Letters to the Editor, October 14, 2003

Although the images are graphic, they are the truth. It would be helpful to keep the Hal Turner Show as as an on-going item. Hopefully those images will be viewed by policy makers and maybe get a showing on American News.

Lobby as best you can for Hal Turner to discuss his images and impressions on C-SPAN, Larry King and others.

Palestinian Watchtower

Genevieve Cora Fraser

We, the observers

Grow numb as we watch

Flaming hatreds erupt

As cold eyes take pleasure

In the Annihilator’s claim

To a victor’s trophy

In settlement lands

Like sentries on horror duty

We survey the scorched earth
Homes desecrated by tank shells

Sanctuaries bulldozed and ravaged

Relics of prophets

Reviled and discarded

Left in heaps on the ground

A moat built for Nablus
Not for security but torment
A raw sewage passage
For Palestinians to wade

Slipping through filth

While IDF laugh obscenities

And shoot

Bullets fly free

In this fascist existence
Flesh is for searing

Torture and pain
Branded with shame

You’ve got no one to blame

But your selves

They taunt

Hallucinatory madness

This killing for gladness
Inflicting on others

As others did to you

Might’s superiority is right

Is scheming and clever

Is greedy and needy

Papered over with lies

Deir Yassin’s dark passage

Unbridled and savage

Presaged the entry

To Purgatory’s gate

Dachau in slow motion

Is Jenin is Rafah is Gaza is

Auschwitz

A stepping stone

A training ground

To asphyxiate the living

Breathing

Palestinian brood

Check-pointed

They’re shackled

Thwarted and hungry

Thirsty in the Wasteland

Israel’s created for them

Palestine’s pulse is taken daily

As steel and cement bastions

Barricade and harbor jackals

Hunkered down and attentive

For resistance is justification

Just waiting to kill

It is with disgust that I take notice of the sheep cargo tragedy/soap opera that is taking place. As I have been informed the sheep were meant to supply sheep meat for a major Muslim religious festival. I’m sure that the sheep are ill. Who wouldn’t be after a life of maltreatment, and then to be shipped off in such miserable circumstances (by a Dutch company, which adds to the disgrace of my nation).... I’m also sure that the meat that these sheep were meant for cannot possibly be considered halal.

Even if the sheep had been intact physically and been allowed into Saudi Arabia, it is doubtful whether they could ever meet the strict criteria of halal food. The abuse that these animals are suffering, inflicted on them by human hands (irrespective of whether these are the hands of Muslims, Jews, Christians or unbelievers), makes them halal, because the very treatment is a downright negation of the intrinsic value that each individual animal has been granted by its Creator.

Both the Qur’an and the Bible are clear about how God wants His Creation to be treated. No Muslim, taking full account of what has been written down in the Qur’an and the Sunnah about how to deal with God’s creation and His creatures, could sincerely believe that God would receive a sacrifice provided under these circumstances as an acceptable offering.

By not allowing the sheep to disembark from the ship and thus adding even more to their incredible suffering, Saudi Arabia, proudly presenting itself as the holiest of Muslim nations (maybe) in defiance of some of the most fundamental principles of the faith it proclaims to uphold. I have been informed that Islam teaches that people will be held accountable for their deeds. If the Saudi government genuinely believes this to be divine truth, then it should draw its conclusions. I’m just too happy I am not in their shoes.

Editor: Jan, I would agree with the vast majority of your analysis. It's a tragedy but it's amazing that you blame Saudi Arabia and want it to accept the cargo while not mentioning Australia. Don't you think it's more fair to say that the cargo should go back to the source if there is something wrong with it.