In today's Washington Post, columnist Charles Krauthammer calls on Israel to a launch a "lightning and massive Israeli attack" on the Palestinians and to "Strike and expel." (full text is below)

After this massive campaign, Krauthammer calls on Israel to pen remaining Palestinians into ghettos or concentration areas by building walls, because Krauthammer argues "not a single suicide bomber has come from Gaza. Why? Because there already is a wall separating Gaza from Israel." There they should be left for "decades." Perversely, Krauthammer argues that such an Israeli assault would be a route to "nonviolence."

This latest incitement from the Washington Post comes a day after its columnist Michael Kelly called on Israel to "unleash an overwhelming force" against the Palestinians, "go right ahead and escalate the violence" and "destroy, kill, capture and expel the armed Palestinian forces."

(see ADC action alert at www.adc.org/action/2001/15august2001.htm)

Like Kelly's column, Krauthammer's is filled with the most outrageous distortions. Krauthammer mentions for example the "massacre at a Tel Aviv disco: 21 teens dead, dozens maimed and wounded. Mass murder at a Jerusalem pizzeria: 15 dead, more than 100 maimed and wounded. Suicide bombing at a Haifa cafe: 20 injured. Daily gunfire, drive-by shootings, mortar attacks..."

He does not make one mention, however, of the fact that nearly 600 Palestinians have been murdered by Israeli soldiers and settlers, the vast majority of them unarmed civilians, and that three million Palestinians are living under a brutal, belligerent military occupation and colonization.

Krauthammer writes that Arafat "began this war a year ago after rejecting Israel's offer of a Palestinian state with its capital in a shared Jerusalem. Why? Because with this terror campaign he intends to bring a bleeding, demoralized Israel to its knees."

WE SHOULD SEND BRIEF, ORIGINAL LETTERS TO THE WASHINGTON POST ANSWERING THIS LATEST ANTI-PALESTINIAN INCITEMENT:

Please send a brief letter to the editor of the Post

Email: letters@washpost.com

Mail: Letters to the Editor The Washington Post 1150 15th Street Northwest Washington, DC 20071

The Post website says "Letters must be exclusive to The Washington Post, and must include the writer's home address and home and business telephone numbers." Try to keep letters under 200 words.

Text of Charles Krauthammer's column:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/opinion/A17584-2001Aug15.html

Ali Abunimah
www.abunimah.org