October 18, 2007                                                                   
 
Dear President Bush,                                                  
 
I am taking the liberty of writing you this personal letter because I fear you have put the State of Israel in a most dangerous, life-threatening situation. You have achieved this both by your June 24, 2002, policy speech, and by your planned “Peace Conference”, to be held in Annapolis, Maryland.
 
I have spent many sleepless nights since your speech on June 24, 2002, when you first declared your vision of dividing Israel into two states; a Jewish one, and an Arab state carved out of Jewish Biblical land.
 
IN YOUR JUNE 24, 2002, POLICY SPEECH you declared:
“My vision is two states, living side-by-side, in peace and security.”
You also stated that it is untenable for Palestinians to live in squalor and OCCUPATION.
 
Mr. President, your “vision” is based on a faulty premise. Israel is not occupying Arab territory! On the contrary: LARGE PARTS OF ISRAEL ARE OCCUPIED BY THE ARABS.
 
The Arab claim that the country was theirs and was taken away from them by the Jews is completely false and lacks any historic basis.
 
The following is a short summary of Israel’s history:
 
Israel became a nation in 1312 B.C.E., i.e. 2,000 years BEFORE the rise of Islam, and long before there was any Arab nation. Israel (Palestine) has been the homeland of the Jewish People since biblical times. It was subsequently “occupied” more than 15 times. Among its occupiers were the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Ottoman Turks. The longest occupiers of the Holy Land who ruled on and off for 400 years­between 1517-1917­were the Ottoman Turks. They were followed by the British who ruled under a Mandate of the League of Nations (later the U.N.) to renew a homeland for the Jewish People.
 
Jews had dominion over the land of Israel over 1,300 years before their expulsion by the conquering Roman Empire. Moreover, Jews have had a continuous presence in this land for over 3,300 years.
 
As for your planned, so-called “Peace Conference”, to be held in Annapolis, Maryland, which you announced on July 16 of this year, you seem to have stacked the cards unfairly against Israel.
 
You have invited all your Arab friends, and in addition, only countries who have declared themselves to be in favor of a TWO STATE SOLUTION.
 
What then, remains to be discussed at the Conference?
 
Your plan is to have your Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, chair this Conference. It is well known that Ms. Rice is no friend of Israel.
 
For example, at her Senate confirmation hearing as US Secretary of State, Rice stated: “If I am confirmed, I will be especially honored to succeed a man I so admire- my friend and mentor, Colin Powell.”
Colin Powell, Secretary of State during your first term, famously described Yasser Arafat to a US Senate committee as follows: “One man’s Terrorist is another man’s Freedom Fighter.”
 
In addition, James Baker, your father’s Secretary of State, of “F-ck the Jews” fame, is one of Rice’s best friends. They have many common interests and attitudes.
 
To top it all, Chevron Oil Company, one of the ten largest oil companies in the world, named one of their giant tankers “Condoleezza Rice” in honor of her dedicated service. As you may remember, many critics complained at the time, that the ship served as a giant floating symbol of your administration’s cozy ties to the oil industry.
 
No wonder then, that the Israeli People are wary of the upcoming Conference, which Ehud Olmert has agreed to attend on behalf of the country he supposedly represents. (This man is currently under a number of criminal investigations!) At this Conference there will be a preponderance of Arab nations. Prime Minister Olmert has foolishly accepted the invitation. Does he not realize Israel is slated to be the sacrificial lamb?
 
President Bush, it is only fair that the person writing this letter identify herself. I am an elderly lady, who will, God willing, celebrate my 78th Birthday at the end of this month.
 
I am a Holocaust survivor, born in Austria. I escaped the Nazi death machine when my parents succeeded in having me accepted on a Kinder Transport to Sweden, just a month before the outbreak of World War Two. (My cousins were not as fortunate, and are believed to have died in a concentration camp).
 
My parents were able to escape Austria by crossing the border to Italy. At the end of the war they were part of the group of one thousand survivors who President Roosevelt allowed to enter the United States. Our family was miraculously united in the US, where we subsequently became American citizens.
 
I received my higher education, from age seventeen through college, in the United States. I met and married an American Jewish lawyer who had served in the American Army throughout the war. After the War, he attended Wisconsin University and Yale Law School on the G.I. Bill.
 
My husband and I have four children and seventeen grandchildren. We currently live in Jerusalem, Israel. We consider the United States as our homeland. At the same time, as religious Jews, we feel that Israel is our spiritual homeland, promised to us Hebrews by the Almighty G-d as an everlasting inheritance.
 
From my perspective as a Holocaust survivor, I fear that my children and grandchildren are not safe from another Holocaust.
 
The current situation frightens me more than I can describe in words.
Iran is about to acquire the atom bomb and President Ahmedinejad repeatedly states his intention to wipe Israel off the map.
           
At this point I must tell you, President Bush, that I voted for you both in the election of 2000, and in the election of 2004. At that time, I worked hard on my popular weekly English radio program from Israel, (INN: Israel National News), to recruit the American absentee vote on your behalf. My program was mainly directed to American audiences. I was fortunate to be able to interview many interesting prominent Americans such as James Woolsey, foreign policy specialist and former Director of Central Intelligence and head of the Central Intelligence Agency.
 
In light of all this, I implore you, Mr. President: Do not divide the Holy Land!
 
I truly believe that such an act on your part will have the most dangerous repercussions for Israel, the United States, and in fact, the entire western civilization, whose values and belief system are based on our common Holy Bible.
 
I believe that you truly wish to promote Peace in the Middle East.
However, dividing the Holy Land will have the exact opposite effect.
 
We cannot hide from ourselves the fact that Mahmoud Abbas, who you are promoting as Prime Minister of this new theoretical Arab State, is a former well known terrorist who co-founded the PLO together with Yasser Arafat. We must also face the fact that his terrorist Fatah Organization has murdered many more Jews than even Hamas! To this day, Abbas denies that there ever was a Holocaust, a view shared by Iran’s President, Ahmedinejad.
 
We must keep in mind Mahmoud Abbas’ educational background. He graduated from the University of Damascus, Syria, and subsequently earned his Ph.D degree at the Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow. Both these institutions are known for their hatred of Israel. Abbas’ thesis was, in fact, about Holocaust denial. His dissertation was entitled: “The Secret Connection between the Nazis and the Leaders of the Zionist Movement”.
 
Abu Daoud was one of the terrorists intimately involved in the planning of the Munich Massacre of Israeli athletes in the 1972 Olympics. Daoud alleged in his autobiography that Mahmoud Abbas was the main paymaster behind the attack.
 
Mr. President, do you really plan for this terrorist to be Israel’s peace partner?
 
There are many Israelis and Americans, both Jews and Christians, who feel that your Conference will have a strong anti-Israel component, and therefore will result in a harmful outcome for the Jewish State.
 
You have yet to announce the final-final date for your Conference. We hope that you give us the courtesy of notifying the public as to when it will be held, so that we can finalize our own preparations. We plan to hold a Zionist Conference in New York preceding your Annapolis Conference by a few days.
 
In conclusion, I would like to quote Oklahoma Senator Inhofe’s Senate Floor Statement of March 4, 2002, entitled “SEVEN REASONS WHY ISRAEL IS ENTITLED TO THE LAND”:
 
“Reason Number 7:  I believe very strongly that we ought to support Israel; that it has a right to the land. This is the most important reason:
BECAUSE G-D SAID SO.”
 
 
Respectfully Yours,
 
Ruth Matar
Jerusalem, Israel

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