Our Hostages in Lebanon

Abourezk faults former White House national security adviser Robert McFarlane for the failure of the release of “Lebanese hostages” in Israel. Well, those “Lebanese hostages” are, in fact, terrorists. They were apprehended on forays into Israel and are not McFarlane’s to release.

Israel is not interested in a particularly “brutal occupation” of southern Lebanon. It is interested in a secure northern Israel border. It has a right to that.

Abourezk bemoans the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza “forgotten by the rest of the world,” where the Palestinian Arabs have a better health care than in most, if not all, of the rest of the Arab world.

Abourezk finds it convenient to forget the brutal experience of the Muslim brotherhood at the hands of the Syrian artillery in Hama, Syria. Ask the Palestinians who were driven from Jordan in the Black September of 1973 about a brutal experience.

Abourezk says “entire villages have been destroyed by the Israelis, with dozens of civilians being killed and wounded” while ignoring that Israel had a plethora of military targets for each foray into Lebanon.

Abourezk is so keenly concerned about the dozens of civilians killed and wounded by Israeli hands, but I see no evidence of concern for the thousands of Arabs killed by Arabs and the virtual destruction of Beirut, a city that was once the pearl of the Mediterranean.

As the chairman of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, I’m sure that Abourezk deplores Arab-bashing. I would like to concur. I would like to join Abourezk in working against prejudice and violations of human rights wherever they may occur.

Abourezk and other Arab spokesmen declare for peace in the Middle East, as Israel did on May 17, 1948, in its Declaration of the State of Israel. Let them acknowledge the reality that Israel exists. Further, let them renounce terrorism, recognize that Israel is entitled to secure borders, and respond to Israel’s pleas since its inception to come to the negotiating table and endeavor to build a better Middle East. What potential there is there!

SHELDON KRONFELD

San Diego