Letters to the Editor.

The New Holy War

It is hard for me to understand that someone like Irena Klepfisz who lost her family in Auschwitz and knows all about the Holocaust can advocate causing another holocaust to our people ("Israel Is Not David. It's Goliath," by Matthew Rothschild, July issue). Does anyone in their right mind believe that the Arabs will let Israel live no matter what we give them? Can anyone in their right mind believe that Arafat can bring peace to the region?

What we have done for the Arabs since the Six Day War is an example to the whole world of how humans should be treated. When we went into the West Bank, there was no running water, no electricity, no good roads, no good medical facilities. Our doctors take care of Arab patients, and they kill the doctors who treat them.

Wake up before it is too late. Hitler included every Jew in the Holocaust. He did not differentiate between those who denied their Jewishness and those who upheld it. No matter where we are, if we don't have an Israel to run to at the time of need, we will be destined to the same lot as the Jews of Europe. Let us not forget that we have only ourselves to rely on when push comes to shove. You will not be able to save yourselves because you advocated a false peace!

Joy Katzin
Jerusalem, Israel

If one views the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with a strictly political/humanistic eye, yes, the occupation is unconscionable. But there is a problem with the article. The author does not even take into consideration the religious aspect of the situation. Israel, unlike other countries that find themselves dealing with occupational issues, was founded as a homeland for the people of a specific religion. Judaism is unique in that it is both a religion and a nation. But it is a religion foremost. Keep in mind that you can't join the nation until you accept the religion, even though some already in the nation don't care about their religion. And herein lies the problem.

The occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is not just for military purposes. "Secular" (I hate that word, "disrespectful" is better) Jews don't want to deal with it, but there's no getting away from the fact that Judaism is based on the Torah. And the Torah specifically and emphatically states that the land of Israel is ours. The people already there were just squatters.

I know what you're thinking--another Bible-waver is at it. But that's not the case. I don't have a beard and a black hat. I'm just another American Jew who accepts that Judaism is my religion and that G-d gave us Israel as a homeland. I was born irreligious and woke up later in adult life.

The bottom line is that the fight for Israel is a holy war for us, too, not just the Muslims. And it needs to be viewed and analyzed in that light.

Mark Langer
Hollywood, Florida

Thanks, Mr. Rothschild, for your perceptive article. As neither Jew nor Arab, I remain a supporter of Israel. But not much longer. I object to the mindless support in the United States of any action, no matter how it violates international law, that Israel takes in order to "defend" itself against those it occupies. U.N. resolutions ought to be enforced at once (242, et al.) by the international body itself--not the United States. U.S. complicity in Israel's repression bears a stench that can no longer be tolerated. I join the call for an immediate cessation of U.S. aid until Israel returns to the 1967 line.

Dave Dill
Baraboo, Wisconsin

I really appreciated the Israel-as-Goliath article and the reportage about Irena Kelpfisz. It made me happy to be a leftist!

Sydney Spiegel
Casper, Wyoming

The advertisement by Jewish Unity for a Just Peace and your Editor's Note on Richard Falk (August issue) blend into each other and seem to transmigrate into that moth fluttering around the candle. Are Mr. Falk and those behind the ad not aware that there is a real world out there? Do they really think if their recommendations are implemented, Arafat will become Mr. Goody Two Shoes and all will live and love each other in the new Israel/Palestine?

I don't claim Israel is without fault, but I think I can explain why Jews can be impervious to things like Hezbollah, Jihad, Arafat's Tanzim, Arafat's speeches in English saying one thing and his speeches in Arabic exhorting violence and death to the Jews and claiming all of Palestine. My explanation is that some Jews prefer to remain in the "merchant race" rather than switch over to the "warrior race." Or, to put it in more blunt terms, if some Jews wish to be ghettoized and exterminated, that is their prerogative. My problem is that they can get me killed along with them, and this is a little much. It is better to be a live member of the warrior race than a dead member of the merchant race.

It is odd that I can end this letter with your quote from Mr. Falk: "One doesn't want extremists to dictate one's life." That is an almost perfect justification of Israel's reactions today.

Andy Ken Adze
Doyletown, Pennsylvania

Clinton's Baby Nuke

I hope you will explain to readers that the Pentagon's "earth-penetrating" nuclear weapon ("It's a Bomb: Bush's Baby Nuke," by Alistair Millar, August issue) was under development all through the Clinton years. Bush may embrace this weapon system, but that does not mean he invented it. Progressive publications discredit themselves when they write about what they label as Bush's anti-human policies, programs, and devices, when they were also supported by Carter, Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton.

Arthur Milholland
Silver Spring, Maryland

Don't Throw Our Kids Away

It is a disgrace and downright deplorable when our children are forced to become incarcerated for mental health treatment they may or may not get ("Arrest My Kid, He Needs Mental Health Care," by Anne-Marie Cusac, July issue). Through highly selective criteria, HMOs will invariably cream off the most profitable persons with mental illness to the point where they treat only the "worried well." Those with severe and persistent mental illness such as schizophrenia or bipolar illness will find themselves further alienated and abandoned. Our children deserve better treatment. Let us not further abuse them.

Aaron Albelo, MSW
Los Angeles, California

Cusac's article shows, without realizing it, how psychiatrists can aggravate adolescent rebellion. After "two of the best psychiatrists in Dallas" diagnosed rebellious fifteen-year-old Heather King as suffering from "bipolar disorder," her defiance got so much worse that her mother had to call the police on her.

"Diagnosing" defiant youngsters as "mentally ill" leads to attributing the youngsters' misbehavior to their "illnesses" rather than to themselves. This reduces or removes their sense of responsibility for their actions, which often worsen. And parents' ability to set proper limits on youngsters by insisting on appropriate behavior is reduced still further if they see a youngster's "illness" as responsible for the behavior.

NAMI (National Association for the Mentally Ill), whose leaders Cusac cites repeatedly, favors this "illness" approach. Heavily funded by the drug companies and wedded to the notion that mental patients suffer from brain disease--and therefore need medication forever--NAMI avoids examining parents' roles in adolescents' problems. Medicating these youngsters--the heart of today's mental health care--not only reduces their sense of personal responsibility but also impairs their ability to think clearly and function generally. Today's psychiatry, which labels patients instead of trying to understand them and fills them with mind-numbing drugs, deserves closer scrutiny.

Nathaniel S. Lehrman
Clinical Director, Retired
Kingsboro Psychiatric Center
Brooklyn, New York

Missing Artist

Howard Zinn ("Artists of Resistance," July issue) failed to mention his great friend the Jesuit priest and poet Danny Berrigan.

Gene Roman
New York, New York

The editors welcome correspondence from readers on all topics, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material previously published in The Progressive. All letters may be edited for clarity and conciseness. Letters may be e-mailed to: [e-mail]. Please include your city and state.