Scott Dickman is a board member of New Hampshire Peace Action and belongs to the Compassionate Listening Project.
On February 20, I co-authored a My Turn advocating for protests against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank by halting U.S. shipments of armaments to Israel.
A friend questioned the argument as ‘one-sided,’ and, yes, the tone and emphasis were deliberate, given the far-reaching consequences of Israeli policy. My reasoning at the time was based on the potential consequences of an Israeli de facto annexation of the Occupied West Bank. An annexation would effectively negate the possibility of an independent Palestinian state, and one could easily foresee the likely escalation of violence and further erosion of any path toward a just and lasting peace.
Responsibility for conflict should not be measured by “body count” but by choices at the highest levels of government either to perpetuate violence or seek peace. Hence, each side is accountable for its actions and its role in either inciting violence or disrupting the cycle of harm. If we seek a path to peace after decades of failed diplomacy and violence, we must acknowledge that leadership on both sides has failed.
A broader narrative is needed, along with a new paradigm, one that recognizes each side’s fears and prioritizes reconciliation over perpetual warfare.
First, however, we must acknowledge that the violence of Oct. 7 and the devastation in Gaza have shattered trust on both sides, leaving trauma so deep that reconciliation may seem impossible. Yet hope must prevail. Painfully, we know the alternative all too well. History offers recent examples, such as South Africa and Northern Ireland, where peace did not emerge from trust but from the recognition that perpetual violence was unsustainable. It also shows how fear, vulnerability and the absence of self-determination fuel conflict.
In the case of Israel and Palestine, Jewish vulnerability arises from centuries of persecution, diaspora, genocide, persistent antisemitism, regional hostilities and existential threats. These experiences have fostered a deep-seated need for security, resilience, and self-determination.
Palestinian vulnerability arises from forced displacement, occupation, statelessness, economic hardship and the denial of self-determination. These conditions have fueled a persistent struggle for rights, identity, dignity and sovereignty amid ongoing conflict and geopolitical instability.
Unsurprisingly, both narratives are shaped by deep intergenerational trauma, and both sides have resorted to violence in the pursuit of safety.
In South Africa and Northern Ireland, when political and military solutions repeatedly failed, a “third way” emerged, one that prioritized understanding and acknowledging the pain and aspirations of the other. The success of reconciliation efforts in these countries affirms that when each side humanizes the other, lasting peace becomes possible.
For example, South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission of 1996 sought to uncover human rights violations, emphasizing forgiveness over retribution. Similarly, the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 ensured all parties in Northern Ireland had a voice, fostering reconciliation. Both efforts relied on compassionate listening, acknowledgment of suffering and structured reconciliation.
A fundamental obstacle to peace is the narrative each side holds of the other. Israelis and Palestinians are taught early on the stories of historical grievances and violence, shaping their identities, reinforcing divisions and justifying continued mistrust. Compassion challenges these narratives by encouraging individuals to listen to the personal experiences of those on the opposing side.
Programs like Combatants for Peace and The Parents Circle- Families Forum bring together Israelis and Palestinians who have directly experienced the consequences of violence.
Through dialogue, former soldiers and grieving families recognize their pain mirrored in the other’s experience, grieving and healing together. Compassion allows individuals to meet not as enemies, but as fellow human beings who, like each other, love, suffer and long for peace, hoping for safety, health, access to education, meaningful work and the opportunity to fulfill their potential.
Advocating for compassion and respectful dialogue in this context is challenging. Anger runs deep, and ongoing violence only deepens wounds and fuels cycles of retaliation. Many Israelis fear that showing compassion toward Palestinians threatens their security, while many Palestinians worry that recognizing Israeli suffering undermines their struggle for self-determination. Yet, compassion is essential in shaping political dialogue. When negotiators approach discussions with a genuine understanding of the other’s experience, perspective, and aspirations, policies are more likely to reflect these critical considerations.
Nelson Mandela’s leadership in post-apartheid South Africa is a powerful example of how compassion, rather than vengeance, can heal divisions.
If Israeli and Palestinian leaders adopted a similar approach — acknowledging each other’s suffering and seeking solutions that ensure dignity and security for all — a breakthrough in peace efforts could be achievable.
“Kumbaya”? Perhaps.
But regardless of religious affiliation, fundamental moral principles should guide our policies and how we treat each other: with respect, fairness, justice, and compassion. May it be so.
Janet Simmon: Call on senators to vote against billions more in bombs, ammunition to blow Gaza, West Bank to pieces
Mar 7, 2025
To The Daily Sun,
At the Oscars Sunday, delighted cheers went up for the film “No Other Land,” a documentary about an Israeli and a Palestinian sharing friendship and resistance in the West Bank. I was amazed to hear the Israeli director, Yuval Abraham, tell the crowd, “When I look at Basel, I see my brother. But we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law and Basel is under military laws, that destroy lives, that he cannot control.”
Co-director Basel Adra has not been free his entire life.
The entire population of Gaza, the majority of whom were forced out of their homes generations ago, is not free — not even to flee 2,000-pound bombs being dropped on them. Gazans are not free to go back to their homes. They are not free to go for hospital care. They are not free to sell and buy goods from the rest of the world.
Director Abraham continued, “Can’t you see that we are intertwined? That my people can be truly safe only if Basel’s people are truly free and safe?”
It is not possible for Israel to enjoy peace while actively denying freedom to Occupied Palestine. Abraham knows there is a path without ethnic supremacy. He knows that Israel has the power and could choose that path.
As we approach a vote in our Senate to send billions more in bombs and ammunition to blow the people in Gaza and the West Bank to pieces, we can call our senators. We can help stop the killing. Readers should use their voices to show Basel and Yuval that they support safety and peace.
Janet Simmon, Laconia
Peace Coalition Asks Shaheen to Oppose New Arms Transfers to Israel
By Arnie Alpert, Active with the Activists
Arnie Alpert spent decades as a community organizer/educator in NH movements for social justice and peace. Officially retired since 2020, he keeps his hands (and feet) in the activist world while writing about past and present social movements.
DOVER—Six members of the New Hampshire Coalition for a Just Peace in the Middle East met Wednesday with a staffer for U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH, calling on the Senator to oppose a new round of arms transfers to Israel.
Amy Antonucci, a Barrington resident and chair of New Hampshire Peace Action, said the group met for about an hour with Chris Scott, the Senator’s Deputy State Director. Antonucci said Scott heard their concerns about human rights violations and the impact of U.S. weapons.
