The axis of conflict - Letters to the editor

In "Bush's Axis of Evil," John Swomley complains that he doesn't like President Bush's selection of nations for the "axis of evil." In particular, Swomley is offended that "Bush produces no evidence to justify the selection of these nations while excluding others."

I suggest Swomley is guilty of the very same offense for which he excoriates the president. Swomley spends a great deal of time discussing what he calls Israeli terrorism but never mentions the terrorism against Israeli civilians by various Arab groups within Palestine, with support from Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Neither does he mention the racial epithets spewed daily in Palestinian and other Arab papers against the Jewish people which incite such terrorist acts. Swomley, like Bush, produces no evidence in support of his list.

In "Origins of the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict" (also July/August 2002), David Schafer purports to outline the origins of the conflict and concludes that his discourse provides enough information so that "we could stop here and invite the reader to finger the culprit or predict the course of later events." Schafer implicitly assumes that by pointing fingers at people or situations in the past a solution to the present violence will emerge. I would suggest that the best way to solve these problems is by dropping past resentments and dealing with present realities. One of these realities is the role religion plays in this and other violent situations throughout the world. Humanists have a responsibility to show the negative impact of religion in the present Mid-East situation.

Paul Grabelle
Columbia, MD

John Swomley has done it again. His original Israel-hating screed (January/ February 2002) is surpassed in the July/ August issue by his totally one-sided description of the current situation, including a paragraph from the Arab-affiliated Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

The Israelis are no angels, but what does a country do when its back is against the wall? It can win 100 wars, but it can lose only once. One must consider what Israel has had to endure to make it exercise overwhelming force against those who indoctrinate much younger people to commit suicide bombings that allegedly "get even"--satisfying a cultural commitment to revenge for real and imagined hurts. The Israelis have also finally awakened to the fact that their so-called negotiating partners--Arafat and his ilk--were never sincere. They always wanted the whole country, as shown by all their maps and symbols ... which show Palestine "from the Jordan River to the sea." The word Israel is nonexistent--which is their intent.

Further evidence of Swomley's unbalanced observations is his blaming the United States and the United Nations for Iraq's suffering population. He must know that food and medicine were always available--and so was Saddam Hussein's money to buy them. Instead Hussein used his people's suffering to garner sympathy from Swomley and others like him while building himself at least eleven palaces.

The other articles in your July/ August 2002 Humanist continue your high standards.