What was said by Peres from his position as Israeli Prime Minister before big crowds of Falasha demonstrators, firstly, was insincere because it was intended to absorb the demonstrators' anger against his government and, secondly, it carried a clear admission that the Israeli government practises barefaced discrimination against the Falashas and oppresses them which, in part or in totality, is terrorism against them in the Israeli society.

The Addis Ababa government's realisation of the oppression the Ethiopian citizens were being subjected to in Israel after their emigration there, compelled it to send a letter to Peres demanding that he return the Falasha emigrants to Ethiopia, especially after it received numerous letters from Falashas demanding that they be returned to their original country, Ethiopia.

Israel will not respond to the Ethiopian demands because it realises very well that if it does so, it will shake the principle of the Jewish national homeland and God's "chosen people" and prove that it is practising racial discrimination and terrorism against the African Jews (the Falashas) who emigrated to Israel.

This will put Israel in a critical situation before the world as it will be considered a terrorist state.

All these manifestations of racial discrimination and terrorism which Israel is practising against the Arabs and the African Jews who are residing in it and are holding the Israeli citizenship, qualify Israel to become one of the biggest racist terrorist states because the highest level of terrorism practised by states, is to terrorise its own citizens.

Classifying countries as practising terrorism because they host terrorists, the way Washington is trying to impose on numerous Arab and other countries, makes it incumbent upon the US to include Israel in this list if it is serious about combating terrorism at the international, regional or national level. This is because Israel is practising state terrorism in its ugliest forms, not only at the regional level against its Arab neighbours with whom it is trying to reach a settlement to establish peace for itself, but also against the world by looking down on it, as Israel considers itself to be the land of the "chosen people," thus making it permissible for it to carry out aggression against other people and countries. Furthermore, Israel is practising terrorism against its own citizens, who were deceived into coming to the "promised land." In view of their Jewish faith they believed they were included in the slogan: "God's chosen people".

We want to say frankly to the whole world that racial discrimination is one of the main motives for terrorism. The conclusive evidence of this is the discrimination taking place today in Israel, thus leading to terrorism. Terrorism kindles discrimination. Will the West, led by the US which has proclaimed itself responsible for combating terrorism, fulfil its commitment by accusing Israel of terrorism and racism?

We doubt that very much, because the West, under the leadership of Washington, is subjected to the Jewish lobby which is influencing political decision-making, will prevent that from happening. Also, it will make terrorism a continuous international phenomenon so long as we are ignoring the Israeli terrorist practices.

As long as we are unable to accuse Israel, which is one of the edifices of terrorism and racism, of this crime, the combat against terrorism will continue in a vicious circle. Hence, the necessity for the international community to seriously search for new methods and means to combat terrorism at the local, regional and international levels.

(text of April 17, 1996 Saudi Gazette editorial page article)

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Arab Americans and American Jews Excerpt

Arab-Jewish Cooperation?

American Jewish organizations publicly attacked anti-Arab bigotry during the Gulf war.

Is there any basis for cooperation between a Jewish community politically influential and unswervingly aligned to Israel and an Arab community just emerging from virtual anonymity and strongly motivated by sympathy for the Palestinian cause? Arab Americans claim that their interests are not confined solely to the Arab-Jewish conflict in the Middle East but include the whole spectrum of civic issues. There are undoubtedly certain Arab American groups, particularly the Arab-American Institute, that are seeking not only to forge a community-wide identity but also to form alliances with other ethnic groups. Such cooperation has till now not included Jews.

Nevertheless, the situation is not quite the same as it was a couple of years ago. There are people, mainly at the local level, from both sides making efforts to bridge the gap and to further understanding. There are other hints at a possible thaw in relations. The April 20, 1990 issue of the New York "Jewish Week" published an article by James Zogby entitled "U.S. Arabs Seek Common Ground With Jews." The "Jewish Week" has the largest circulation of any Jewish weekly in the United States and more than one reader must have been surprised to find an article in it by a leading Arab American! There are also indications of a "forced cooperation" due to pressure by state party leaders who seek to avoid bruising fights on convention floors. To avoid damaging party unity, pro-Israeli groups do not necessarily object to language supporting basic Palestinian rights, as long as there is no mention of a Palestinian state. For their part, the Arab American Institute does not automatically object to language supporting "security for Israel." In several states, such as Texas and Iowa, there have been direct negotiations between the Arab American Institute and the pro-Israeli lobby AIPAC.

