Protest in Senator Tom Harkin's office re Gaza Atrocity

LETTER TO THE SENATOR SUPPORTING PROTESTORS

The following letter was sent to Senator Harkin via e-mail but I got a notice two days later saying that it had not been delivered. Here's hoping that the Senator might be able to read this slightly edited version now.
Story of the occupation and video at:
http://www.desmoinescatholicworker.org/harkinoccupation2.09.html


TO: Senator Tom Harkin, Des Moines, Iowa, USA

Dear Senator

I support the action of the protestors who occupied your office lately in gentle and prayerful protest at your silence on the massacre of so many human beings in Gaza by the Israeli Defence Forces and the many other atrocities perpetrated by Israel on the Palestinian people over more than forty years of occupation with massive help from the US.

Why is the US media hiding the truth about Israel, Gaza and the West Bank from the American people?

From being a victim during the Holocaust years , the Israeli State has turned its own people there into aggressors who use unbelievable cruelty towards Palestinians.

Many in Israel now believe that they are a master race just as in Hitler's Germany Arians were made to believe that they were superior.

Only last year outside Dublin's GPO, when I noticed an altercation between a pro-Palestinian group and a lone young Israeli who had pulled the table cloth from under their leaflets, I heard him say as he walked away: "That's all you can do - abuse people, not engage in dialogue."

As he passed by me I said to him quietly "I will engage in dialogue with you"

He then told me that he had been in the IDF, had killed "Arabs", was proud of it and was going back to kill more. He said that God and Abraham had given all of Israel to his people. When I countered some of these points, he stood back and said;

"I am superior to you because I am a Jew and you are only a Gentile"

At least 1330 Palestinians were murdered from the sky and on the ground in the tiny cage of Gaza since Christmas Day. Uri Avnery, an Israeli patriot and former member of the Israeli Knesset believes that this time was chosen, partly because George W Bush was still in power, partly because Western politicians were on holidays and they would not interrupt their holidays for Gaza.

GAZA - I fear that you may not even know what has been happening there. I was struck by the words of one of your protestors who said that her money had paid for what had happened to the children who were murdered.

GAZA - the word will always remind you of the protest in your office but the word will in future years ring out as a damning condemnation of all who were in power in the USA at this time and did not lift a finger to prevent this massacre.

GAZA - PLEASE REMEMBER THAT PEOPLE ARE STILL SUFFERING THERE. The US fiddles while Gaza burns.

Also remember that it is a slander to pretend, as some of your supporters have been doing, that these pacifist protestors are supporters of the violence of Hamas.

It is important not to shirk the truth that, whether you or others like it or not, HAMAS is the elected Government of the Palestinian people, elected in democratic elections. For any solution to the problem of Palestine and Israel, HAMAS must be a player.

That does not mean that those of us who say this are supporters of terror. I am a pacifist and abhor terror. I am not a supporter of HAMAS but a supporter of human rights and an advocate against all violence and injustice.

But you support Israel, and I must ask do you also support, either purposely or through default, the continual State terror of that political and military establishment?

With best personal wishes

Justin Morahan
Dublin, Ireland