course.
Civilized people tell her to go up and change her clothes.
you take her upstairs rape her and chop off her head.

If someone like you has a child (by rape of course) you hold that child and say "My greatest hope is someday you'll blow up a schoolbus full of jewish preschoolers"

Civilized people want their children to grow up to be lawyers, doctors or maybe the starting QB for the Chicago Bears.

I do not hate all muslims. I hate terrorists and anyone who supports them by supporting Palestinians and Holocaust denial.

UNSIGNED


Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

Your article (and underlying point) was excellent. I lived through the
period in question, was aghast at the obvious cover-up, and have many
friends in the Navy who consider the ship and her crew's heroic resistance a
legend. Would that this episode with its heroism and villainy was better
known. Then we might also better discern what real support for the troops
is all about.

Regards,
Frank P

Ray,
Good job on the article the truth will over come the lies I was on C Span after the debate last night until they cut me off say the word USS Liberty and you are gone.
Thanks for keeping the story alive. Phil


Thank you Ray for the article that included the USS Liberty in its
body. As a survivor and the officer in charge of the body recovery
and identification I would love to see an investigation happen. I do
have some interesting information for you from my own senator. I will send in a separate email.

Ron K
Sheridan, Wyoming


Have been listening to your programs on the USS Liberty attack by Israel, particularly those with my friend, Phil Tourney as a guest. Many thanks to you for helping to publicize this massacre by Israel and the cover-up by two countries of the attack.

Just read your outstanding article on the SW News Herald web page:

http://www.swnewsherald.com/news_inside/2008/10/101708cs_rh_liberty.php

I made a tiny URL of the one above and am passing it around to my friends.

http://tinyurl.com/54y542

McCain's activities and support of A. Jay Cristol's book of lies really ought to be brought to the attention of the public... alas, the mainline media apparently is bought and paid for and congress damned sure won't help.

Thanks again,
John G
(ex-crew member of the Liberty, was
transferred just prior to the attack.)

END