From Deacon Moran McMahon re September 11 tragedy. (Letter to the Editor).

Parts of the editorial by Fr. Alphonse de Valk, c.s.b. (C.I., October, p.3) are quite good but other parts are simply "pie in the sky" comments that nobody listens to anymore. Comments concerning the Western leaders' responsibility, violence increasing violence, punishing those responsible in courts of law rather than on the battlefield are examples. The terrorists don't understand this type of language and they are the ones who must shoulder responsibility for the problems we are facing in the world. Before they can be tried in our courts, we must catch them. Who is going to catch them? What country, save the United States of America and Great Britain, has the power and intestinal fortitude to stand up to the terrorists?

All the media coverage recently, and demonstrations around the world demanding a halt to the bombing, will solve nothing until the terrorists stop their terrorism. And then negotiations might begin. Who is going to convince them to stop their evil deeds? Maybe we should send all those who are protesting to meet with the terrorists and order them to stop! I think the protesters would change their tune rather quickly.

Secondly, Fr. De Valk, why are you always coming down so hard on Israel? You seem to be terribly biased against this country. This is not the first article in which you have done this, and personally, I'm getting a little frustrated reading your biased comments against Israel. Would you like to comment on the Palestinians, their terrorist acts, suicide bombings, and so forth? What type of example are they setting for the world to follow? How do we convince them to stop their murderous acts? Please speak.

Orleans, ON

Editor's reply:

For more of what Deacon McMahon calls "pie in the sky" see News in Brief items under Vatican ("outlines conditions for U.S. Military operations"); under Afghanistan (Nigerian Archbishop: "it needs hospitals, not bombs"); under Israel ("Patriarch pleads for Palestinian state"); and, finally, the editorial on page 3 ("Needed: a new Marshall plan"). Now to Israel.

Catholic Insight has carried the following articles: "Israel at 50," June, 1998; "Peace-making in Hebron," Fr. Bob Holmes, May 1999; "The Pope in the Holy Land," 20 pages (10-30), May 2000; "Israel and Palestine, "Jan/Feb 2001; (p. 3), "The occupation of Palestine," de Valk-Holmes, April 2001; (pp. 10-13), and "Israel-Palestine saga continues, "Holmes, July/August 200], (pp. 12-13).

With the exception of the first one, these articles do not deal with the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, nor with Catholic-Jewish relations, except for the pages of the Holy Father's visit to Israel. Judaism is not the same as Israel, just as Christian civilization is not the same as the United States.

The articles do deal with the political state of Israel which after defeating Arab armies in 1967, decided to incorporate the West Bank and Gaza into the Israeli security system, while treating the two million inhabitants whose families had lived there for generations as disposable peons or serfs, to be surrounded by barbed wire, machine guns and tanks, to be treated without rights, whose houses could be demolished, their olive trees ripped out, their land confiscated for Jewish settlements (200 of them) and specially protected roads crisscrossing their land, to be humiliated at a multitude of checkpoints, with entry for work in Israel turned on and off like a water tap, and their economy, culture, education and trade kept to financial starvation levels.

So after doing everything in their power to create a politically schizophrenic Palestinian society, the Israelies now act surprised that they are inheriting violence from what they have sown. They would like the whole world to believe that they are the victims and the Palestinians the aggressors when it has been the reverse for over 30 years.