Heed the Warning

A Letter to Burlington Free Press    August 11, 2001

        A few months ago, I went with my wife to a meeting of "Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel." Now I have been to a few more meetings, heard several speakers, and gotten to know some local and visiting Palestinians and I find myself obsessed with their plight.

        Fear of the powerful Israeli lobby keeps politicians from taking up the cause, and the popular media is pro-Israel. To find out what is happening in Palestine, we have to turn to the BBC, and rely on e-mail and the Internet. It is frustrating to see American foreign policy hijacked by Israel through bribery and threats of political retribution.

        We are led to believe that Palestinians are somehow less than human because a few extremists take desperate measures to resist the occupation. Palestinians should not have to suffer apartheid and ethnic cleansing just because Israel wants their land. Do the Israelis think they can massacre Palestinians like Indians in the American West, or like Blacks in the South or like Jews in Nazi Germany?

        If the Holocaust was a warning, it is not being heeded. We are watching another conflagration of humanity building at this moment.

GEORGE SCATCHARD

Underhill