Peace advocate didn't deserve writer's attack

Chapel Hill News; 4/9/03; Ed Brown

As war broke out March 19, Joe Elinoff's letter here derided three distinguished Chapel Hillians (Dr. Henry Azar, the Rev. Harvey Carnes, and mary Lou Leiser-Smith) for their pessimistic slant on war and its aftermath in the Mideast.

The good doctor's mild diagnosis needs no defense now, his "conspiracy theories" - as Elinoff labeled them - having been eclipsed by stem-winders as in the current Washington Monthly. Carnes' evocation of a land potentially milk-and-honey-flowing for both its peoples and all its faiths proves his awareness that "spiritually we are all Semites."

But where these two merely suffer slander ("the far left fringe joining hands with the anti-Semitic - right" ), Leiser-Smith underwent character assassination as unmerited as Irgun's literal murder of Count Folke Bernadotte, the Swede second to Raoul Wallenberg in saving Jews from holocaust: the Human Rights Coalition of N.C. had lately honored her inspiring work to bring peace with justice in all of Israel-Palestine.

Lest by recalling here the bombers of the King David Hotel I seem to be raking up ancient history, I add the assassination of Premier Rabin not a decade ago, when the same terrorist mentality resurfaced, whereby the "Liberator of Jerusalem" became expendable. Surely the fear-based regime of Ariel Sharon holds little attraction for anyone thinking of "packing his bags." I appeal to him rather to stay and join the numerous local Jews for a Just Peace, who like 1,000-plus Refusnik reservist in Israel recognize that the only real security lies in the Jewish-Arab reconciliation.