HAROLD TURNER, West Richland

On Dec. 16, Syrian planes bombed a the Yarmuk Refugee Camp. Tons of people killed in a mosque where they had sought shelter. Why are there no pictures of the bodies strewn on the stair cases and the streets shown on national news programs? Why is there no outrage over this incident? Instead the action is calmly discussed as strategy Assad is using to destabilize the area and so defeat the rebels.

In the last two years more people have been killed by their own government in Syria than all the Palestinians in the last 100 years. But this cannot be used to vilify Israel. Therefore the deaths of these people becomes nothing but statistics.

The truth is that these people, just like all the other Palestinians in all the Arab countries are no different than the people around them. There is no separate language or culture. But instead of allowing or encouraging the assimilation into the countries in which they live, they are used as pawns in a hate campaign against Jews, in general, and Israel, in particular.