Letter sent to Rep. Allen West of Florida's 22nd District. Awaiting response.
Col. West:
Greetings. My name is Brandon K. Thorp, and I covered the last month of your campaign for New Times. As you know, I think that you are a disingenuous and bloodthirsty man and that you have more in common with your alleged mortal enemies, the radical Islamists, than with your own constituency. If we may put that aside for a moment,
I hope you will take the time to answer a few questions.
You recently stated that allowing the PLO delegation to fly its
flag in Washington, D.C., constitutes a "slap in the face" of "our greatest
ally, Israel." This is no surprise. You are on the record opposing the
establishment of a Palestinian state and have even suggested that
Palestinian Arabs relocate to Jordan. You justify this position by
quoting from the Bible's Old Testament. Since you are a Christian, your
desire for a wholly Jewish Jerusalem presumably has something to do with
an imminent apocalypse.
Those who suggest a more moderate approach to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict you frequently deride as enemies of the state. This state,
I mean; not the state of Israel. I do not know if you are aware that there are those
of us who ardently support Israel and who need no recourse to ancient
"holy" books to justify ourselves. We value Israel because of her
secular and democratic character, not because her inhabitants happen to
espouse a preferred brand of monotheism. If there should one day be a
Hindu majority in the United States or a Buddhist majority or an
atheist majority or even a Muslim majority, I should hope that our
support for Israel would remain steadfast. Individuals have loved and
fought for what small freedoms they possessed long before the religions
of Abraham were even the seedlings of ideas. With luck and pluck, we
shall continue to do so long after Jehovah has joined Zeus and Astarte
in divine retirement.
As a fellow supporter of Israel -- one who
has no particular problem with the flying of the PLO flag in Washington
and who, like you, wishes we could extend the same courtesy to Taiwan
-- I ask the following questions in a spirit of sincerity and comity. I
doubt you will answer, and if you do answer, I don't doubt that I will
be horrified by what you say. Still, in matters of ideology and
philosophy, it is best if our politicians lay their cards on the table.
1. Do you believe in the Apocalypse?
2. If you believe in the Apocalypse, do you hope it will arrive soon?
3. To what extent is your hope for a purely Jewish Jerusalem derived from that belief?
4.
Since your belief in the legitimacy of Israel is based upon divine
revelation rather than Israel's innately democratic and secular
character, do you believe that non-Jews have a place in Israel? (More
than 20 percent of all Israelis are non-Jews; most of those are Arab Muslims.)
5.
Do you believe that Arab Israelis -- or other Israelis -- who espouse a
two-state solution in Palestine are enemies of Israel?
Col.
West, what follows is the most important question I have to ask of you,
and if you ignore all others in this letter, I would be much obliged if
you would answer this one.
6. Can you imagine any mechanism by
which the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank could be forcibly
relocated to Jordan without the violent deaths of tens of thousands of
Arab civilians and not a few Israelis?
As you know, humans enjoy
their homes and tend to defend them. They will do this even if
your preferred "holy" book says certain humans have no right to those
homes. What I and other concerned Americans have found objectionable
in your political career thus far has much less to do with your service
record, your understanding of economics, or your grasp of military
tactics than with your apparent ignorance of, or indifference to, such
immutable elements of human nature. The PLO has been trodden upon in its
own territory, its authority terribly compromised by militants whose
appetites for savagery have been whetted by the blood of two decades in
which the compromising, peace-seeking spirit of Rabin, the latter-day
Arafat, and the Oslo Accords availed them nothing. To deny the PLO the
right to fly its own flag is to reject even the memory of the faltering
steps toward peace accomplished by the more moderate leaders of the
1990s, to embrace endless war at best, and at worst to foster a kind of Final
Solution to the Palestinian problem.
Is that what you advocate? It would appear so. I hope I am wrong.
Democratically yours,
Brandon K. Thorp
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