I call on President Hosni Mubarak to stand up firmly and determinedly to the new U.S. Congress which will take office next month after the holidays. I call on him to declare a war without arms of course, since I am still a seeker of peace, as I have always been. Instead, it would be a preemptive war, as we learned from the Americans, specifically targeting the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Representative headed by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. This woman is a Jewish immigrant from Cuba. Her original name is Ileana Ros y Adato. She took her current name from her husband Dexter Lehtinen, a Republican like her who left politics in Florida after being accused of misconduct and conflict of interests. He appears to be a member of the Episcopal Protestant Church, and this is why Ileana is found through Google to be a member of the same faith. However, her mother's parents are Jews, which means that she is Jewish. I want to put it here on the record in the clearest possible terms that I have no objections whatsoever to which faith she chooses to profess, and all I am concerned about is her politics. For instance, if I were to compare her with Amira Hass, who is an Israeli, I find her to not even merit wiping the dust off Amira Hass's shoes. I consider Hass to be better than the majority of Arab journalists, and her shoes have indeed collected dust, as she often tours the Gaza Strip and records Israel's crimes against its people. When the Republicans chose Ross-Lehtinen to head the Foreign Affairs Committee at the House of Representatives, she thanked them and spoke of her intentions to restore fiscal balance in foreign affairs, and said that she will propose a number of cuts in the State Department and Foreign Aid budgets. There is much fat in these budgets, she said. What is meant here is Egypt before any other country. Lehtinen had proposed suspending the 200 million dollars in U.S. aid to Egypt, and asked recently, “Why are we giving $1.5 billion to Hosni Mubarak in light of an election rampant with fraud?” I ask her here: Why are you giving Israel three billion dollars? I want President Mubarak to read the words of this Cuban American from the angle of the recent decision by the House of Representatives regarding military aid. Out of 5.44 billion dollars, “no less than” three billion dollars (as mentioned in the text of the decision) are to be given to Israel, 1.3 billion dollars to Egypt and 300 million dollars to Jordan. If we add these numbers quickly, the total turns out to be 4.6 billion dollars (out of 5.44 billion dollars allocated to the entire world). This figure is entirely a form of aid to Israel, because Egypt and Jordan would not have received a single dollar were it not for the peace treaties that they signed with Israel. It follows from this that American Representatives such as this Cuban immigrant are robbing U.S. taxpayer money during a severe financial crisis, to give it to a fascist state that murders, destroys and steals the homes of the Palestinians. The United States has given Israel 200 million dollars to build the Iron Dome. By contrast, Ross-Lehtinen hates the Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims, and is opposed to UNRWA. For this reason, she objects to paying 200 million dollars to the Palestinian Authority and wonders what the United States has gotten in return. This is while bearing in mind that the Palestinian Authority cooperates with Israel to a degree that I strongly object to. In other words, Israel itself accepts what this extremist woman rejects, who does not ask why Israel is given half of total foreign security aid. She supported all the wars waged by the Bush administration against Arabs and Muslims, and continues to support these wars even today. There is a statement she made which summarizes her bigotry and racism, which is: “Whether or not there is a direct link to the World Trade Center does not mean that Iraq is not meritorious of shedding blood. The common link is that they hate America”. I would say that the common link is that Israel's representatives in the Congress such as herself are the ones who made the United States the most hated country around the world, all for the sake of a petty apartheid and neo-Nazi state. If everyone who hates America were to be killed, half of mankind would perish. Returning to President Mubarak, I remind him that Egypt is half of the nation and the nation's leader. All that Egypt's President has to do is summon the Arabs, and one hundred million Arabs will descend to the street without asking him why he summoned them. I remind him of his leadership of Egypt and of Egypt's leadership of the nation and then call on him, at the first [adverse] declaration, not action, by the Foreign Affairs Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives or by its chairwoman, to sever ties with Israel, as a first step, because of its espionage activities in Egypt for example, and to withdraw his recognition as a second step. If he did so, he would find all those who oppose him today walking behind him and cheering for him along with his supporters, and if he ran for president in any Arab country he would no doubt win. Am I responding to Ross-Lehtinen's extremism with equal extremism? Never! Egypt is capable of doing whatever it wants and Israel will be on the losing side. As a reminder, the Arabs cut off oil 43 years ago, with the price of one barrel less than three dollars and yet the whole West went down on its knees. The price per barrel then rose to 15 dollar in one year, and continued to increase until it reached 40 dollars in the early eighties (the equivalent of more than 200 dollars in today's prices). Following the terrorist attacks of 11/9/2001, the then Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz threatened George W. Bush of halting cooperation (not severing ties) because his administration supports Israel. Two days later, the administration issued a stance in support of two independent states, Palestine and Israel, living side by side. Meanwhile, the then Secretary of State Colin Powell put 20 conditions before President Bashar al-Assad following the invasion of Iraq, which were all rejected by the Syrian President. Although the United States is the world's last remaining superpower, terrorism (legitimate resistance was limited) has defeated and humiliated America in Iraq, and put an end to its imperial schemes. The above, Your Excellency President Mubarak, is correct information not opinion. As for my opinion based on these facts, it is that Egypt is stronger than every example I mentioned, perhaps than all of them combined, and you Mr. President are in your fifth term, and perhaps tomorrow sixth term, and I expect nothing of you short of what you expect for yourself, i.e. a good closure. (Tomorrow: When Egypt was the mother of the world…our world). [email protected]
