Anti-Semitism evident worldwide

THE EDITOR: For Israel to assassinate/murder the Palestinian cleric Sheikh Yassin who was not only a quadriplegic and partially blind but was leaving a house of worship in a wheelchair is as dastardly, cowardly and unforgivable as any act committed against Jews by the Nazis during the holocaust years. All one has to do is go onto the internet at onlinenewspapers.com where over a thousand newspapers are available and one can’t help but observe the growing anti-Israeli/anti-Jewish sentiment being expressed around the world. The ROW (Rest of the World) now appears to equate Zionism with Nazism and this is most unfortunate. I went to a Canadian university where over 70 percent of the faculty and students were Jewish and I became close friends not only with Jewish professors but fellow Jewish students. This close relationship continued from the middle ’70s well into the ’80s.

As Israel persisted with its occupation of Palestinian lands and brutal suppression of the Palestinian people, I started to have a second look of my “Jewish relationship” and in recent years my support and empathy for the Jewish cause disappeared completely. I am sure that this type of shift has taken place in large areas of the ROW and has now resulted in a serious increase in anti-Semitism. Of course, the Bush administration and quite a lot of American politicians in this US election year being painfully aware of the strength of the Jewish lobby/money contributions and will find all sorts of reasons to support Israel. I was most disgusted to hear Condaleeza Rice getting up on TV this morning (22/03/04) and giving Israel her administration’s whole support while condemning the crippled half blind cleric as a terrorist who deserved his fate. Such grovelling! Such putrid hypocrisy!!

I do hope that the revelation of Bush’s lies and incompetence by ex-terrorism advisor, Mr Richard Clarke, will be one of the nails in George W’s political coffin and with him will be dumped in the La Basse/garbage dump of history his fellow Neo-con Nazis Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft Wolfowitz and those like Powell and Rice. However, the stupid/not stupid ratio of Americans is even higher than that of Trindadians, so all I can do is hope for the best. Sharon and the fascist Israelis will eventually get their just desserts. For as we say in Trinidad and Tobago “God does not sleep”.

M HOTIN
St James