—– Original Message —–
From: Eva S. Moseley
To: Prime.Minister’sOffice [at] it [dot] pmo [dot] gov [dot] il
Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2009 4:28 PM
Subject: Gaza
Dear Mr. Olmert,
What can I say to convince you to stop the attack on Gaza? Hasn’t the IDF killed enough people? I’m one of the lucky few who got out of Nazi Vienna in 1939, with parents and brother, and later aunts and uncles, and I find Israeli violence hard to understand. You have the people of Gaza virtually in prison, controlling their borders, airspace, coast and shipping, their movements, their food, water and fuel. What would you do in their situation?
Hamas won an election that international monitors said was fair; Israel (and the U.S.) then refused to deal with the government of Palestine, and jailed numerous members of its parliament. What would you do if another country came in and arrested members of the Knesset and put them away without a trial? In fact most Palestinians are peaceable and want only to live normal lives. But how can they? Even in the West Bank Israel controls their movements and many aspects of their lives as it continues to build illegal settlements on their land.
The Israeli government says it is fighting terrorism. As an Israeli you should know why there are terrorists, as there were quite a few Jewish ones when Jews felt beleaguered and treated unjustly. No one is born a terrorist. It’s the occupation that has made some Palestinians terrorists, yet there have been almost no attacks on Israel for months, except for those rockets. They too would stop if the people of Gaza could have normal lives, although now, with all the destruction, it will be harder than ever to achieve that. Please stop the assault. Don’t you hear about people all over the world protesting what Israel is doing? Do you think we’re all wrong and only you and the U.S. administration are right? I’m not sure about the latest figures, but last I heard the rockets had killed 9 Israelis over a period of months or years, while the IDF has killed more than 750 Gazans in less than two weeks. This isn’t war; it’s slaughter, with modern weaponry, of a virtually unarmed people.
Eva (Steiner) Moseley
Cambridge, MA