During the meeting, a group of 18 others held a vigil on a busy street-corner near the Senator’s office, holding a banner reading, “Ceasefire Now. A Just Peace for All,” as well as other signs.
“Violence creates violence and is making all of us less safe,” Antonucci said after the meeting with Scott. Palestinians are the most obvious victims, she said, “but also Israelis and people in Lebanon and throughout the Middle East, and here. Everywhere. All of us are less safe when there is more violence.”
The group’s specific request was for Shaheen to support four Joint Resolutions of Disapproval introduced earlier this week by Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders in opposition to new arms transfers proposed by the Trump administration. According to a Sanders statement, these include:
$6.75 billion for 2,166 Small Diameter Bombs, 2,800 500-pound bombs and tens of thousands of fuzes and Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kits for use on bombs;
$688 million for 15,500 additional JDAM guidance kits for use on bombs and an additional 615 Small Diameter Bombs;
$660 million for 3,000 Hellfire Air-to-Ground Missiles; and
$312.5 million for 10,000 155 mm High Explosive artillery shells.
Sanders said the export of these weapons would violate the terms of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act (AECA).
“Israel had the right to defend itself against Hamas and respond to the barbaric October 7, 2023, terrorist attack, which killed 1,200 innocent people and took over 240 hostages,” the Vermont senator said. “But Netanyahu’s extremist government has instead waged an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people, killing more than 48,000 and injuring more than 111,000 – the vast majority of whom are women and children.”
In response to the peace group’s request, a spokesperson for Senator Shaheen said, “As Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Shaheen has a particular responsibility to ensure that all U.S. arms sales adhere to strict standards. While the committee upholds Israel’s right to self-defense on a bipartisan basis, the arms sales that Senator Sanders plans to object to continue to undergo a review. We are in direct conversations with Senator Sanders’ office on this matter.”
Sanders introduced a similar resolution last year, which won the support of Senator Shaheen. Although it didn’t pass, the peace activists believe it still sent a message that the White House does not have unilateral control over foreign and military policy.
Jessica Bolker, a Dover resident who was part of the group meeting with Scott, said they talked about Shaheen’s role and the group’s hope that Shaheen would take a stand against “the horrific stuff that is being done in our name and with our tax dollars in Gaza.” Bolker, a member of Not In My Name, a group of Jewish New Hampshire residents who have been critical of Israel’s devastating response to the October 7 atrocities, decried “the way that American-financed and provided weapons are being used on civilians.”
Others in the meeting included representatives of 911 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, the Community Church of Durham, Veterans for Peace, and Dover Friends Meeting. The group praised the senator for signing onto Sanders’ previous resolution.
Since the fall of 2023, the Coalition for a Just Peace in the Middle East has held regular vigils outside Shaheen’s Dover office, alternating weekly with U.S. Representative Chris Pappas’ office a mile up the road. While the group praised Shaheen Wednesday for favoring some restrictions on U.S. aid to Israel, they criticized Pappas and noted he is a favorite of AIPAC, the powerful lobbying group which consistently has backed policies carried out by Israel’s government.
Amy Antonucci and the Rev. David Grishaw-Jones, who was also part of the meeting with Scott, were among the five people arrested at a Pappas office sit-in last May. They were found guilty of criminal trespass, but used their court appearances to voice objections to human rights abuses committed by Israel with the support of the United States.
After the Wednesday vigil, another group of five peace activists delivered a letter to a Shaheen staffer stating, “We were proud and appreciative when you voted for the JRDs back in November 2023. We appeal to you to support, cosponsor and vote for the JRDs this time.”
Another delegation, with some overlap of participants, met with a member of Senator Maggie Hassan’s staff Thursday. Organized by the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker group, this meeting focused on the importance of delivering humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza.
Patricia Saenger: Iran is home to Middle East’s largest Jewish population outside Israel
Feb 25, 2025 Laconia Daily Sun
A recent letter to the editor (Sheila Kufert Feb. 11) asserted that “certainly” no Jews live in Iran. This is incorrect but the misunderstanding is understandable. Americans are fed a steady stream of disinformation meant to demonize Iran. While Jews are a small minority in Iran (12,000 to 15,000), it is home to the Middle East’s largest Jewish population outside Israel.
“We have all the facilities we need for our rituals, and we can say our prayers very freely. We never have any problems. I can even tell you that, in many cases, we are more respected than Muslims,” said Nejat Golshirazi, 60, rabbi of a synagogue in Iran visited by USA TODAY in 2018.
The Tehran Jewish Committee even rejected an offer by Israel’s government to pay each family of remaining Jews in Iran up to $60,000 to help them leave the country back in 2007.
Jewish surgeon and member of Iran’s parliament, Siamak Moreh Sedgh, says simply that Iranian Jews are Iranians. They stay because it’s their country. And Moreh Sedgh says he supports his country’s foreign policy, even when it comes to the Jewish state. He says Judaism is not the same as Zionism, the project of building Israel. “There is a great difference between being a Jew and being Zionist,” he says.
It is challenging to be well-informed during times of international tension, yet that is when it is most important.
Patricia Saenger, Temple
OP-ED – Union Leader, 2/21/25
Jesse Gillis: “Be the good you wish to see”
WHEN WE have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle. These are words of Rafael Eitan, former Israeli Army chief of staff, speaking in 1983. Today is no different.
Over the last 14 months, the Palestinians in Gaza have been treated as subhuman. Bombed here, told to go there, bombed there, told to go here. Those that didn’t die from bombs were being starved, were dying of thirst, minor illnesses, being shot at, captured, and tortured. They are unworthy victims, devoid of human dignity.
And we humanitarians? We provide the munitions, financing, and political cover to perpetuate the slaughter.
About 47% of the population of Gaza prior to October 7th, 2023, were children. More than 48,000 people have been identified as dead. Women and children make up more than half of that figure. Under the recent ceasefire, the death toll has skyrocketed as Palestinians are finding bodies in the rubble. The estimates of secondary and tertiary deaths are by some estimates more than 180,000.
Have you seen the images coming out? Cities leveled. Have you listened to then-President Joe Biden’s exit interview? He talked about his conversation with Prime Minister Netanyahu over the indiscriminate slaughter of Gaza. These are war crimes and they are war criminals. Now a new administration has stepped in to perpetuate the nightmare and even extend it into the West Bank.
