The following account is fictional, but all that facts included are real:

To: President George W. Bush

From: A Palestinian

I know America is the purveyor, and perhaps inventor, of modern democracy. Your people value freedom and inalienable rights for all, including the right to due process and freedom from oppressive governance. I find it contradictory, however, that you so staunchly support the exact opposite of this for our people.

The majority of us want none other than full autonomy and a country of our own?even if it borders land of Israel prior to the Six Day war in 1967. Like our leaders in the Palestinian Authority, I do not feel a peace process can be possible without you. For better or worse, you are the sole nation on earth with the power and influence to make a difference here in Palestine. From our vantage point, your roughly $3 billion in aid to Israel makes you perhaps the only nation in the world that can barter a withdrawal of troops in our towns, or negotiate some semblance of human rights enforcement in accordance with the United Nations and Geneva Conventions which you are party to.

I applaud your comments that Israel should withdraw its troops. I can?t help but think, however, that your bellicose talk is idle, since Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the Israeli Defense Forces continue to commit legal and moral injustices all around me.

My town has been surrounded for weeks now with virtually nothing allowed in or out. Not even ambulances make it past Israeli roadblocks. Some that try are fired on. Many of us also go on without water and electricity. In some cases there are even food shortages.

All around me I see mass arrests. Some of my friends and family have disappeared without a trace. Authorities will not disclose where they are or if they were taken at all. Amidst this, there are rumors of executions without trial?including one about a potential 200 deaths in the city of Jenin, which authorities refuse to comment on. At one time, our town was given a degree of protection before several human rights workers were arrested themselves. My fears are heightened with the passing of a new law allowing to Israelis to indefinitely hold anyone suspected of crimes against the state. Considering your long-standing tradition of due process, I assume you would find this disturbing?especially considering that the superior weaponry they are using to suppress us?that is, each bullet that penetrates us, each tank that demolishes our homes?is American made and often paid for by the U.S. taxpayers.

Often times, Israeli forces are reminiscent of your own British rulers over two hundred years ago, holding military quarter in our homes and often using our buildings as make shift prisons for their waves of arrests. This does not absolve our own Palestinian Authority, however, who in their own way make life difficult on us. Like most of my people, I support autonomy ardently, but I do not condone deliberate attacks on Israeli civilians, which the Authority often turns its back to. Also, Palestinian militias have even committed their own abuses against us, on the suspicion of aiding Israel. Like most civilians in this war, I am caught in a crossfire?one that you have the power to stop.

With your well-known support of Israel?s military operations against us, we hardly see you as a good faith bargainer. But we cannot exist as a state without you. Though many nations in Europe have called for Israeli withdrawal, only you have the power take action. As I stare out the window to the rubble of collapsed structures that is typical of much of this war torn land, I urge you to make Israeli forces pay serious attention your demands. Show them your calls for a ceasefire and general human rights for our people are not empty. Threaten to withdraw political and economic support if you our ignored. Like it or not, we need you. Hold the governments of Israel and Palestine to your own standard of justice and equality.

Respond to Josh Leon at [email protected].