Re: Tamils and Jews should help each other

 Dear Sir or Madam:

 Let us introduce ourselves. We are Tamils. We have certain things in common with Jews.

The Tamils and the Jews are both ancient peoples. The Tamils built the cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus valley.  These cities had cultural and trade ties to Mesopotamia when much of Jewish culture was located there. The two Tamil cities are believed to have declined starting in about 1900 BCE, so we might even be a little older.

The first “Aryan invasion” of our original homeland in Northern India took place in the 1500s BCE, and was only the first of several.  Over centuries the center of Tamil culture shifted to southern India and Sri Lanka and currently includes a Tamil diaspora with settlers in almost every country of the world.

The Hebrew word abba (dad) is similar to the Tamil word appa. The Hebrew word for mom is imma   and the Tamil is amma. Whether this similarity shows a common origin, borrowing from a common source, or just coincidence we don’t know, but we hope it is the former.

Saddam Hussein hated Jews and Israel.  We can all remember the pictures of mass hangings of the Jews of Bagdad when Saddam “discovered” that they were all Israeli spies. He also was a generous benefactor of the Colombo government that has been trying to exterminate the Sri Lankan Tamils. (Jews were about of 25% of the population of Baghdad before Saddam and his Baath party came to power; there are only a few dozen now. Tamils were more than 30% of the population of Ceylon in 1948 and are under 20% now, so Colombo is making progress.) Our enemies have made common cause, so perhaps we should too. Iran and Libya, no friends of the Jews, are also among Colombo’s allies.

Elli Wiesel made the following statement: “Wherever minorities are being persecuted we must raise our voices to protest.  According to reliable sources, the Tamil people are being disenfranchised and victimized by the Sri Lanka authorities.  This injustice must stop.  The Tamil people must be allowed to live in peace and flourish in their homeland.”

If anyone doubts that “disenfranchised and victimized” in this case means genocide, will be glad to supply the proof.

The widow of Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov, Yelena Bonner, delivered a particularly strong pro-Israel speech at the Oslo Freedom Forum. She also asked

“Have you heard of any statement made by the President Obama that would have put pressure the government of Sri Lanka during the last 4 months of military assault on the Tamil Tigers? He could have saved lives, prevent humanitarian disaster and re-new negotiations. Did he? “

Dr. Ellyn Shander, MD, a Jewish humanitarian and activist who has worked in Sri Lanka, writes:  “Today over 300,000 Tamils in Sri Lanka are imprisoned in concentration camps by their own government because they are a minority. They are treated as less than human. They are raped, abducted, starved, denied medicine, tortured and prevented from going back to their homeland in the north of their country. The similarity to Nazi techniques to extinguish the Jews is chilling. "Never again" seems hollow, as this genocide occurs before an apathetic international community .As governments rush to appease China, they enable the Sri Lankan -China alliance to extinguish an ancient people and their culture.

“The Tamil struggle is our struggle too. “

The most important point: Jews were the victims of a recent attempt, the holocaust, to exterminate them. Sri Lankan Tamils have been the victims of a similar attempt that began with independence in 1948 and is still going on. We hope that this painful connection gives us enough common experience that we Tamils may call on Jews for help.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Tamils for Obama