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Friday, July 1, 2022

My letter to the Patriot News July 1, 2022 RE Suhail Shafi's June 30th letter "The killing of an American journalist is a sign of increasing Israeli human rights abuses against Palestinian"


RE Suhail Shafi's June 30th letter "The killing of an American journalist is a sign of increasing Israeli human rights abuses against Palestinian"

Dear Editor,

Here we are in America, 4th of July weekend 2022, celebrating the freedoms and good fortune we have thanks to our brave & beautifully insightful Declaration of Independence of 1776:  "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"

Yes, it took time for slaves to be freed, and for full and equal rights and respect to be given to all Americans, including women- but we started on the right path in 1776.

After the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 was also establishing the right path on a global level: "Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world"

Israel's most recent extra judicial killing of yet another unarmed journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, is shocking and should be a rude awakening for America's misguided supporters of the dangerous myths and deceptions inspired by Zionist Israel. 

Israel is not on the right path, and never has been on the right path. Modern man-made Israel has been oppressing, impoverishing and displacing the native non-Jewish population of historic Palestine for generations.  America should not be supporting Israel in any way, shape or form. 

Sincerely,

Anne Selden Annab

 

Women delegates from various countries played a key role in getting women’s rights included in the Declaration. Hansa Mehta of India (standing above Eleanor Roosevelt) is widely credited with changing the phrase "All men are born free and equal" to "All human beings are born free and equal" in Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

 

 PATRIOT NEWS

The killing of an American journalist is a sign of increasing Israeli human rights abuses agains Palestinians | PennLive letters

Over a month ago, Shireen Abu Akleh, a U.S. citizen of Palestinian heritage working as a journalist with the Al Jazeera network was killed by Israeli occupation forces while wearing a press vest clearly identifying her as a journalist. One month after this brazen extra judicial killing of an unarmed journalists, the Biden administration has refused to take a stand against the killing of a U.S. citizen by a supposed U.S. ‘’ally’' and has instead vaguely advocated for an ‘’investigation’' into the killing, while ignoring the mounting evidence the killing was conducted by the Israeli military.

The murder of a prominent Palestinian American journalist comes at a time when the human rights situation in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories under Israel control for five and a half decades appears to be deteriorating with extrajudicial killings, ethnic cleansing and house demolitions against Palestinian civilians becoming increasingly the norm.

The human rights violations are paid for by U.S. tax dollars sent by the United States to the tune of $3 billion a year. In other words, at a time of increasing economic challenges in the US, American tax dollars continue to be funneled into one of the world’s most repressive regimes whose human rights record Amnesty International, in one recent report, compared to South Africa’s apartheid.

The murder of a U.S. citizen and journalist should come as a reminder at a time of economic uncertainty no reason exists why U.S. overseas aid should be paying for human rights abuses by Israel.

Suhail Shafi, Mechanicsburg, Pa.