Why Assassinations Don’t Work

ALLOW me some space please, to remind some of your readers that before they write about any conflict around the globe and the people involved in it, to do some research first on particular matters and to have a more realistic approach.

A letter to the Namibian “Condemn the Killers” is an example where the writer shows his total ignorance about the situation in the Middle East and it’s people. The writer claims that Palestinians are foreigners in the Holy Land and should be expelled by the Israelis in order to achieve everlasting peace.He also writes that Palestinians are not mentioned in The Bible or recorded by historians.In the letter he criticised EU Governments for condemning the assassination of Hammas leader Yassin by Israelis.This isn’t the place for me to write about the 10,000 year long history of these two great nations who contributed so much to world cultures in terms of many discoveries, writings and science.My sole objective is to correct misperceptions on this particular issue.The fact is that the Arabs and the Jews believe that they descend from the same father – Abraham.No-one is sure who came first to the Holy Land.History only tells us that Palestine was first peopled by wondering Stone Age hunters and that permanent agricultural settlement appeared at Jericho about 8,000 B.C.According to historical claims Hebrew (Jews) tribes arrived from the desert in Palestine between the 14th and 12th century B.C. and that roughly the same time the Philistines invaded from the sea.The name Palestine is in fact an adaptation from a Greek word “the land of Philistines” and the name is mentioned many times in The Bible.First Book Gen 21:34: “Abraham lived in Philestia for a long time”.Just for the record I would like to mention that in 1918 the Palestine population consisted of 500,000 Muslim Arabs,100,000 Arab Christians and 60,000 Jews.At the time of the 1948 war, more than 500,000 Palestinians fled from their country to seek refuge with Arab neighbours.In every Arab country where they landed, they were treated as second-class citizens, confined to ghettos specially created for them.Why EU Governments condemn killing of Hammas leader Mr. Yassin is because they believe that the assassination of political leaders promotes more violence and does not provide a solution for either sides.Not long ago, Swapo was just like Hammas, on American terrorist lists, and everybody would agree with me that assassination of its President, Sam Nujoma, by the former South African white regime would only have destroyed the relationship between blacks and whites and caused more hatred; but would ultimately never have prevented Namibia from becoming independent.Slavko Filipovic OkahandjaThe writer claims that Palestinians are foreigners in the Holy Land and should be expelled by the Israelis in order to achieve everlasting peace.He also writes that Palestinians are not mentioned in The Bible or recorded by historians.In the letter he criticised EU Governments for condemning the assassination of Hammas leader Yassin by Israelis.This isn’t the place for me to write about the 10,000 year long history of these two great nations who contributed so much to world cultures in terms of many discoveries, writings and science.My sole objective is to correct misperceptions on this particular issue.The fact is that the Arabs and the Jews believe that they descend from the same father – Abraham.No-one is sure who came first to the Holy Land.History only tells us that Palestine was first peopled by wondering Stone Age hunters and that permanent agricultural settlement appeared at Jericho about 8,000 B.C.According to historical claims Hebrew (Jews) tribes arrived from the desert in Palestine between the 14th and 12th century B.C. and that roughly the same time the Philistines invaded from the sea.The name Palestine is in fact an adaptation from a Greek word “the land of Philistines” and the name is mentioned many times in The Bible.First Book Gen 21:34: “Abraham lived in Philestia for a long time”.Just for the record I would like to mention that in 1918 the Palestine population consisted of 500,000 Muslim Arabs,100,000 Arab Christians and 60,000 Jews.At the time of the 1948 war, more than 500,000 Palestinians fled from their country to seek refuge with Arab neighbours.In every Arab country where they landed, they were treated as second-class citizens, confined to ghettos specially created for them.Why EU Governments condemn killing of Hammas leader Mr. Yassin is because they believe that the assassination of political leaders promotes more violence and does not provide a solution for either sides.Not long ago, Swapo was just like Hammas, on American terrorist lists, and everybody would agree with me that assassination of its President, Sam Nujoma, by the former South African white regime would only have destroyed the relationship between blacks and whites and caused more hatred; but would ultimately never have prevented Namibia from becoming independent.Slavko Filipovic Okahandja