Fact rather than Fiction

Please consider the following letter for publication in the New Haven Register. Thank you.

To the Editor of the New Haven Register: Given his decades of anti-Israel activism, I was not surprised by anything Stanley Heller wrote in his August 15 article other than the snippet of honesty near the end where, by acknowledging his responses to the security personnel at Ben Gurion Airport were "very incomplete," he effectively admitted he is not above misleading people about the Arab-Israeli conflict.

He clearly decided what he would write even before he went to Israel and the disputed territories. There are many observations which may be made and which epitomize the Arab-Israeli conflict. None were found in Heller's "very incomplete" article. Here are two of mine. In 2002, at the height of the Palestinian Arab's terrorist offensive, I visited Connecticut's Partnership 2000 sister city of Afula. I visited Emek Hospital and was shown rooms where both Arab terrorists and their Israeli victims had been treated, in the same room at the same time, by a mixed Arab-Jewish staff which worked as hard to save the lives of the terrorists as the victims.

This past summer, during a much safer period, with the terrorist offensive effectively defeated by the very measures Heller railed against, I visited Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem and was shown emergency rooms protected by reinforced concrete. In particular, I was shown a special emergency room used for VIP's, such as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon when he suffered a stroke. It was explained the very same emergency room was used when Arab terrorists were brought to the hospital, and for the same reason -- it was designed to have space for security personnel protecting the patient. In Israel, when it comes to emergency medical care, Palestinian Arab terrorists are given the same treatment as the prime minister. During the same visit, I observed an Israeli Magen David Adom ambulance rushing to the hospital. It was stopped at a checkpoint where armed security personnel questioned the driver and inspected the ambulance before allowing it to pass and bring the patient to the emergency room. As a result of Arab terrorism, Israeli Magen David Adom ambulances are given the same scrutiny Heller complains is given to Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances.

Meanwhile, Hamas and Hezbullah still refuse to even acknowledge whether Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, Israelis they kidnapped over a year ago, are alive or dead. Such epitomizes the difference between Israel and its enemies. Sincerely,-- Alan H. SteinPresident, PRIMER-Connecticut