Last night as I watched the debate, I was at times very impressed with Sen. Biden. In spite of the fact that he calls himself a "Zionist," he clearly is a man of great intelligence, long and honorable experience, and deep feeling.
So, I wrote him this letter. I am sharing with you so that you will be encouraged to write and call people in Congress and let them know how you feel about this issue, as well as others. Maybe, just maybe, some of them will hear.
May God help us all.
Hajja Romi
Dear Sen. Biden,
I am a white, Anglo-Saxon American. My maiden name is Wythe, and I am proud to say that I am a distant relative of George Wythe, who signed the Declaration of Independence, and taught Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (as America’s first law professor, at William and Mary College). My father fought in World War II, and my grandfather’s grandfather was a surgeon in the Civil War. (His commission, still in the family, was signed by “A. Lincoln.”) I tell you this so that you will understand that I have no other country to call my own, except America, and at one time I was proud of the land my ancestors fought for.
Last night as I watched you debate Governor Palin, I was moved to tears as you told about watching your child struggle to live. What a terrible ordeal!
And like you, I was angry when Gov. Palin moved on without so much as a look, a word of compassion, without any charity in her heart for you. Truly she has a tin ear for the suffering of people!
So, I hope that your compassion for the genocide in Darfur and in Kosovo will be reflected as you consider another terrible genocide: that of the people of Palestine.
For truly, Sen. Biden, America is giving Israel weapons of war in order to destroy an entire people. We support the imprisonment and starvation of the people of Gaza without a word of admonition--let alone stopping the flow of the billions of our tax dollars to Israel!
You should know that Israel, too, started out as a terrorist organization. Or don’t you know that the father of the current prime minister, Eitan Livni, was a leader of the gang that bombed the British HQ at the King David Hotel in 1946, killing over a hundred people, mostly British?
The election in Gaza was a fair and free election. It was democracy in action. We should have honored the choice of the suffering people.
Sen. Biden: “they”, the people of the Middle East, do not “hate us for our freedoms.” America used to be admired and loved in the Middle East. When Dwight Eisenhower made Israel, Britain and France stop their aggression in Egypt in 1956, the love for America in the region could not have been greater.
They hate us because we are committing genocide in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we are supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Sen. Biden, the losses you have suffered deserve our understanding and compassion.
YOU deserve our respect for the way you lived your life in their wake. Can you not have the same compassion for the family of Nahil Abu-Ghada, who lost her baby before it was even born, while Israeli soldiers at the Hawara checkpoint south of Nablus refused to let her through to the hospital and stood and watched as the once living fetus died? (The story is in Haaretz http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1022799.html ) Can you not have the same compassion for the family of a child who is shot dead by an Israeli sniper as he innocently steps out of his house, or sits studying inside? There are many stories like that in the Guardian and Haaretz. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/907708.html
When will you stop turning a deaf ear to the stories of loss in Palestine? George Washington, in his famous Farewell Address, warned us against entangling foreign alliances. Has our alliance with Israel so entangled us that we can no hear the cries of a people being exterminated? The people of Palestine, southern Lebanon and Iraq (where more than a million Arabs and Muslims have died)? Do we stand any more for justice and mercy for people no matter what their religion or ethnicity? Because that is what is happening as Israel pursues her goal of genocide of Arab peoples in Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, and Iraq.
Yours in sorrow,
Romi Wythe Elnagar
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