The Editor:

Re: "Day earns top marks: Alliance foreign affairs critic leads charge on terrorism," Ezra Levant, The Calgary Sun, April 07, 2003.

Ezra Levant's reference to the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade as "Yasser Arafat's personal SS" might cause an eyebrow or two to cock but Nazi-era analogies have been used before in the Middle East's political theatre. Case in point: Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, described fellow Zionist Menachem Begin as being "undeniably" of a "Hitlerian type." [1] Begin, himself a future Israeli prime minister, led a Jeweish terrorist group known as the Stern Gang. While it would also be hyperbole to call it Menachem Begin's "personal SS," there's no doubt both its ruthless methods and hardened mindset were afterwards copied by Arab terrorists.

1. Haber, E., Menachem Begin, The Man and The Legend, New York: Dell Books, 1979, p. 385.

Sincerely yours,

Orest Slepokura
Strathmore AB

c. Ezra Levant