We do need your help to write more and more letters semilar to this letter of our Friend Dorothy. Please, write letters, make teach-ins, take ACTION before the visit of Prime Minister Netanyaho to the USA. We need you to help in working for JUSTICE and PEACE, all what Palestinians are asking is JUSTICE in their homeland, the USA shows that it is not an HONEST BROKER, we do need to help our country to work for TRUTH and not for ineterests or under lobbies pressures.

Thanks You can send to us a copy of letters, if you want, at labibkobti@aol.com

Rev. Labib Kobti

President Bill Clinton

Dear Mr. President:

Some things are difficult to sort out! Other things are not! The present outbreak of violence in the Middle East is one of the latter. No one, least of all the Israeli government, should be surprised by the fact that after virtually universal warnings about the violence which would follow an Israeli move to build an (illegal!) settlement on Jebal Abu Ghneim/Har Homa, violence did in fact break out when the Israelis took the unilateral decision to go ahead and build this settlement.

Mr. President, This is a crisis which never needed to happen! The Israelis announced their intentions well in advance of the start of their bulldozing. They received plenty of fair warning from all sides, including their own security services, that this move was unwise and would lead to violence. The US administration was also well aware of the proposed actions of the Israeli government and of the warnings concerning violence. You also knew that "all hell would break loose," should the Israelis initiate the building of this settlement. You even offered mild verbal warnings to the Israelis that this move was not helpful to the peace process.

But the Israelis took action in spite of all warnings about the certain consequences of their initiative. And in response the US Administration has done nothing except to veto all possible UN Resolutions condemning this action! As a result the settlement continues to be built, day by day by day, completing the circle of (illegal!) Jewish settlements which create a stranglehold around East Jerusalem. And the fuel which ignites the present violence continues to be poured on the fire!

Mr. President, the question to ask and answer at this point is not "How can we put a lid on the violence?" but rather "How can we bring a halt to the provocations which have brought about the violence?" As long as the Israeli government, and the US administration along with it, continue to work at the problem of Palestinian violence by clamping down on it without working to redress the causes which give rise to it, there will be no peace in the Middle East! I am completely baffled by the fact that this does not appear to be a working understanding within either the Israeli or the US governments.

Mr. President, what we are witnessing now consitutes only the latest in a long and bloody cycle of "self-fulfilling prophecies." The way to stop this cycle is not to issue ultimatums about "zero tolerance for violence," as worthy a position as that might be! The way to stop the cycle of violence in the Middle East is to investigate the "root causes" which lie behind this violence and seek to eradicate those causes and to enact just policies for the peoples involved!

Mr. President, it is justice, and justice alone, which will create the fertile ground within which peace can take root and grow in the Middle East! And under the present circumstances "justice" for the Palestinians clearly means the halting of the Jewish settlement on Abu Ghneim/Har Homa.

I urge you to speak out forcefully against the building of the settlement on Jebal Abu Ghneim/Har Homa and to support your words with the firm commitment to remove all funding for this and all other such illegal settlements from US aid to the State of Israel. I urge you as well to communicate clearly and unambiguously to Prime Minister Netanyahu the very obvious truth that the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians will never move forward, as long as a provocation of this magnitude is not brought to a halt.

Mr. President, peace in the Middle East hangs urgently in the balance! Now is the time for decisive and courageous action! Listen to your heart and "do the right thing"!

Sincerely,