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In his Nov. 6 editorial: “Rep. “Tlaib’s inflammatory slander of President Biden,” Jim Geraghty claimed that “there is a real genocide underway.” We live in a world where Vladimir Putin is trying to wipe Ukrainians off the map.”
In September, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did just that to Palestinians with his map at the United Nations depicting Israel including the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. He wiped them right off the map. Settlers in the West Bank have driven hundreds of Palestinians from their land in recent weeks, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, many of them already refugees, have been driven south to the Gaza Strip, where many continue to be bombed and killed.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) speaks of equal rights for Palestinians and Jews. Mr. Netanyahu, on the other hand, heads an apartheid government that includes Kahanists like Itamar Ben Gvir and segregationists like Bezalel Smotrich.
Mr. Geraghty took aim at Ms. Tlaib, but ignored the genocidal statements made by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Rep. Max L. Miller (R-Ohio), who she said each call on Israel to “pile up the rubble in Gaza,” “level the ground,” and turn Gaza into a “parking lot.”
Mr. Geraghty’s anger should be directed at anti-Palestinian advocates of genocide, not at Ms. Tlaib, a consistent advocate for equal rights who is endlessly and unfairly vilified in this country because she is a proud Muslim Palestinian-American woman.
Michael BrownAsheville, NC
Regarding the Nov. 8 news article “House votes to censure Tlaib over war comments”:
Vocally defending Israel while living in Europe is a challenge now more than ever. Nothing undermines those of us who take on this challenge more than an Israeli prime minister whose primary goal is his own political survival.
Despite rising civilian casualties, we argue that Israel is fighting to defend itself, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu undermines us with his own apparent lack of concern for the Palestinians and his overheated rhetoric about “mighty revenge.” We are defending ourselves against accusations of genocide and are being undermined by extremists who Mr. Netanyahu supports on the grounds that Gaza should simply be nuclear-armed. We argue that Israel is not seeking to seize land in the Gaza Strip. And now Mr. Netanyahu is undermining us with this reoccupation plan?
As an American living in Spain, I see firsthand how tenuous Israel’s position is in Europe and how its remaining goodwill here is eroding in the service of Mr. Netanyahu’s domestic interests.
The expression “Don’t change horses in the middle of the river” loses its value when the horse in question is willing to drown its rider to save itself. Global support for Israel is the key factor in this analogy. It’s time to change horses.
Oliver KendallBarcelona
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Source : www.washingtonpost.com