Today, the ceasefire seems to be on the verge of crumbling. I believe that was always the intent. Multiple members of the Israel Defense Forces and Knesset tell us that Netanyahu’s administration is violating the terms and blaming Hamas. President Donald Trump is adamant about blaming Hamas and killing more Palestinians. Don’t worry, White house officials assure us that U.S. soldiers won’t be used to ethnically cleanse Gaza.
What officials are purposefully leaving out is that U.S. contractors are already working the checkpoints. Technically they are not U.S. military, so we are technically not involved on the ground. With such tension, a crisis may emerge. A Hamas operative, or a Palestinian boy, may injure or kill a U.S. contractor. Such an attack on an American could justify carpet bombing, shelling, launching a ground invasion, occupation, and subsequent ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
Even if our U.S. military doesn’t get involved, the U.S. will do what it can to provide Israel the means to erase what remains of Palestine.
This ceasefire framework was the same from last May, which means the previous administration has been sitting on it, unable or unwilling to enforce it on Israel. This is the moral rot of our institutions.
Our legislature is filled with corrupt, sociopathic, and cowardly individuals who do not deserve our votes nor our respect. They must be held accountable. It is our job as citizens to do so.
I believe there are many of us who believe in the good, who see a common humanity, and want peace. May you feel the courage to speak up, engage with your neighbors, and build common ground. We are in this together. Be the good you wish to see in our society.
Air National Guard veteran Jesse Gillis lives in Pembroke.
MY TURN – Concord Monitor 2/20/25
Stop occupation of West Bank
By WILLIAM MADDOCKS and SCOTT DICKMAN
William Maddocks and Scott Dickman are both board members of New Hampshire Peace Action.
Since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that approximately 48,000 individuals — mostly civilians, 70% of them women and children — in Gaza have died due to Israeli military operations.
The Israeli military, largely funded by American tax dollars, has reduced 80% of Gaza to uninhabitable rubble using the brutal attack by Hamas as justification. While the Gaza campaign has been temporarily halted by the recent ceasefire, Israeli settlement activity and violence towards Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank has increased.
Now, why the West Bank? Historically, the Jewish people enjoyed independent rule on the same land during intermittent periods between 1,020 BCE and 135 CE, totaling approximately 500 years. And for thousands of years, a considerably diminished Jewish presence in the land persisted continuously until a large scale Jewish immigration began in the 20th century. Fast forward to 1967, this same area was seized by Israel during the Six-Day War and continues to retain special significance for Israeli religious extremists. These extremists include Cabinet ministers and officials in senior government positions, who believe settlement expansion in the West Bank is required to fulfill the biblical aspiration of re-inhabiting this ancient land.
Since 1967, long before Netanyahu, Israel has obscured its long-term objectives regarding the West Bank by framing settlement approvals as a response to security concerns, rather than deliberate territorial expansion in concert with religious extremist ambitions. Specifically, Israel has used bureaucratic and legal measures to restrict Palestinian development and deny Palestinians self-determination while expanding Israeli settlements.
For instance, despite international condemnation, settlement construction continues with over 13,000 new housing units approved in 2023 alone. In response, The International Court of Justice, the UN General Assembly, the UN Security Council and many nations have condemned Israel’s occupation as illegal under international law. Even Israel’s own Supreme Court has ruled that Israel holds the West Bank under “belligerent occupation” and that international law does apply to Israel’s presence in the West Bank.
Since Oct. 7, over 50 rural Palestinian communities in the West Bank have been abandoned amid intensifying attacks and harassment by Israeli settlers almost always carried out with the support of the army and police.
According to Amnesty International, “Israel’s launch of a major coordinated military assault on cities and towns across the occupied West Bank follows an escalation in unlawful killings by Israeli forces in recent months and will put more Palestinians at risk.” The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has reported that “there has been a horrifying spike in lethal force by Israeli forces and violent statebacked settler attacks in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, with Israeli forces and settlers killing at least 622 Palestinians, including at least 142 children.”
During this escalation, Israelis also killed Americans, including teens Tawfiq Ajaq and Mohammad Khdour, who planned to return to the U.S. to study law, and 26-year-old Aysenur Eyzi Eygi, who was killed by Israeli soldiers while protesting in The West Bank. With this and the death of prominent Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022 at the hands of the Israel Defense Forces, we question why our tax dollars are being used to arm another country who has faced no consequences for murdering Americans.
The re-election of President Donald Trump has emboldened the Israeli government’s rhetoric when addressing the illegally occupied West Bank. According to a CNN report, Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich recently told members of his party that “the only way to remove the threat of a Palestinian state is to apply Israeli sovereignty to [the West Bank].” This radical agenda is not restricted to a fringe constituency. Rather, it reflects official government policy.
This annexation of Palestinian land in the West Bank will undoubtedly be supported by the Trump administration, as evidenced by the appointments of Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, Elise Stefanik as UN Ambassador and Mike Huckabee — who has said “Palestinians don’t exist”— as Ambassador to Israel.
Expanding settlements, subjecting the West Bank to military occupation and denying Palestinians their right to self-determination are largely responsible for the violence we see. Arguing that these draconian measures are required for security reasons is the height of irony. Unless the U.S. demands an end to the oppression of the Palestinian people, whose majority presence on the land extends back millennia with deep historical and cultural roots, a lasting peace and security is not possible for anyone in the region.
If you agree with New Hampshire Peace Action’s goal to decrease violence in the world and to value all human lives equally, please contact Congress to voice your concerns and to demand an end to the Israeli government’s annexation of the West Bank and the delivery of lethal weapons too often utilized to kill innocent civilians.
The denial of food and basic medical care to the hostages held by Hamas is outrageous and inhumane, and it should not be done to anyone, including the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians trapped in Gaza who are also denied food and medical care. Israel has limited humanitarian aid in Gaza for over a year and has just banned help to Palestinian refugees from a major aid distributor, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
People are starving to death in Gaza and dying because of a lack of medical supplies. Indeed, the release of more hostages was delayed because Israel delayed supplying tents for those made homeless by bombs paid for by our tax dollars, a fact confirmed by Israeli sources to the New York Times.
The focus on the suffering of those hostages and the lack of focus on the suffering of the whole population of Gaza only shows the distorted perception in the U.S. and in Israel. To the west, Israel lives matter. So should the lives of Palestinians.
