Correspondence
Correspondence THE MUDDLE EAST I NEVER THOUGHT I'd find myself accusing Ariel Sharon of being weak, but Reuel Marc Gerecht is right ("Losing the Middle East," March 18). This constant...
...government did not lift a finger to help, although, granted, the Clinton administration did next to nothing to respond to terrorist attacks on our own soil...
...Discrediting Egypt's historical role is shameful and ludicrous...
...Tod Lindberg's "America Knows Terrorism" (March 18) praised the German government for sending troops to Afghanistan (without mentioning that the largest antiwar rallies in Europe have been held in Germany) yet condemned the French government as typical of "distasteful European responses" to our war and wistfully hoped that sometime in the future France will "lend a hand...
...Polls consistently show that the majority of French people support America in the war on terror and approve of their own government's dispatch of military forces to Afghanistan to support the United States...
...Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry...
...As for Gerecht's baseless accusations that President Mubarak's wife Suzanne is pursuing a sinister agenda to undermine a pillar of Egyptian intellectual life, the American University in Cairo, nothing could be further from the truth...
...ADHD has been extensively researched over the last 55 years and is the most studied childhood psychiatric disorder...
...government did not support the French war effort, and the American media and liberal left denounced the French as imperialists while sympathizing with the poor, misunderstood Arabs...
...and supporters of Israel, Mr...
...The truth is that Egypt will never waiver in its commitment to a just, fair, and comprehensive, peaceful settlement...
...Gerecht says the settlements "comprise a bit less than 1.5 percent of the West Bank and Gaza...
...The French know war, they know terrorism, and they know that this war against terrorism is very much their fight as well...
...In the portions of the West Bank and Gaza from which Israel withdraws, the Palestinians will be free to move about without passing through Israeli checkpoints, to build their own political institutions, and to otherwise do as they wish...
...by neo-conservatives...
...AMBASSADOR NABIL FAHMY Embassy of Egypt Washington, DC REUEL MARC GERECHT's "Losing the Middle East" is understandable as an expression of justifiable anger and frustration, but Gerecht irresponsibly and without explanation uses a widely quoted statistic to misrepresent the impact of Israeli settlements in the West Bank...
...Mubarak has done a great deal . . . to support . . . [Bush's] war against terrorism...
...However, I have been greatly disturbed by the tendency of The Weekly Standard to hold the French up as the quintessential example of anti-American feeling in Europe...
...After all, Vice President Cheney rather than Colin Powell, who opposed military action against Iraq in 1990, has been charged with drumming up support for our coming war against Iraq...
...France, however, has already sent 4,500 troops to serve in the war, including a squadron of French fighter-bombers that launched airstrikes to support Operation Anaconda, a battalion of soldiers for security duty on the ground in Afghanistan, and a naval task force that includes an aircraft carrier...
...French intelligence services have also closely cooperated with the United States since September 11, and with great success, including the breakup of an attempted attack on the U.S...
...peace envoy Anthony Zinni looking over his shoulder, can then determine where the demilitarized zones should be...
...I find it somewhat hypocritical for the United States to criticize France for coming around late to support a war that involves the security of all Western nations...
...He also fails to mention that the proposed new campus in El Qatamiya, a suburb of Cairo, will serve to relieve some of the pressure off the old, overcrowded campus, which is located on Cairo's busiest downtown square...
...Yes, the French foreign minister has criticized widening the war to include Iraq, but it appears that our own secretary of state shares similar views...
...The settlements' distribution makes them far more intrusive than the simplistic 1.5 percent statistic would indicate, without even considering other controversial issues that Gerecht ignores, such as the settlements' connecting roads under Israeli control, the bypass roads, and water rights in the West Bank, all of which are highly relevant to the true impact of Israel's West Bank settlements...
...LAWRENCE S. PERLOW Senior Vice President, General Manager Commercial Operations Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation East Hanover, NJ VIVE LA FRANCE AS A SUBSCRIBER TO THE WEEKLY STANDARD, I enjoy the magazine's refreshingly conservative approach to the events of the day...
...ROBERT B. BRUCE Assistant Professor of Military History Sam Houston State University Huntsville, TX...
...Lindberg mentions the attack on the U.S...
...This constant Israeli-Palestinian you-hit-me-so-I-hit-you-back is counterproductive...
...In particular, I believe it is important to recognize that France is indeed with us in the war against terrorism...
...If Israel does not intend to annex the West Bank and Gaza, it must eventually withdraw from a considerable portion of those territories...
...Yet it took three years for the United States to realize that imperial Germany was a threat to our security as well, while France fought in World War I from the beginning, losing 1.3 million men...
