THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 9, 1994 TAG: 9412090007
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A22 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
The editorial on the Bosnia tragedy (``No easy answers,'' Nov. 30) called the outcome a major embarrassment for the United Nations, NATO and the powers of Western Europe, ``a lesser one for the United States.'' I beg to differ with the last part.
The United States, too, ought to share ``a major embarrassment, or, better yet, shame, for the tragic events unfolding in Bosnia-Hertzegovina.
Since we remain the only world superpower and the leader of the Western alliance, our actions or lack of them reflect the moral stature, in a major way, of a nation called upon by history to make a difference in humanity's destiny. The already large-scale death, rape and suffering, the result of terrifying ``ethnic cleansing'' in the heart of Europe for the second time in our generation, is no minor occurrence to be glossed over nor to be accepted as an inevitable outcome of the Soviet Union's collapse and the subsequent disintegration of Yugoslavia.
A firm and determined response early on (though not too late now) to Serb aggression would have sent a clear and unmistakable signal to all concerned, including our NATO allies and the United Nations, that we mean business and won't be deterred by threats of ambitious and vicious zealots. While all partners to the Balkan conflict are guilty of committed atrocities, given Serb military superiority as well as scope of violence, it bears the lion's share of responsibility.
Who will forget that the capital Sarajevo, the playground of the 1984 Winter Olympics, was turned into a graveyard? Is it because the majority of Bosnia's people are Muslems that Christian Europe and America are indifferent to their plight? Does the absence of oil in Bosnia's blood-soaked ground make such a fateful difference? Why not allow Bosnia, crippled by an arms embargo, the dignity of fighting back?
Those who argue that lifting the embargo would prolong the war and spread it must contemplate Bosnia's elimination as a necessary sacrifice. This kind of genocide logic is unacceptable morally and practically, serving only to deepen and entrench the crisis, even beyond its geographic region.
I shall always be grateful to author Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor, for pleading with President Clinton at the dedication ceremony of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, to vigorously pursue the saving of innocent Bosnian lives. We ought to have learned by now the escalating price of appeasing aggressors.
Rabbi ISRAEL ZOBERMAN
Virginia Beach, Dec. 2, 1994
Editor's note: Rabbi Zoberman is the son of Polish Holocaust survivors. by CNB