BOB SANDERS. Concord
Feb. 17 — To the Editor: (Seacoast Online)
Congressman Chris Pappas continues to disappoint New Hampshire peace advocates with his Gaza policies. Recently, he declined to co-sign a congressional letter endorsed by dozens of representatives, demanding that President Trump retract his statement that Palestinians in Gaza must be forced to relocate so that the U.S. can take over and develop
the Gaza strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” This is neither legal nor moral. It is a war crime. Virtually every country in the world has condemned the president’s statement putting the United States to shame. That the congressman chose not to sign this letter is also shameful.
Since being forced off of their land in 1948 and becoming internally displaced and stateless people, the Palestinians of Gaza have been denied their basic freedoms and equal rights, all of which are the root cause of this decades old issue. Facts that Congressman Pappas continues to evade. The Palestinians have made it clear that they would rather die than be forced off of their land — again, as recently shared by prominent Palestinian politician, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti. This makes the Palestinians the very embodiment of our state motto: “Live Free or Die.” It is time that Congressman Pappas understood and upheld these truths.
The only path to peace and stability in the region is ensuring that the Palestinians live with freedom, dignity, and equal rights. As a representative of the “Live Free or Die” state, Congressman Pappas must uphold our values as well as U.S. and international law and take policy positions accordingly. It’s in everyone’s best interest — ours, the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Karina Quintans, Portsmouth
Is Ahed Tamimi the “Joan of Arc” of Palestine?
William Thomas, PR for People 2/15/24
Would you be appalled if the police broke into your home in the middle of the night, and handcuffed, blindfolded and arrested your minor child and threw her into jail? Of course, you would! According to the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), each year some 700 Palestinian children are arrested, detained, interrogated, and prosecuted by a military court system that allows physical abuse of these young people. Currently, there are about 300 Palestinian children (ages 12 to 17) being held in Israeli jails and prisons. One of them is Ahed Tamimi. On December 19, 2017, she was arrested at 3am in her parents’ house in the small West Bank Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh. Why?
Four days earlier, on December 15, Ahed learned that her 15-year-old cousin, Mohammed Tamimi, had been shot in the face by an Israeli soldier at close range. The rubber-coated steel bullet lodged in his skull and eventually he was taken to a hospital after passing through several Israeli “checkpoints.” His surgery took six hours and while the bullet was removed, and his jaw reconstructed, some of his skull bones had to be removed, which surgeons hope to return in six months.
When he was well enough to walk, the military arrested him and detained him. There was no lawyer, no parent present during the interrogation. Later that day, he signed a confession that his skull injury was due to his “falling off his bicycle.” Sadly, this reveals the perfidy of the Israeli authorities. And, some call this Israeli “justice.” Moreover, the arrest and often brutal beatings of Palestinian children while in jail occurs all too often. Israel is the only “democratic” government in the world to prosecute children (only Palestinians) in so-called “juvenile” military courts whereas Israeli juveniles are tried in Israeli civilian courts.
Initially, Ahed thought that Mohammed had been killed, so, when heavily-armed Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) came into her family’s yard, she was angry. Earlier, the town, including the Tamimi family’s home, had been tear-gassed. On seeing the soldiers approach her house, Ahed (16 years old) and another cousin, Nour (19 years old), told the soldiers to leave. Her rage at seeing the Occupation Forces was tangible. Ahed’s anger resulted in her kicking, punching, slapping and screaming at one of the soldiers, an officer.
Every Friday after prayers, villagers gather to walk to the spring whose waters and pool once were used by the Muslim families in the village. The nearby illegal settlement (certified as such under international law and by UN resolutions) of Halamish has taken possession of the spring which is on Palestinian-owned land. These nonviolent Nabi Saleh protests have been going on since 2009. At times, some of the extremist settlers verbally and physically attack the villagers while Israeli soldiers stand by.
In February of last year, a Veterans for Peace (VFP) delegation accompanied the villagers during their protest. They, too, were attacked, both verbally and physically by several settlers some of whom were armed. One VFP member recalled one settler saying to Ahed, “The next time I see you here, I will kill you.” Another youthful “settler” in Palestinian Hebron, said to a US citizen who was Jewish, “I am 10, but when I grow up, I will kill you.” Certainly, not all settlers feel this way but a substantial number do. The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) protect the “settlers” (colonists) who often act with impunity when they physically attack the residents of Nabi Saleh. There are other Palestinian villages who have done popular resistance marches such as Bil’in, Budrus, and Nil’in, whose inhabitants have also been attacked by both the military and settlers. A fact to remember is that massive US aid to Israel subsidizes such illegal settlements – almost $4 billion a year, about $10 million a day.
Ahed’s story is one that deserves to be told. So, as noted, on December 19, 2017, she was taken at gunpoint from her home. Nour, Ahed’s cousin and Ahed’s mother, Nariman, were also arrested and taken to jail. This occurred after the video that Nariman took of the “slap” was posted on Facebook and later was shown on Israeli TV. There was an outrage among most Israelis at seeing the film. Some praised the soldiers for showing restraint as they merely walked away after the “assault.” Others said very negative things. Here are three examples:
At the entrance to Nabi Saleh, several messages were spray painted on buildings: “Death to Ahed Tamimi” and another said, “There is no room in the Land of Israel for the Tamimi family.”
Naftali Bennett, the Israeli Education Minister said Ahed should “end her life in jail.”
A well-known Israeli commentator, Ben Caspit, stated that Ahed’s kicking and slapping the IOF soldier ought to perhaps result in Ahed’s sexual assault in jail, “in the dark without witnesses and cameras.” He is still at his job in Israel.
Ahed’s story is important but so are the hundreds, if not thousands of other nameless Palestinian minors who have been denied due process in these military courts. Israel is the only country in the world that prosecutes children in a sham “juvenile military court’ with a judge in a military uniform and with the children shackled in hand and leg chains. Ahed, her parents and her lawyer asked for a public jury trial but the military court denied that and said it must be a closed trial. Knowing that she would be convicted, the family and Ahed and her lawyer agreed to the plea bargain: Ahed was given 8 months in prison and credited with time served and fined $1400. Her mother got the same sentence and a fine of $1,725 while Nour got time already served (4 months) plus 16 more days in prison and a $575 fine.
