When will Americans wake up to the hypocrisy and outright madness of our Middle East policy?
On Friday, Feb. 29, the News Tribune ran yet another story on the ongoing war between Israel and Palestine, reporting the following casualties since Wednesday: 31 Palestinians killed, including eight children and six other civilians. The youngest, a 6-month-old boy, as well two brothers and cousins ranging in age from 8 to 12 playing soccer on a field. One Israeli father of four was killed.
Hamas fired mostly home-made rockets with a range of 10 miles and several Iranian-made rockets with a range of 14 miles. They fired 82 rockets and managed to hit one building. Israel on the other hand, attacked using sophisticated U.S. made F-16 fighter jets and Apache helicopters.
Just imagine watching your children playing soccer when, all of a sudden, the mighty roar of a U.S. F-16 fighter, dropping U.S. made bombs and rockets, annihilates your children before your eyes.
If American pilots, using sophisticated equipment that is supposed to have pinpoint accuracy, killed civilians of any country at the rate that Israel does, there would be widespread outrage. Are we supposed to think that because we supply the weaponry and allow another country to do the killing, we aren't accountable?
Where is the justification for us to supply this weaponry that Israel uses at will to continually kill innocent people? Is it any wonder that every time a Palestinian sees U.S. armament recklessly killing their children it produces more and more hate toward America?
America should stay out of the question of who is right and who is wrong in this conflict and insist that both sides sit down and come to peace, or neither side will get one cent of U.S. funds for any non-humanitarian reason.
This policy is madness and nothing will change as long as it continues, and it will continue unless you do something to change it.
Take a minute to write your representative; if you're not up to writing something yourself, feel free to just forward this letter and say you agree with it - but please - do something.
JOHN SAVARESE, Waltham
