The bloody Jordan river now flows through America

By Gary Kamiya

Sept. 17, 2001 | Read the story

Having some sense of the sentiments on the ground in East Africa and the Middle East, from several years of teaching there, I salute the wisdom of your insights. Most young Muslims -- like youth everywhere -- are friendly, curious and proud. They are justly proud of the achievements of Islamic civilization, and are fond of reminding listeners that the development of architecture, music, philosophy and mathematics are indebted to the advancements of Islamic scholars. The majority of young Muslims I have known are fascinated with American popular culture, even while feeling dismayed at what they often assume to be a cultivated animosity of Westerners toward Islam. While many dream of touring or studying in the USA, they also recoil against the negative stereotyping of Arabs and Islam in the images of Hollywood and Madison Avenue.

Yet as you have astutely pointed out, there is one issue on which a sense of grievance is focused. Rightly or wrongly, virtually every young Muslim I have known is appalled by the plight of the Palestinians.

Disturbing though it may be in the wake of the images of those Palestinians apparently celebrating the West's shock and horror, I believe America has at its disposal a potential for engendering a force of goodwill more among young Arabs and Muslims, which is much more powerful than any counterterrorism measure. It is well within the grasp of the Bush administration to pressure Sharon to implement the Mitchell recommendations. A just settlement for the Palestinians would not satisfy the fundamentalists on either side, but it would dramatically undercut the appeal of anti-Western rhetoric throughout the Islamic world.

Amid the clamoring for an even stronger alliance with the Israel military, I share your view that by identifying with the strategies and methods of Ariel Sharon on the West Bank and Gaza, America is very likely to enter upon the same vicious cycle of tragedy and escalating response. Thank you, Mr. Kamiya, for a courageous editorial. I do hope it is widely read.

--Fraser Thorburn

Gary Kamiya understands virtually nothing of recent Israeli-Palestinian history. Every trust-building initiative he recommends has been attempted, and all efforts have failed: not because of a lack of will on the part of the Israelis or the Americans, but because the Palestinians are not prepared to surrender even a part of their ultimate aim. We don't have an "endless cycle of violence," we have violence directed toward a specific goal, which is the eviction of all Jews from Palestine. That event alone will appease the Arab world. Heaping the blame on Israelis for our trouble in fashioning an international crusade against terrorism is like blaming bond traders for the temerity of working in such large buildings at Manhattan's southern tip. It is unseemly, disgraceful and disgusting. Shame on you, Gary Kamiya!

--Marc Valdez

I don't believe Arabs and/or Muslims all over the globe give a damn about the Palestinians. If they did, as fellow Muslims they would be as enraged and committed to rectifying injustice in the Sudan, the Philippines, Indonesia and so on. I do believe they hate Jews, and I do believe anti-Semitism is the reason non-Muslim and non-Arab nations have helped keep the Palestinian conflict at the center of world politics since the 1960s. It is the intolerable presence of what used to be called "the Jewish state" in the Middle East that drives the external and presumptive support for the Palestinian cause, as an insult and an offense that must be removed. Don't kid yourself that Arafat, who again and again, to Arab audiences, without Western reporters present, calls for the destruction of Israel (as no Israeli government has called for the destruction of the Palestinians), and whose operation supports and sustains both organizing and propaganda for suicide bombers, promising money to their families and paradise for the martyrs, wants anything else.

--Greil Marcus

Your proposal for American action in the Israeli-Palestinian quagmire is superbly rational, superbly moral. Despite what seems almost universal American ignorance of the fact, we are and have been for decades complicit in the brutal Israeli suppression of Palestinian struggles for statehood; but the rest of the world knows it -- and much of that world hates us for it. It is high time for America to stand up for American ideals of fairness, justice, decency, respect for legitimate human rights. It is in these, not bloody-minded lust for revenge, that our strength against terrorism resides. The world now watches: Do we stand up and act in the service of our real ideals -- or descend to the hellish level of the terrorists themselves?

--Edward S. Twining

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