...The Israeli settlers who end up on the Arab side of those lines will have to be moved to the Israeli side, by force if necessary...
...Sharon, with U.S...
...The Israeli Defense Force needs to crush the terrorist organizations operating in the West Bank and Gaza, as quickly and thoroughly as possible...
...While France waged its war against Arab terrorists in Algeria from 19541962, the U.S...
...These settlements are not contiguous, but rather are scattered about in almost all sections of the West Bank that are not closed by the Israeli military or that are uninhabitable...
...It took two years and a vicious attack against our own forces to make us finally take a stand against the Axis powers in World War II, while French soldiers fought, and died, from the beginning once again...
...Jim McDonnell Baton Rouge, LA IT SURPRISES ME THAT THE WEEKLY STANDARD would allow the publication of Reuel Marc Gerecht's falsehoods aimed solely at discrediting Egypt's role in the Middle East...
...There have never been any proposals suggesting the closing of the original campus, as Gerecht erroneously states...
...While France dealt with Algerian terrorist attacks throughout the 1990s, the U.S...
...They have stepped up to the front lines once again and, with their huge indigenous Arab population and close proximity to the Arab world, have placed themselves at great risk in doing so...
...Another article, appearing in the March 13 New York Times, describes the Egyptian president as a voice of reason in the Middle East...
...To take one example, of which there are dozens, the Washington Times recently published a commentary on March 10 in which the author states: "Despite carefully waged campaigns against him...
...Furthermore, Ritalin is the most studied drug prescribed for ADHD, with over 200 studies completed on more than 6,000 school-aged children...
...The Arabs who wind up on the Israeli side can stay put or leave, their fates to be determined case by case, and those who must leave should get a reasonable sum for relocation and fair market value compensation for any property they lose...
...Studies have shown that children with ADHD who go untreated are significantly more likely than others to drop out of high school and college, sustain medical injuries, make few friends, engage in antisocial activity and substance abuse, acquire sexually transmitted diseases, and become pregnant early...
...Moreover, a recent study found that children with ADHD who received treatment for the disorder experienced an 85 percent reduction in the risk of substance abuse compared to those with ADHD who did not receive treatment...
...It is also futile, since Egypt will remain dedicated, and will never change its course towards peace...
...Therefore, we would like to provide the following facts: Contrary to the article's assertion that ADHD "is the subject of heated dispute among medical professionals," ADHD is recognized as a valid medical condition by all leading authorities including the U.S...
...STEVE WINEBERG Exeter, NH RITALIN RX MY COLLEAGUES AND I read Melana Zyla vickers's "Readin', Ritalin, and 'Rithmetic" with great disappointment (March 11...
...Not only does Gerecht fail to mention that Suzanne Mubarak is a graduate of the AUC, but both of her children call the American University their alma mater...
...It has been used safely and effectively for more than 40 years with no evidence of any negative long-term health effects...
...We feel it necessary to correct misinformation in the article that contradicts scientific evidence proving the safety and efficacy of Ritalin and other Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder treatments...
...Will they still be given to violence then, knowing that one more attack on Israel will result in their losing what little they have left...
...That statistic is deceptive...
...Unlike the United States in past wars, France has immediately rendered military assistance in this conflict...
...Marine barracks in Beirut, but did not mention that 58 French soldiers were killed in an attack on their own barracks in Beirut that same day...
...Elementary arithmetic shows that, with enough scattering, settlements, or anything else, can be nearly ubiquitous without occupying much area...
...In addition, far from Vickers's depiction of ADHD as a benign condition, when left untreated, the disorder can have a profound effect on children and their families...
...Calming the violence in the Middle East can only be achieved by unilateral Israeli action...
...President Mubarak's recent visit to Washington also received the highest praise in the U.S...
...Speaking at the 75th anniversary of the very institute she is accused of wanting to destroy, Suzanne Mubarak stated that "In a time when bridging the cultural divide between East and West has assumed a new sense of urgency . . . The American University in Cairo, with its solid adherence to the culture and traditions of Egypt, exemplifies the best of both worlds...
...press...
...To begin with, Egypt's efforts toward bringing an end to the violence that has bloodied the Middle East and in supporting the U.S.-led effort against global terrorism have been officially acknowledged by President Bush as well as the American press and public...
...embassy in Paris...
...What they'll have is a shrunken version of the "Arab Palestine" created by the United Nations in 1947...
...But what then...
...Because of the severity and pervasiveness of the symptoms, ADHD can cause problems academically, socially, and psychologically, thereby affecting a child's self-esteem and ability to reach his or her full potential...
Vol. 7 • April 2002 • No. 28