It ought to shock the conscience of all of the members of the US Congress and any president that children as young as 13 and 14 are being incarcerated. The UN’s Special Rapporteur, Michael Lynk, recently commented that “the deprivation of liberty of Palestinian children by Israel is institutionalized, systemic, and widely spread.” If this does not stir the moral principles of nearly all Congresspersons, we must ask why. Much of the world understands that under international law, an occupied population has the right to resist occupation even in armed struggle. (see UN Resolutions 3314 and 37/43). “These resolutions reaffirmed the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.” (From Stanley Cohen, a lawyer and human rights activist – Reuters, 20 July, 2017.) Yet, the Palestinian people of today largely eschew violence, including “suicide bombings,” as they realize its failure after the First Intifada (uprising) of 1987 and the Second, in 2000.
Israeli officials knew what the backlash would be if Ahed had been sentenced to as many as 10 years in prison. Nevertheless, arrested at 16, still a minor child, she never should have been given any prison sentence (the same for her mother and her cousin Nour). Some observers state that the unraveling of the Israeli government is happening. As hard as they try to win more and more support and influence with the help of outside financial support beyond what our Congress provides, Israel’s propaganda campaign against the nonviolent Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions program (BDS) is not working. Reports indicate that the BDS campaign is growing stronger and stronger despite the various Congressional and state-sponsored anti-BDS bills that have been introduced and some that have already been passed in 22 states. In the 1980s and 90s, the racist apartheid South African government, in part, was brought down by an earlier BDS campaign which eventually led to the election of Nelson Mandela as president.
Would most American citizens agree that human rights “trump” immoral, illegal, and unjust actions by Israel’s military and the extremist settlers? One would hope so. Many of the Palestinians believe, as Frederick Douglass did, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” Or, one might add, without civil resistance, there is no justice, no equality or freedom. A single word best describes the attitude of a majority of Palestinians, both Christian and Muslim, concerning their struggle – it is SUMUD – remaining steadfast in spite of adversity, including the past 51 years of an ugly and brutal Israeli military occupation.
In reference to the title of this opinion piece, is Ahed Tamimi, a “Joan of Arc?… Is she, as a young girl, woman, doing what the actual Saint Joan tried to do – lead her people to freedom? Ahed’s father, Bassem, says of his daughter, “She has done nothing wrong and is fighting for freedom and justice.” He adds, “My daughter is a freedom fighter who will lead the resistance to Israeli rule.” Moreover, there are segments of Israeli Jews who advocate for human rights for Palestinians and who work to dismantle Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. In Israel, lending their support are organizations such as B’Tselm, Breaking the Silence, and New Profile. US organizations seeking avenues to advance a just peace in Palestine/Israel are J-Street and Jewish Voice for Peace. Interestingly, the comedian Sarah Silverman tweeted on February 16, 2018, her support of Ahed, saying: “Jews have to stand up EVEN when – ESPECIALLY when – the wrongdoing is BY Jews/the Israeli government.”
Currently, this young Palestinian teenager who has become globally known as the face of the Palestinian resistance campaign, remains in prison, another victim of Israeli injustice and oppression. Is Ahed Tamimi the “Joan of Arc” of Palestine? You Decide.
Editor’s Note: William Thomas was in Washington D.C. on March 4, 2018 with other members of Veterans for Peace to attend a protest against the meeting of AIPAC – the Israel lobby – American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Here in the Connector, he shares his insight into the growing turmoil in Palestine and a young woman Ahed Tamini who is being touted as a modern day Joan of Arc.
Post Note: in the Jerusalem Post on April 6, it was reported that Ahed Tamimi was sexually harassed during her interrogation. “Gaby Lasky, Tamimi’s attorney, said in a formal complaint to the attorney general that Tamimi experienced “inappropriate conduct” during questioning, including being told she had “eyes like an angel.” Lasky further added that, “Tamimi’s interrogator threatened to arrest other members of her family should she not cooperate.”
Will Thomas lives in New Hampshire, where he had a lifelong career as a educator, teaching US History and American Government. Since 1989, he has been an active member of Veterans for Peace and creates awareness for this organization. Will is a vocal and productive activist for many causes related to human rights, fairness and justice.
Tags: PalestineAhed TaminiAmerican Friends Service Committee (AFSC)Palestinian ChildrenVeterans for Peace (VFP)Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF)
‘Clean out’ Trump’s administration!’
President Trump says he wants to “clean out” Gaza.
Plus, he is ordering the U.S. military to resume sending President Biden’s 2,000 pound bombs to Israel. Happy Valentine’s Day to Gazans!
What America needs immediately is to “clean out” this rogue administration, nonviolently, of course. We who believe in the Constitution and the rule of law must persuade our Congressional representatives to initiate impeachment proceedings against this rogue president and his sycophants.
Remember Lord Acton’s quote: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
WILL THOMAS, Manchester
Concord Monitor 2/10/25
Grateful to Sen. Shaheen for voting no on HR 23
Thank you to Senator Jeanne Shaheen who used her skills and her influence to shepherd other democrats to successfully vote “no” on a bill that would sanction the International Criminal Court.
Senator Shaheen stood for upholding the ICC amid strong forces seeking to weaken international law. Thank you to Senator Hassan for stepping up to the plate and also voting against HR 23.
In a Jan. 16 letter titled “Same old, same old,” Gary Seidner accuses Hamas of trying to destroy Israel and the Jewish people. I could laugh out loud at the absurdity of the claim except for the immense human suffering involved.
First, it’s horrifying to imagine my loved ones kidnapped or killed. Oct. 7th was horrifying and unacceptable.
But let’s consider just who is actually being destroyed, Israel or Palestine. Which is being bombed into oblivion? Which has tanks, and helicopter gunships and 2000 lb. bombs to drop on the other? To whom have we rushed billions in aid to continue bombing the other? Which one is blocking food from reaching the other and starving the other while destroying their homes, hospitals, cultural treasures and schools, leaving behind uninhabitable ruins?
Which one are we shielding from international law? Which one is actually taking over the territory of the other? Which one is building settlements outside its internationally recognized boundaries and expanding into neighboring countries, including Lebanon and Syria? In the service of which one — Israel or Palestine — are U.S. politicians taking away our first amendment rights?
Just who is destroying whom, Mr. Seidner? Let’s just start there.