There are issues totally unconnected to Israel on which both groups can and do cooperate in some places. Both communities are vitally interested in the adoption of state laws dealing with ethnically motivated crime. In Milwaukee, for example, two Arab and three Jewsih organizations which had never previously worked in coalition announced that they will lobby the Wisconsin state legislature on the state's Hat Crimes Act. Both Fahed Ra'ad, state chairman of the ADC, and Brad Backer, a vice president of the Milwaukee Jewish Council, expressed the hope that their groups; cooperation on the bill would expand to other areas.

Muslim and Jewish spokesmen found themselves to be somewhat unexpected allies when the California State Department of Education held hearings on the merits of new textbooks which, for the first time, introduced the study of religion in public schools. Both Jewish and Muslim representatives objected to the portrayal of their respective religions in the books. "While we didn't speak for each other, we found ourselves sharing information and strategy," said Annette Lawrence of the Los Angelse Jewish Community Relations Council. Salem Al-Marayati, director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles, who is of Iraqi descent, declared, "On the Palestinian issue, we agree to disagree, but we are in solidarity in the fight against bigotry."

Jews have publicly protested the anti-Arab incidents that took place in various parts of the country at the time of the Gulf war. Heads of Jewish agencies in Detroit, the largest Arab center in America, wrote letters of support to local Arab American leaders and letters of denunciation to the media. The Jewish community of Syracuse, N.Y. published a "Jewish Statement of concern for Arabs in America." Before the outbreak of actual hostilities in January 1991, major national Jewish bodies issued statements calling attacks on Arab Americans "unacceptable manifestations of bigotry" and calling on "all levels of goverment to protect the rights and safety of Arab Americans." Such acts are probably not motivated by a desire for increased harmony between Jews and Arabs in the United States, but are part of the principled stand of the Jewish community against racial and ethnic bigotry.

The rise of an ethnically conscious Arab-American community is the result of the same processes which have taken place among other ethnic groups, namely, rootedness in America and social and economic mobility. The Jewish "contribution," however, to recent Arab-American consciousness and unity has been highly significant. The 1967 war was a watershed for Arab-Americans; the 1982 war in Lebanon perhaps even more so. The intifada, starting in December 1987, has been an added catalyst, and the Palestinian readiness to seek a political resolution of the problem has provide Arab Americans with a vast field of activity. Jewish organizations, and the political methods used by the Jewish community, have served, to some extent, as an example to the Arabs. Few ethnic groups monitor each other's activities as thoroughly as do Jews and Arabs, but despite many mutual interests as American ethnic groups, relations remain cold, suspicious and rare. Presumably only a satisfactory resolution of the Israel-Palestine problem will normalize relations between the two groups in the United States.

(text of excerpt from March/April 1992 New Outlook "U.S. Scene" article, "Arab Americans and American Jews" by Yisrael Ellman, author of "American Jews in a Pluralistic Society")

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Canada maintained its traditions in gulf war Excerpt

The months after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, culminating in the brief, bloody war against Saddam Hussein, were uncomfortable ones for my family.

My outspoken opposition to the war led to an unprecedented number of menacing calls and letters that actually led us to adopt precautionary steps. Most came from fellow Jews, furious that I dared betray what they saw as Israel's cause. Others were from the usual run of bigots--"You gawddam Jew bastard yu" called regularly for months--affronted by my failure to stand up for Bush and country.

On the other hand, our situation seemed mercifully uncommon. We were never badgered by the Mounties or the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS), and it appeared there'd been relatively little harassment of other Canadians during these anxious months either by state security agents or by other Canadians.

How terribly wrong I was. How little we know about what many of our fellow citizens endured throughout that period. Now, thanks to a little publicized report issued last month by the Canadian Arab Federatioon called "CSIS and the Arab Canadian Community," and a new book due out next week by journalist Zuhair Kashmeri, The Gulf Within: Canadian Arabs, Racism And The Gulf War, we learn the ugly truth. The Canadian wartime tradition of victimizing innocent citizens stands untarnished.*

There are some quarter million Canadians of Arab descent in Canada; about four-fifths are Muslims. Many are second, third, fourth generation Canadians. During the war, some of them strongly backed Saddam Hussein. Many more defended Iraq's attack on Kuwait. And large numbers--80 per cent by some estimates--opposed the war against Saddam. Significantly, few seem to have sided with the Arab nations in the anti-Saddam coalition.

