http://www.post-gazette.com/forum/20001016edlets6.asp Why Palestinians rage [Title created by Editor - also see note after letter] After reading the Oct. 2 editorial "Unholy Violence" and the Oct. 6 letter "The Latest Violence Puts In Doubt Palestinian Sincerity For Peace," I feel compelled in the name of truth and fairness to respond. Both claimed that the Palestinians' reaction to Ariel Sharon's visit to the most holy Muslim site in Jerusalem was unjustified. The editorial questions why they are frustrated. Having spent a year among the Palestinians, I question how they could not be. How could the Palestinians not be frustrated when their people are relabeled as terrorists every time a Jew is killed, while Jewish soldiers and settlers kill Palestinians with impunity in the name of liberty? When they go thirsty while nearby the Zionists water their lawns and fill their swimming pools? When their lives, from their travel to the food they eat, are controlled by the state of Israel in direct violation of U.N. resolutions? Did the victims of the Holocaust die in vain? Have the Jews forgotten what happens when a people's humanity is taken from them? Since the 1948 war, the Palestinians have displayed remarkable restraint as they suffered at the hands of the Zionists. However, Sharon's deceivingly innocent visit to Al Sharif caused the last shreds of this long-taxed restraint to crumble. Sharon is not just another Israeli leader. He is responsible for one of the most brutal massacres in recent history. In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon. Israeli troops under Sharon's command butchered thousands of helpless Palestinian women and children in two refugee camps in southern Lebanon. The truth will show the real transgressors in this conflict to be the Israelis responsible for the atrocities committed by Israel -- for far too long hidden behind memories of the Holocaust and the unfair demonization of the Palestinian people. REUEL CLEMENT Youngwood, Pa. Paragaraph omitted by Editor: "Were a nazi general to visit the Jewish Wailing Wall in Jerusalem perhaps the Jews would experience a sense a sense of horror and desecration similar to that felt by the Palestinians as a result of Sharon's unpardonable act."
