Reply to an unsolicited begging e-mail from some pro Israeli Organisation

 

Sunday, January 11, 2004

Dear Sir/Madam,
Today I received your junk mail urging me to send you money to 'fight anti-Semitism'. Whilst the cases of attacks you mention constitute personal tragedies for those involved I think that one needs to consider the reasons behind such 'terrorist' attacks. I have done this and it seems that the attacks on Jews are not committed out of anti-Semitism but from anti-Israeli feelings which unfortunately are misdirected against the innocent just as Israeli attacks on Palestinians kill (far far more) innocents and just as the U.S. invasion of Iraq has killed almost ten thousand innocent Iraqis.
As I'm sure you re aware, the Palestinian people are living under an occupying dictatorship. They have had their lands incrementally stolen from them, their voting rights and even their rights of movement removed, their homes bulldozed and innocent members of their community killed in numbers that far, far outweigh Jewish deaths. These are the facts that go unreported in the media and I'm afraid I could not give money to keep these facts still more hidden. My heart goes out to the families of those killed both by suicide bomber and by Israeli security forces but mostly to the Palestinian underdogs, trampled by the power of the U.S. backed Israeli government and security forces.
Your attempt to imply that Moslem fundamentalism is a direct attack on Judaism is an attempt to mislead. The attack is no more an attack on Jews than bin Laden's attack on America was due to his being jealous of America's Wal-Mart stores. You may pretend the truth is this simplistic but it's not. Such generalizations remind me of nothing less than the Nazi generalization and scapegoating of the Jews in the thirties. Moslems are no more hiding round every corner with a bomb now than the Jews were infiltrating German society to undermine it then. When a government systematically degrades, humiliates and steals from a people as America has done world-wide and Israel has in Palestine the unfortunate fact is that eventually those you persecute will hit back. The French resistance is a fine example of fighting back against the Nazis. The Nazis classed them as terrorists.
For you to act as though these attacks come from nowhere or from a generalized hatred of Jews is ludicrous and malicious. For you to act as though the media is ganging up on or ignoring you is outrageous.
Please do not send me any more literature. I did NOT ask you to contact me in the first place and I would be grateful if you would refrain from doing so again.
Yours,
Phil Rose