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| Last
uploaded : Thursday 25th Jul 2002 at 18:31 |
| Contributed
by : Howard Sherrington |
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Open letter to
Professor Mona Baker
UMIST
Manchester
Dear Professor Baker
As an academic you should be a person who examines the facts before coming to conclusions. You sacked two Israelis, because in your words ‘they were part of Israeli Institutions and part of the Israeli State, which I absolutely deplore’.
You give no reasons for deploring the Israeli State, but I assume you have adopted this stance based on much of the misinformation and propaganda which is propagated by the BBC and other pro-Palestinian institutions.
Let us examine the facts:
1. The United Nations created the State of Israel in 1948. Its right to exist therefore has a legal basis.
2. The Palestinian refugee problem was created, by the Jordanians, Egyptians and Syrians who united to attack the fledgling State of Israel before it could get going in 1948. It was this act of invading Israel that created the Palestinian refugee problem. The Palestinians who did not flee are now Israeli citizens.
3. The Palestinian refugee problem is the longest running refugee problem in the world now 54 years old. It is part of the PLO aim which was set up in 1964 by Chairman Arafat to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.
To quote his own words, made in 1968 - “Our leader is Palestine. Our road is the road of death and sacrifice to win back our homeland. If we cannot do it our children will. If they cannot do it their children will”. This is the promise of return. This is what has kept Arafat in power for the last 38 years.
There is a saying - ‘If the Palestinians gave up their weapons there would be no terrorism. If the Israelis gave up their weapons there would be no Israel’.
4.In the 1950s there were approximately 600,000 Palestinian refugees who fled into refugee camps. During the same period there was an equal number of Jewish refugees fleeing Algeria, Morocco, Yemen and Syria. These 600,000 Jewish refugees are not still in refugee camps. They have been resettled and integrated into Israel. The same number of Palestinian refugees have been perpetuated as a political weapon. The Israelis have set up institutions, which you deplore - Institutions of learning, Institutions of Science, Institutions to cure Palestinian children of HIV. The Palestinian Institutions are all those of destruction.
Arafat even imprisoned the Chief of the Palestinian National Fund who was trying to help his own Palestinians, according to his daughter Mona Bauwens.
5.The Arab world is not short of money to re-develop, re-settle, educate and rid the world of Palestinian poverty. Patrick Bishop, in the Saturday Telegraph July 6th 2002, states that ‘an Arab Development Report 2002, written by Arab experts focused on 22 countries boldly laid the blame for the prevailing poverty and hopelessness in the region on the economic illiteracy of its governments. Oil wealth has been squandered on useless projects.’. It concluded that “Given the Political commitment, Arab countries have the resources to eradicate absolute poverty in less than a generation”. Does anybody believe that will happen unless terrorists like Arafat are removed from the scene.
6.Jack Straw [British Foreign Secretary]declares that Arafat is the democratically elected leader and if he is returned to power in elections to be held soon, because he is an elected leader of a democracy, he is the man to go with.
The Palestinian elections under Arafat are as democratic as the Mugabe elections in Zimbabwe. But the same false morality that likes to kid itself that Zimbabwe is a democracy and Palestine is a democracy, leads to Israeli democratic institutions being attacked. This proclamation of high minded principles, no doubt issued in good faith needs clear thinking people capable of rational thought to get to the truth.
7. Israelis living in the West bank and Gaza total only 214,000 whilst Arabs living in Israel total 1,015,000. The Israelis have to live behind barbed wires defences to protect themselves. The Israeli Arabs live in complete freedom.
The only time the Israeli Defence Forces occupy the West bank is after a Terrorist attack. When they withdraw Jewish civilians try to live a peaceful way of life, nevertheless the Press call them “occupied territories”. –an inflammatory
expression.
Your biased unthinking action brings dishonour on to UMIST and the whole of Manchester.As an academic Professor Mona Baker should lead the way and having realised the true facts should make a public declaration that she hadn’t thought deeply enough about the problem and re-instate the representatives of Israeli institutions.
Yours sincerely
H D Sherrington
Manchester
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JewishComment is grateful to The London Jewish News for allowing us to reprint this open letter.
Their website:
http://www.totallyjewish.com
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Guest Opinions and Letters to the Editor do not necessarily reflect the opinions of JewishComment.
 
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