[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Letter to the Editor

[Tammy Watts]

This is a letter I sent to the Daily Illini which may or may not be printed.  I believe the letter to which I am responding appeared either Monday 6th or Tuesday 7th.

  
  Re: the recent letter "River to the Sea," perhaps the writer and others with similar sentiments need a reminder of what transpired a little over three weeks ago.  In the name of free speech, inflammatory cartoons of Islam's Prophet Mohammad were published in this very newspaper.  Those who upheld the local appearance of these cartoons, originally printed in Denmark, argued vehemently that free speech included the right to insult, degrade and offend.  
   
  Now at issue is a newsletter distributed by Students for Justice in Palestine containing the quote "Palestine will be free from the River to the Sea."  The same individuals who were such rabid proponents of free speech three weeks ago are crying foul.  In their minds, any statement implying there is an occupation of Palestine steps on the toes of Israel, America's sacred cow, and casts doubt on her right to exist.  The letter writer even went so far as to toss around terms such as "genocidal underpinnings" and expressing outrage that this group has access to student resources.  
   
  Suggestions of "genocidal ambitions" on the part of Palestinians are of course hypocritical; those who apply such terminology to one side are either blissfully unaware or deliberately ignorant of the massacres of entire Palestinian villages after the establishment of Israel in 1948.  The double-standard of which Palestinians are on the losing end obviously applies to history and politics as well as free speech.  
   
  Tammy E. Watts-Obeidallah
  1735 Valley Rd., Apt. B
  Champaign, IL  61820
  (217) 721-3585
  

		
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