I knew none of this, because the Arab-Canadian viewpoint, I now understand, was largely missing from the public debate during the war. Even though I vehemently disagreed with those who backed Saddam and his invasion of Kuwait, it's surely remarkable that their position was largely unheard during those months.

To be sure, a small number of pro-Saddam Canadian Arabs made some news. But they paid a heavy penalty for this heresy. They received innumerable hate calls, threats to their lives and to blow up their houses and machine gun their kids, and obscene, racist, hate mail. At least one pipe-bomb was discovered outside the home of one of these people.

But Canadians of Arab background needed no position on the war at all to be the victims of what Kashmeri calls "persecution, harassment and racism."

In a "flood" of incidents, school kids were abused and pushed around by their peers and sometimes humiliated by their teachers. One theology teacher told his class Iraqis should be flushed down the toilet, while some women actually had their hejabs--a distinctive Muslim scarf--ripped off their heads and spat on.

On top of such shameful behavior came the antics of the Mounties and the CSIS, who turned up ininvited on between 500 and 1,000 Arab-Canadian doorsteps during this period. Reid Morden, then head of CSIS, plumbed new depths of inanity when he told a CAF delegation that his officers were visiting ordinary Arab-Canadians to improve their understanding of the Middle East.

CSIS's mandate is crystal clear; it's authorized to gather information only about those engaged in espionage, sabotage, subversion, political violence or "foreign-influenced activity." Yet CSIS agents as well as Mounties, never with the benefit of warrant, intruded repeatedly on the domestic privacy of perfectly innocent Canadian citizens--unless being of Arab descent was itself sufficient grounds for being suspected of disloyalty.

Innocent or not, however, no one wants to be accosted by the security forces. The interviews (interrogations?) that were conducted were invariably unnerving and upsetting to the participants, while the questions asked--usually about personal religious and political beliefs--were totally out of line. They surely violated the spirit of the Canadian Charter of Rights. Certainly they succeeded in intimidating many of those questioned, which helps explain why few of them felt secure enough to lodge complaints or even go public about their treatment.

It's hard to resist the conclusion that the security forces thought of Arab Canadians as the enemy within. Given the warped stereotype of Arabs that the Western media has disseminated in the past decade, it may not be surprising that officials who get paid to root out spies and saboteurs should instinctively regard Arabs and Muslims as constituting a threat to Canadian security.

In the end, after all their snooping, the security boys came up utterly empty-handed. The record shows that not a single Arab-Canadian was charged with war-connected crimes. On the other hand, Canada has been allowed to maintain intact one of its oldest traditions:before the gulf, in ever war some innocent Canadians--of Japanese, Italian, Ukrainian descent, whatever--had been unjustly abused by their government. That dubious record stands untarnished. Gerald Caplan is a former national secretary of the New Democratic Party and a public affairs consultant.
(text of November 10, 1991 Toronto Star column by Gerald Caplan)

*-This is another longer one than most, but important to the issues focused on in this series of linked pages and the purposes and contents of this website, so TAKE YOUR NEXT FOOTSTEP HERE to it.
In reference to the subject of this particular items' contents, i want to say here that i have two ex-girlfriends who subsequently married Canadian police officers, one of them a R.C.M.P. (Mountie) officer, and in that latter case i still see her or one of her children quite often socially.
Whatever happened between the RCMP and me over twenty years ago when i last "inhaled," since then i have had, in my estimation, very good relations with them. And in fact, in 1977, i prepared some paperwork that was associated with the preliminary documentation for the SENIOR ADVISER TO THE YEAR OF THE CHILD authority and responsibilities in my name that they permitted to stand on their behalf representative of their "views" on the addressed subject.
This is in addition to my representation of the Toronto Police Force as is explained if you TAKE A BRIEF SIDESTEP HERE.
Therefore, please don't assume here that i have any animus towards the RCMP or any right-minded Canadian police officer or force.
...Either now or eight years before i was born, during Canada's "conscription crisis," the last time Canada had a draft for its military in 1944.
...Leading us back to "family values." What was my Father doing in 1944, you say? TAKE YOUR NEXT FOOTSTEP HERE.
And i told him when i was studying World War Two during high school in the 1960s that if i was in his position at that time, i'd have done the same thing.