PATRICIA SAENGER, Temple
Concord Monitor, 1/26/2025
MY TURN. Gaza lament
By ROBERT AZZI
Robert Azzi is a photographer and writer who lives in Exeter. He can be followed at robertazzitheother. substack. com.
Barcelona, Jan. 6 — I am having a wonderful visit with family, so thankful to all who helped make this visit possible, and, as I read weather reports about powerful winter storms being visited upon America this week, I must admit some reluctance about my willingness to exchange dipping my toes in the Mediterranean (which I did yesterday) for shuffling through freezing temps in Exeter.
Yet, I miss home; miss loved ones, friends, neighbors, books, moments of solitude.
I miss writing and, I must admit, occasionally feel guilty that so many of us are as blessed as we are while there is so much injustice being visited upon the earth.
Especially being visited upon the Holy Land. On days I don’t write, which have been several this trip, I often feel I am abandoning a call; a call to stand in solidarity with the sojourner, the weak and vulnerable, the oppressed and occupied. The wailing and lamentation persists. Just hours ago the Al Jazeera news service, amidst updating reports that Israel has killed nearly 46,000 Palestinians in Gaza, dozens daily, since Oct. 7, 2023, reported that the Gaza health ministry recorded that an “eighth infant dies of severe cold in Gaza … An eighth Palestinian baby has died of hypother mia…” Eighth! At this moment my privilege demands of me to stand in solidarity with the eighth newborn who froze to death in Gaza as its mother tried to nourish and protect the infant child.
The newborn, lacking even the comfort of a manger, never had a chance.
The barbarians are having their way. Today, as I am about to post this reflection, I must admit that I never thought — never could have imagined — that the sun would rise on a day when I too would consider, in one thought, of the calumnies once visited upon the Warsaw Ghetto today being inflicted on Gaza; twin calumnies committed by one people, barbarians, who speak in one language: their accents may differ but their language is known as genocide.
A language of inhumanity, erasure, forced starvation, infanticide.
Today, from a room not far from Barcelona’s shores, from a place where Spanish waters mingle with waters on Lebanon’s and Palestine’s shores, I’m not interested in impressing your minds with the depths of my insights, the cleverness of my creations; I’m interested only in trying to challenge the landscape of your mind.
How do you bear witness? Today, I believe, we’re all Syrophoenicians, all begging to be free — free of the demons of injustice and inequity that afflict us all. Free from being reliant on oppressors’ crumbs that fall from the table, free to raise and nurture children distant from the afflictions of hunger, pain and fear.
Free from barbarians. Last month Christians celebrated, from within the warmth of a manger, the birth of Jesus, whom they believe to be the Son of God and savior of humankind, and whom Muslims venerate as the most revered prophet after the Prophet Muhammad.
Born of an unwed mother, a virgin, in Palestine, a Jew named Jesus challenged privilege and hypocrisy and led through love a life of humility, inclusiveness and goodness.
That all seems not to have carried us very far. Just days ago, the Biden administration, complicit with the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people, announced an $8 billion arms sale to Israel. The planned deal includes medium-range air-to-air missiles, 155-mm projectile artillery shells for long-range targeting, Hellfire AGM-114 missiles, 500-pound bombs and other weaponry.
That’s $1,000,000,000 per frozen Palestinian infant. It’s a price I refuse to pay. I refuse to be complicit with barbarians, war-mongers, criminals.
Today, as I prepare to post after Epiphany, what is being offered is not gold, frankincense, and myrrh but missiles and 500-pound bombs.
Today, as I prepare to post during these winter days of January, days following Epiphany in the Christian calendar, celebrated as Three Kings Day (honoring the visit of the Magi) here in Barcelona, many share the story of the “Holy Family” fleeing to Egypt for safety.
There is no Egypt to flee to. That path is today closed.
The Rafah Crossing is closed. Closed to all but the barbarians, and their agents.
Hospitals are closed: shelter, food, water, electricity, sanctuary are non-existent.
There is no straw in the manger.
Today, as of old, wailing and loud lamentation are heard throughout Gaza, mothers, as Rachel wept, weeping for their children; they refuse to be consoled, because they are no more.
Understand, my loved ones, that if they are no more then we have ceased to be.
“Exploring U. S. complicity with Israeli genocide”
John Buttrick writes from his Vermont Folk Rocker in his Concord home, Minds Crossing. He can be reached at johndbuttrick@ gmail.com
I have witnessed and read many reports of the suffering of Palestinians under Israeli occupation and the war in Gaza. Even so, I have been reluctant to describe Israel’s military actions against Palestinians as genocide. It is a term that easily creates controversy over the strict definition and results in a defensive posture by Israel.
But then, in November, The United Nations Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices released a report declaring that Israel’s warfare in Gaza is consistent with “the characteristics of genocide, with mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians.”
The report supported its findings explaining, “Since the beginning of the war, Israeli officials have publicly supported policies that strip Palestinians of the very necessities required to sustain life — food, water, and fuel.”
Furthermore, I have now read an article in the New York Review by Arueh Heier. He writes, “I thought then, and continue to believe, that Israel had a right to retaliate against Hamas for the murderous rampage it carried out on October 7… It is not genocide for Israel to defend itself.”
However, toward the end of the article he reveals, “I am now persuaded that Israel is engaged in genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. What has changed my mind is its sustained policy of obstructing the movement of humanitarian assistance into the territory.”
Finally, in the New York Times we read, “To many people … the war flashes by … headlines and casualty tolls and photos of screaming children, the bloody shreds of somebody else’s anguish. But the true scale of death and destruction (in Gaza) is impossible to grasp, the details hazy and shrouded by internet and cellphone blackouts that obstruct communication, restrictions barring international journalists and the extreme, often life-threatening challenges of reporting as a local journalist from Gaza.”
It now has become obvious to me that Israeli violations of humanitarian law and rules of warfare warrant the claim of genocide, even as it is acknowledged to be a very serious charge that invokes anger and accusations of antisemitism.
Palestinians have been stripped of the very necessities required to sustain life: food, water, and fuel. On Dec. 19, a report from Doctors Without Borders described repeated Israeli military attacks on Gaza’s civilians and medical infrastructure, along with the “systematic denial of humanitarian assistance.”
Dignity and justice have been taken from the Palestinians.
Israel’s practice of genocide has more implications than just a judgment on the Israeli administration of the Palestinian occupied territory and the war in Gaza.
