Mideast Hostages and Israel
Let’s get one thing straight. Tragic as their plight is, most of the Americans held hostage in Lebanon are there because they did not heed warnings from the American government to get out.
Levin, on at least five occasions, refers to the Shiite and Palestinian thugs held in Israeli prisons as hostages. They are not hostages. They are people who planned or carried out mayhem and murder.
By comparing these prisoners to American hostages, Levin plays the fool, for the two groups are totally different. He goes on to repeat a threat that since “the Israelis played a major role in getting us into this mess, they’d better help get us out.”
This “blame it on the Israelis” policy is a bankrupt one. Perhaps, if our foreign policy had been more forceful and better delineated, we would not now have to look for a scapegoat. By painting the hostage situation with such a broad stroke, Levin fails to put the blame where it rightfully belongs: on sadistic Shiite and Palestinian criminals and on weak U.S. Administrations. But then, blaming Israel or the Jews is not a surprising conclusion, even for a man with Levin’s background.
RICHARD REBHUN
Los Angeles
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