The Foreign Service Journal, January 2003

FCS Belongs at Commerce Albert Zucca’s letter in the November FSJ talks about both Congress and the White House back- ing the transfer of the commercial function to Commerce. As I recall, that stemmed, at least in part, from a strong and continuous stream of com- plaints to both from the “customers.” American business representatives felt they were being treated as second- class citizens at many embassies, start- ing with the ambassador. I was a third-tour economic/com- mercial officer then. I’ve never for- gotten a deputy chief of mission telling me I was spending too much time with American business visitors and not enough time writing reports. State wasn’t taking care of business. Jonathan Bensky Foreign Commercial Service Officer FSI/The Senior Seminar Arlington, Va. Thoughtful Coverage I wish to congratulate the Foreign Service Journal for the well-rounded and comprehensive series of articles focusing on India in the October issue. The six thoughtful articles by American and Indian practitioners illuminate current internal and exter- nal developments on the Indian sub- continent and the evolving relations between our two nations. I learned much from the articles and want to express my thanks to those who brought the issue to fruition. I expect the FSJ will continue to lead and repeat the pattern in presenting important issues. A final comment: In both the July and October issues, Patrick Theros repeatedly states what Jews “accept and believe.” As the beneficiary of a classical Jewish education, I take umbrage at the erroneous assertions surrounding events in Roman-gov- erned Judea 2,000 years ago. His assertions are at variance with Jewish historians and religious experience. Michael S. Zak FSO, retired Annandale, Va. Arnold’s Bias I just read Terrell Arnold’s October FSJ article entitled “Palestine: The Problem and the Prospect” for a sec- ond time to make sure that it was bad enough to prompt me to write in and take exception. Just by its title the arti- cle betrays a bias, which the author doesn’t have the courage to acknowl- edge in the text, hiding instead behind a thin curtain of so-called even-hand- edness. Much media reporting nowa- days follows this same pattern, bend- ing over backward to appear even- handed, and in the process equating the intentional murder of Jewish civil- ians by suicide/homicide bombers with Israeli attacks that aim for bomb- making laboratories in Palestinian areas but also cause civilian casualties. What do the bomb makers expect if they work in apartment buildings in densely populated areas, that they are somehow off-limits? Does it look like I have a bias of my own? Yes, I do. I am pro-Israel and make no bones about it. I wish the best for Palestinian Arabs, but I ques- tion, like most Israel supporters, just why their leaders squander every opportunity they’ve been offered to establish their independent state. I think you’d find bipartisan agreement in the United States that Arafat squan- dered such an opportunity most recently at Camp David, preferring a new intifada, with accompanying death and destruction, to a genuine offer of peace and statehood. As the late Abba Eban once put it, the Palestinian leaders “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” How is it possible that Arnold, reaching back into history to try to explain the present, fails even to men- tion any of the following: the history of continuous Jewish presence in areas roughly equivalent to present-day Israel, dating back to antiquity; the Holocaust; and the persecution and eventual expulsion of Jews from Arab countries around the time of Israel’s independence? Arnold almost bemoans Israel’s prosperity, as though it has been ill- begotten and entirely at the expense of Arabs. True, some Arabs were dis- placed by Israel’s independence, just as Jews living in pre-independence Israel were frequently targets of bloody attacks and ambushes by the Arab pop- ulation. We should be inspired by Israel’s prosperity and survival and by L ETTERS J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 3 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 7