The United States has continued military aid to Israel, some of which is used to enforce the policy of genocide.
Giving this aid makes the U.S. complicit with Israel’s policy.
A spokesperson for the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations said, “the United States veto in the Security Council on 20 November of a text demanding an immediate, unconditional ceasefire in Gaza demonstrates its complicity with Israel’s actions in Gaza…” The last thing we should want is to have our country complicit in any way with actions of genocide. It violates the commitment to equal justice for all people. And every day that it continues, real people are killed and injured. As citizens of the United States, it is an embarrassment. There is no time to be cavalier about a few more daily deaths while debates over definitions and just war continue. The United States has the leverage and the moral mandate to withhold any more military aid to Israel until Israel agrees to honor international humanitarian law and end the actions of genocide.
It is said that the United States and Israel are bound together by common values.
It’s time to insist that our friendship with Israel includes sharing the value of human dignity for all people.
Letter to the Editor, Concord Monitor, January 10, 2024
Nakba Day, a missed opportunity
Regarding the article on January 6, titled “City Removes [Nakba] Day from Diversity and Inclusion Calendar,” I would like to share my thoughts. Firstly, the article cites an unsigned statement by the City of Concord that asserts, “The City of Concord does not support antisemitism or racism.” This statement is an unfortunate conflation of opposition to Israeli policy with antisemitism. It fails to acknowledge that a significant portion of American Jewry opposes certain Israeli policies while continuing to embrace their Jewish faith and identity.
Secondly, Concord’s decision to remove Nakba Day from the DEI calendar rather than revising its description to present a balanced perspective is unfortunate. The result? A missed opportunity to educate our community about the complexities of interpreting history, especially when it is well understood that implicit and explicit biases influence each side’s perspective on historical events.
Nakba Day commemorates the displacement of Palestinians during the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, a profound human tragedy for those who lost their land, homes, communities, and livelihoods, irrespective of the historical causes. At the same time, after centuries of antisemitism, pogroms and persecution culminating in the Holocaust, it is impossible to uncouple Israel’s existence from the long-held yearning of the Jewish people for a safe haven. It is also worth noting that Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day is not included in the city’s DEI calendar.
Hence, recognizing both events would amplify the opportunity to educate and demonstrate a commitment to acknowledging all narratives and advancing the broader goal of fostering respect and empathy in our increasingly diverse community.
SCOTT DICKMAN, Concord
MY TURN (OpEd) No war with Iran
By JESSE GILLIS. Jesse Gillis is from Pembroke and an active member of NH Veterans for Peace.
I was 15 years old when the warmongers in Washington finally got their war on the citizens of Iraq in 2003. At this point in the 2020s, I thought it was a common understanding the Bush administration lied to all of us: Iraq had no WMDs, no nuclear program, no threats of violence, and no role in 9/11. Yet, disturbingly, few remember the lies.
Invading Iraq was criminal. Every person in that administration, media, thinktanks, and experts that lied to us is complicit in over 180,000 Iraqi civilian deaths and the wholesale destruction of their society.
I was naïve, trusting our administration. I was in a perfect ideological position to harbor ill will against another nation and personally carry out legalized state violence against that nation if called to do so. They will thank you for your service so long as you uphold their vision. Look at how they treat any of us, especially veterans who question why we’re sent to war.
In 2002, President Bush designated Iran as a member of the Axis of Evil, along with Iraq and North Korea. This dribble shaped my ignorant understanding of our foreign policy. Our media pushed this agenda of a war on terror, needing to topple multiple regimes for the good. They were all willing to kill, displace, and dehumanize the men, women, and children of that country so you don’t question the violence.
The war hawks in our institutions have been calling to attack Iran. Some gleefully wait for the right crisis to obtain our moral support for war. The Iranians distrust our government for good reason. They harbor animosity toward the U.S. foreign policy establishment. I’m afraid we’ve forgotten what our government, regardless of the administration, has been doing in recent history.
Our CIA finally, publicly disclosed their involvement in a coup to remove Iran’s democratically elected president in 1953 and install the Shah. He was a dictator, a U.S.-backed tyrant. We interfered with their democracy for oil. He was a despised leader, eventually deposed in the Iranian Revolution of 1979, headed by the Ayatollah.
This is not good for Iran, but our foreign policy establishment preferred this. They even aided in it, helping the fundamentalist, theocratic state take over. Otherwise, the powerful communist and socialist parties in Iran could take power — better for a repressive regime than give the Soviet’s a chance to expand into the Middle East.
Our government began almost immediately to punish the people of Iran for this and continues to this day. We economically sanction them, place oil embargoes, and bar trade from global markets. This has one purpose: to make the daily lives of the citizens so difficult chaos erupts, destabilizing their society, and potentially leading to a violent overthrow of their government. It ruins the citizens’ lives for geopolitical gain. It’s sociopathic. Look at Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Yemen, or North Korea.
Our government supported Saddam Hussein for eight years during the Iran-Iraq war. We provided finances, military equipment, components for chemical weapons, and intelligence to wage war. We even gave Saddam political cover while he used those chemical weapons against the Iranians and Kurds. In 1988 during the war, one of our ships shot down Iranian civilian airliner Flight 655, killing all 290 passengers. Reagan refused to apologize and nobody since then has.
Any understanding of contemporary history in the Middle East could see U.S. foreign policy as antagonistic at best. For over two decades, the war hawks in Washington call for war and regime change in Iran. How are the citizens of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, or Syria doing? Are they better off now with American intervention? Where did the lip service of concern for the people go? The death toll alone is in the millions. Tens of millions are displaced. It’s an atrocity.
These professed Christians look for enemies to conquer, enriching themselves financially, and politically.
They worship power. They serve their donors. No love for their neighbor. No concern for human dignity. No care for the destruction of other nations, for the violence brought to them. They will sacrifice us all for their cause. They will bless the bloodshed in Christian language.
In this, we have the same worth as the men, women, and children of those decimated countries. We are all dehumanized. We have more in common with the people of Iran than we do with our leadership. It is our citizens’ duty to hold our legislature accountable. This is our patriotic duty. They act with impunity as they violate the Constitution. Democracy requires your involvement in the electoral process for it is the only way to hold authoritarians in check.
OpEd: Fighting words aren’t kindling for peace
Union Leader Jan 6, 2025
OVER THE last few months the letters pages and op-ed pages have been full of heated rhetoric on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, which often get emotions flowing but muddle clear thought. Facts are thrown like hand grenades, taken out of context or sometimes just made up.
