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To: Newsweek Magazine
To the Letter Editor: March 6, 2005
Sub: Hopes and fears in Israel
I agree with your analysis that after Arafat's death there is a
long-awaited opportunity to seek peace between Palestinians and Israel.
But peace can not come until terror stops and your writer solves this
problem a bit too simply; by not calling the terrorists who killed 5 young
Israeli civilians and injured 49 at a Tel-Aviv disco what they are;
"terrorists". You call them militants" and even "Islamic Jihad activists"
and that is like white-washing terrorism.
If you were uncertain once how to call Islamic Jihad, Hamas and their
sort, that problem is solved now: a recent "High Level UN Panel" appointed
by General Secretary Kofi Annan for this purpose gave a clear definition
to terrorism: "Terrorism is an action that is intended to cause death
or serious bodily harm to civilians or noncombatants when the purpose of
such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population or to
compel a government or an international organization to do or abstain from
doing any act” - and it goes on to say: “there is nothing in the
fact of occupation that justifies the targeting and killing of civilians”.
See the original UN report at:
http://www.un.org/secureworld/report3.pdf , pp. 51-52, Paras 157-164.)
According to this definition there is no doubt that the Palestinian
attackers of civilian targets in Sderot are terrorists. It is time that
your paper contribute to progress towards peace between Palestinians and
Israel by denying legitimacy to Palestinian terrorists.
Respectfully yours,
Ann-Marie Hellmann
Strasbourg, France
(You should give your name and city; and separately your address and your
daytime contact data, like cellular phone number) |
