Letter: Middle East could learn from Native Americans

Friday, July 5, 2002 | 3:41 a.m.

We saw the movie "Windtalkers" a few nights ago. It depicted members of the Navajo Nation assisting American (read "white") Marines in World War II, fighting and dying alongside them.

How very illogical. They were, unbelievably, helping "us" against a common enemy.

We "took" their land. They were subjugated and humiliated. "We" confined them to reservations, amid horrible discrimination.

Rather than help us, wouldn't a proper course of action be to emulate Palestinian homicide bombers, to strap bombs to their bodies and the bodies of their children, and have them blow themselves up in a shopping center in Flagstaff, or in a pizza parlor in Gallup and murder some innocent children?

And those Native American tribes who were so cruelly driven from their homes in Florida to Oklahoma -- shouldn't they be shelling nursery schools in Tulsa or blowing up busses in Oklahoma City?

Isn't that the "logical" way "rational" people like the Palestinians act when matters don't go their way?

History for a long time (and in the movie) labeled our Native Americans as "savage Injuns," but most have proved themselves to be loyal American citizens, despite the injustices to which they were subjected.

They could teach the true savages, the Palestinian Arabs, whose "suffering" has been mostly self-imposed and minor by comparison, how to coexist in a civilized manner.

They could also give Israel some insight into the consequences of trading land for peace.

LE ROY BERNSTEIN