Dale Perkins, Victoria

   The Reverend Clint Mooney is rather upset by my first article in ICN (June/July 20121). I hope the second one (Autumn 2012) will calm him down, and permit him to look more realistically at what is actually happening on the ground (as he acknowledged was not his privilege to witness from an earlier trip he took there).
   If we ‘cherry pick’ history to locate examples of atrocities inflicted on particular races or religious groups we will find whatever we require to make our argument. Certainly it was not my intention nor objective to present evidence of past atrocities on either the Arab Palestinians or the Jewish people.

   The Reverend Clint Mooney is rather upset by my first article in ICN (June/July 20121). I hope the second one (Autumn 2012) will calm him down, and permit him to look more realistically at what is actually happening on the ground (as he acknowledged was not his privilege to witness from an earlier trip he took there).
   If we ‘cherry pick’ history to locate examples of atrocities inflicted on particular races or religious groups we will find whatever we require to make our argument. Certainly it was not my intention nor objective to present evidence of past atrocities on either the Arab Palestinians or the Jewish people.
   Clint has focused only on atrocities that took place on Jewish people in their long-standing effort to find a safe haven away from vindictive oligarchies they encountered. That history is well-recorded, and either side (Arab Palestinian or Jewish) can document times when they were victimized by an opposing regime.
   That might be fascinating to the historian or theoretician, but for present-day players living in the turbulent chaos that defines everyday reality that is hardly relevant. What is important for them was when yesterday a child or family member was detained or refused entry at a Check Point in the West Bank, or was incarcerated because a few vigilante Jewish settlers in the East Jerusalem (Palestinian territory) decided these Palestinians posed a threat to the well-being of bona fide Israeli citizens living in that occupied land.
   Play with the numbers as much as one likes; the truth of the matter is that currently there is a calamitous disparity between Arab Palestinians living in the West Bank and their Israeli occupiers. The State of Israel is constantly campaigning to confiscate more of the Palestinian land and property, as well as all of the resources (including water) and thereby force them to leave so that Israel can appropriate that total territory. Their action has been declared illegal by the international community.
   Anything a person or a faith community can do to redress this is an imperative and must be done quickly. I would hope Clint would join me and others demanding that the USA administration stop giving Israel $8.2 million each day for military purposes alone. That $3 billion a year could be better allocated for peaceful projects for both Palestinian and Jewish residents of that war-torn region.