More responses to forum: Swedenburg "pro-terrorist" and perhaps pro-Nazi?

Today's Arkansas-Democrat Gazette contains the following letter to the editor:

Nothing is Israel’s fault

After reading letter writer Ted Swedenburg’s liberal tripe recently, I thought I was going to lose my lunch.

So it’s all the evil Israeli’s fault, huh? Well, I don’t remember any news reports of Israeli terrorists blowing up a busload of Arab women and children. I don’t remember reading about an Israeli suicide bomber blowing himself up in a crowded Gaza Strip cafe. I didn’t see Israelis dancing and cheering in the streets when they got the news about 9/11. I must have missed the reports of Israeli terrorists blowing up an Arab airliner full of innocent people. Haven’t seen any Israeli nut case on TV shouting for all the world to hear that Iran and Syria need to be wiped off the map. Didn’t see anything about Israel lobbing Iranian missiles on Hezbollah.

Swedenburg is not pro-Israel by any means, but pro-terrorist. When he finishes speaking at his forums, does he raise his arm and shout, “Heil Hitler”? He’s proof of the well-known medical fact that there is no cure for stupid.

KEN THRASHER
Little Rock

This is in response to a letter of mine published in the Democrat-Gazette, responding to a letter by Darla Newman. (Newman got the same letter published in the Northwest Arkansas Times; my response was also published. Read the letters here. I sent a shortened version to the Democrat-Gazette.)

This is of course a typical McCarthyite smear. My concern is that the paper prints such nonsense without a shred of evidence. I spoke to the responsible person at the paper, who said that Mr. Thrasher was just expressing his "opinion." I said, so it would have also been okay, just his "opinion," if he had called me a rapist or a child molester? She said, that's a stretch. I said, so it's worse to be a rapist or child molester than a Nazi? She changed the subject...

I'll respond briefly here to just one point made by Mr. Thrasher: "Haven’t seen any Israeli nut case on TV shouting for all the world to hear that Iran and Syria need to be wiped off the map." No, but Israeli policy makers are working over-time for regime change in Iran, with their neo-con sidekicks in the White House. And then there is Avigdor Liberman, leader of the Israel Beytenu (Israel Our Home) party, who favors a "peace" plan with the Palestinians that involves not only the "transfer" (read: ethnic cleansing) of Palestinians from areas of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank that are to (according to the plan) remain in Israel hands, but also the "transfer" of Arab-Palestinians who are Israeli citizens into the Palestinian territories. This proponent of ethnic cleansing may now be invited to join the Israeli government by PM Olmert.