I have to take issue with Greg Jerrett’s Friday column, “Stop the Violence or We Stop the Aid.” He compared the Jews to Nazis. The ones that should be compared to Nazis are those who propose cutting support to Israel.

Israel is surrounded by those who hate it. It needs to protect itself. If Israel gets into trouble, it should be able to count on the United States to help it out. We cannot leave Israel with nothing to protect itself but rocks.

Israel is an independent state surrounded by people who wish it was wiped off the face of the Earth. Palestinians claim the land, but only the Jews lived there 5,000 years ago. Jerusalem is a city built by Jews for Jews.

Why should the Palestinians be upset if Sharon wanted to pray at the Wailing Wall? Wasn’t that built by Jews for Jews?

Should Israel have retaliated for the killing of two Israeli soldiers? Let’s look at what happened. The two soldiers took a wrong turn and were turned away by Palestinian police. That would be like two black men being turned away by American police when the KKK was on his tail.

The Israeli soldiers were killed by the mob of Palestinians, but according to Greg Jerrett, “We should not act all shocked and horrified when two soldiers are killed . “

Maybe it is also OK with Mr. Jerrett that the ones who killed the Israelis waved their bloody hands in the air in jubilation.

Mr. Jerrett, you should be ashamed of yourself. Israel had every right to send their military in to retaliate against this offense.

Ninety percent of Israelis are in the military or the reserves. If Mr. Jerrett’s philosophy holds, then it must be OK to kill 90 percent of Jews since they are soldiers. Israel belongs to the Jews.

The Palestinians want the Golon Heights. In the 1970s, when it was owned by Syria, it was packed full of big guns aimed at Israeli homes, not military targets.

They want the West Bank. That is clearly land belonging to Israel. Jericho is on the West Bank. The Jews owned that since they carried spears. And the Palestinians want all of Jerusalem.

That can’t happen. Israel has lost Jerusalem several times in history. The Babylonians destroyed the first temple and carried the Jews off into captivity, and the Romans destroyed the second temple and dispersed the Jews across the Empire.

We cannot have the third time be when the United Nations pushes the Jews out of Jerusalem and puts the whole city under Palestinian rule.

Mr. Jerrett wants us to believe Israel started this. This started as a bunch of Palestinians throwing rocks because one man was praying. Can war really start with a prayer?

If someone was throwing rocks in the United States because a Jew was praying, they would be tried for a hate crime.

Mr. Jerrett also said there will be peace when Israel has only rocks for weapons. If Israel is unarmed, there are plenty of countries that will force Israel into the sea. There are other countries besides Israel in the Middle East that the United States gave weapons to. For peace to break out in Israel all Yasser Arafat has to do is tell the Palestinians to stop the violence and go back to the table with Barak and talk peace. We are waiting.

As for the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, all I can say is “Remember the Maine.” Did we ever have another Navy ship blow up in Cuba after that?

Benjamin T. Rittgers

Junior

Computer science