April 20, 2009 This letter is in response to the anti-Israel advertisement recently published in the Cedar Key News. The old saying that "you can not see the forest from the trees" means that we often look so hard at smaller issues, that we fail to see the larger issues. No one should doubt that the Palestinian refugees are suffering and have been for 60 years. Anyone visiting these poor people will certainly be affected by their plight. The direct cause of this terrible situation was the war of aggression waged by the Arab nations to exterminate the Jewish people of the middle east and destroy the state of Israel. Every war causes civilian casualties and refugees, it is always a terrible result of war. In 1947, when the Arab nations declared war on Israel, they instructed the Palestinian`s to leave the area in order to give the Arab armies free range to pound the Israeli`s into oblivion. The Arab sheiks told the Palestinians that after the war they could return to their homes and loot and plunder the Jews property. Most of the Palestinians voluntarily left their homes. Less than one million Israeli`s were able to defend their nation against the 50 million strong Arab aggressors. The Arab and Persian (Iranian) leaders today would have the world believe that if only there were peace in Israel, then there would be no conflict between the middle east and the western Christian countries. But it is the very same sheiks and mullahs who run their nations, that spend billions of dollars making certain there is no peace in Israel, otherwise they would lose their most potent weapon in the world opinion against Israel, the Palestinian refugee`s suffering. The Arab and Persian nations created the Palestinian refugee problem themselves. If they were truly interested in helping these souls, they would allow them to immigrate to some of the seven million square miles of empty Arab territories, but they will not allow the Palestinians to immigrate, or they would lose them as their main propaganda weapon to influence world opinion against Israel. If the Arab nations had just once defeated Israel, they would certainly have massacred all the Jews in the middle east. They launched five wars of aggression against Israel since 1947 and have lost 5 times. It is not Israel`s fault that the Arab`s can not win a war. Israel can not be defeated militarily by the Arab and Persian nations as long as Israel has a strong ally in the people of the United States of America. The only hope the sheiks and mullahs have is to run false advertisements, such as appeared in the Cedar Key News. By playing up Palestinian suffering they intend to diminish America`s support of Israel in hopes that one day they may be able to destroy the state of Israel and exterminate all the Jews in the middle east. That is the big picture we must keep our eyes on. Does anyone really believe that the oil sheiks of Saudi Arabia or Qatar who fund this type of anti-Israel advertisement are concerned about saving American taxpayers money as advertised in this flyer? Does any American really believe that if these Moslem nations were actually able to destroy Israel and kill all the Jews in the middle east, that they would stop there and leave the Christian population alone in the rest of the world ? Those concerns are the even bigger forest to keep our eyes on. In my opinion, it was correct for the Cedar Key News to run the anti-Israel paid advertisement in their paper. As Americans we believe in free speech and it is protected by our constitution. In America people are allowed to read and express themselves freely, but this is not the case in the countries of the middle east, the countries that sponsored this advertisement. In a recent incident, a west bank Palestinian children`s orchestra was disbanded for playing a concert for holocaust survivors in Israel. The Israel Arab conductor is no longer allowed to enter the camp and the studio where the children practiced has been sealed by the Palestinian authorities. Palestinian children are not allowed to learn about the Holocaust or they may begin to understand the truth about how Israel became a nation. The Palestinian children are only fed lessons in hating Jews and Israel in order to keep them in the dark about the truth. Therefore, do not hold your breath waiting for peace between the Palestinians and the Israeli`s in our lifetime, it is impossible as long as the next generation of Palestinians are indoctrinated in hatred for their neighbors. The American citizens are the most generous people on earth. We support Israel because the Israeli`s are the only people in the middle east that share our Judeo-Christian culture and believe very strongly in democracy. Israel is the only true ally we have in that region of the world and will remain so. Mike Segal Chiefland, Florida |