U.S. indulges Israel

Several weeks ago an American woman protester was killed by an Israeli astride a bulldozer, as she stood in the way of a Palestinian home that the driver had been instructed to level. Bulldozing Palestinian homes has become a common practice of the Sharon regime and is performed for offenses as trivial as a small boy throwing a stone at an Israeli tank. The Sharon government will take no action against the driver.

Contrast this effrontery with the spectacle we saw in Tiananmen Square a little more than a decade ago, when one individual brought a column of tanks to a standstill, and a nation cited continually by Amnesty International for abuse of human rights showed restraint.

The United States spends more per capita on Israelis than it does on its own citizens. Much of the largess goes toward Israeli settlements on Palestinian property and for weapons that the Sharon regime directs toward Palestinians with abandon. It is probable that a quarter of our national debt is due to our indulgence of Israel during the past 55 years.

No one should wonder why the Arabs hate us, nor should we expect peace in the Middle East until we take a more evenhanded approach to the issue.

Douglas V. Hundley

Perry