PUTNEY-On May 8, The Commons printed my letter to the editor, "We just want a permanent ceasefire" regarding Israel's war on Gaza. Steven K-Brooks fired back that my position was an "absurdity."
He distorted what I had written.
K-Brooks is correct that I compared how the U.S. labeled both Nelson Mandela and Hamas as terrorists (even though Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for leading South Africa out of apartheid). But I absolutely never gave any "assurance" that Hamas would bring a "peaceful transition" away from war, as K-Brooks alleges, and which he calls "absurd."
To the contrary. I wrote: "It was not that [Palestinian] voters loved Hamas" when they voted against the Palestinian Authority in 2006. I said they voted for Hamas because they were "sick of the corruption of the Palestinian Authority."...
Jean Anne Kiewel has accused Jewish Voice for Peace of promoting a "false equivalency," for equating slogans from Black Lives Matter and Palestinians. Palestinians often chant, "From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free." She claims that this is hateful. Thankfully, she also acknowledges that Israel's attacks...
PUTNEY-I was struck by the cognitive dissonance in two side-by-side articles in the Dec. 6 Voices section. Richard Evers writes of the "savage, horrific, racist vengeance" of Israel dropping U.S.-made-2,000-pound bombs on a hospital and other targets in Gaza. Elayne Clift tries to convince us that the 2024 election...
I was struck by the cognitive dissonance in two side-by-side articles in the Dec. 6 Voices section. Richard Evers writes of the "savage, horrific, racist vengeance" of Israel dropping U.S.-made-2,000-pound bombs on a hospital and other targets in Gaza. Elayne Clift tries to convince us that the 2024 election is about only one issue: whether the U.S. will survive as a democracy. She praises President Joe Biden's commitment to democracy and his achievements domestically and internationally. Whatever happened to Martin...