The main problem with both partisans of Palestine and Israel is they excuse the war crimes of one side by pointing out the war crimes of the other. The pro-Israel war hawks claim that Hamas started the war on Oct. 7, 2023, when in fact the war goes back to at least 1948. While detailing the brutalities of that day resulting in a thousand deaths and over 200 hostages, they often ignore the more than 45,000 killed in Gaza and the countless homeless, sick and famished, dying or dead, because of Israel’s deliberate destruction of infrastructure and prevention of humanitarian aid from entering.
Or they minimize the death toll by saying that the numbers given by health authorities are exaggerated, even when by any estimate they would still be multiple times the number killed on 10/7. Or they contend a large portion of the fatalities are terrorists even though most are women and children. Or they blame the victim, saying that Hamas fighters — who actually live among the population — are “embedded” there and are using civilians as shields.
On the other hand, militant pro-Palestine activists sometimes won’t even mention October 7, or they’ll gloss over the horror of that day. They’ll claim it is a legitimate response to the occupation or previous Israel bombings and killings of civilians. In the worse case, a few even advocate for more such actions.
There is never a legitimate reason to target civilians for any cause. Hamas either committed mass murder or a war crime. Israel knows that in their hunt for terrorists they will kill a massive number of civilians, but it does it anyway. That is an even greater war crime.
The response to war crimes should not be to commit larger ones or more of them. The response should be to bring those who commit them to justice, including the leaders of both Hamas and Israel. That’s why I support the International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and others. (Most of the accused Hamas perpetrators are dead.)
I do not flinch at using the phrase war crimes. Many nations commit them, including our own, such as during Vietnam. But I do flinch at the word genocide, which might be applicable in Gaza, according to the United Nation’s definition.
Still, it is such an emotionally loaded charge when hurled at Jews, who suffered the largest genocide of all. While the atrocities inflicted on Palestinians by Israel do have some similarities to what the Nazi did to us Jews, there are also vast differences in terms of planning, method and scale.
Israel supporters should avoid conflating antisemitism with anti-Zionism, or flinging such terms of “Jew haters” for those who criticize Israeli policies, especially when so many of those critics are Jewish, such as myself. In my experience, most of the non-Jews in the Mideast peace movement have no issue with Jews, just the horrible things that the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinian people. They, like many Israel supporters, yearn for peace.
In the New Year, let’s try not to use fighting words when talking to the other side. Try talking to each other, not at each other. Here is hope for peace — shalom — in 2025. As-salaam alaikum in the coming year.
Bob Sanders, a former reporter, is a founder of Not in My Name, NH, and Ride Against War on Gaza. The views expressed are his own. Sanders lives in Concord.
“Professor is wrong on the genocide in Gaza”
To the Editor: In his recent op-ed “Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics,” retired UNH Professor Richard England disputes the “mortality data” that is coming out of Gaza and reported in the mainstream media.
I find the whole number game and name game (how many killed? is it genocide? etc.) to be deflection and denial. I think it is clear to anyone paying attention that the Israeli government has, for decades, occupied and oppressed the Palestinians in cruel, inhumane ways, that they have destroyed Gaza and killed thousands and thousands of people in plain sight over the past 14-plus months. This idea of Professor England calling the innocent civilians “non-combatants” suggesting that many are Hamas supporters who celebrated barbarism is ludicrous in light of what barbarism we’ve seen within the IDF as they celebrate killing Palestinians, blowing up their schools, homes, hospitals, mosques and more.
When people argue about how many have been killed or what to call the death and destruction — it is a manipulative, intellectual ploy to steer the narrative away from the truth. It is scary that we humans are capable of such delusion.
People believe what they want in order to comfort and protect themselves from brutal realities.
Let’s hope for the strength of compassion and humanity it takes to see the truth in the New Year.
ANNE ROMNEY, Portsmouth
Union Leader, 1/4/25
“Sen. Shaheen respects the law”
At a time when leaders around our state, country and world act as though they and their families are above the law, Sen. Shaheen’s vote to try to hold our ally, Israel, accountable for its actions was refreshing and courageous. She voted for Sen. Sanders’ Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRDs) despite being pressured by lobbyists, the Biden administration and a powerful foreign country. She stood up to those forces and took a step that many of her constituents have been imploring her to take. She upheld U.S. law, in particular the “Leahy Law” barring the U.S. from assisting foreign militaries that have committed human rights violations such as torture and rape. These JRDs would not affect defensive systems, only offensive weapons linked to violations of human rights according to credible human rights organizations, as U.S. law demands.
Some invoke the U.S. friendship with Israel to say what she did was wrong. They think that having an ally means that we never disagree with them, even when they might be doing something wrong, ignoring our concerns, and acting in an ultimately self-destructive manner. None of that sounds like friendship to me. I look to my friends to tell me the truth and help steer me in healthy directions and away from dangerous choices. Sen. Shaheen’s willingness to question Israel’s violence and call for deescalation and a just peace that would bring more security for everyone, including Israelis, should be applauded.
AMY ANTONUCCI, Barrington
Concord Monitor, 12/23/24
Situation in Gaza
The total situation in Gaza, especially the 60,000 plus that have died and will continue to die of starvation, is extremely concerning to me as a Christian. This number comes from IPC, a reputable source. I believe most people are familiar with the phrase from the Old Testament, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” which means retaliation should not exceed the injury. In Romans 12:20-21, it says, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. By doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good.”
Would the situation in Gaza be what it is now if, after appropriate retaliation, humanitarian aid had been allowed in? We will never know since that is not what happened. There will continue to be more and more children and adults dying of starvation, shaming the leaders of Israel and the world.
JEANNINE AUCOIN. Concord
Concord Monitor 12/20/24
During this holiday season, and every day, we must remember that ‘the children are always ours’
This holiday season the world witnessed a surprising scene. Pope Francis is seated at the Vatican viewing the Bethlehem Nativity display in which the Christ child is enfolded in a keffiyeh. Johny Andonia, an artist from Bethlehem who led the project, said it represented the “existence” of the Palestinian people, especially, I might add, their children.
In contrast, our own U.S. governmental institutions have for centuries paid lip service to children, falling far short of recognizing their full humanity.
In New Hampshire, day care workers are grossly underpaid. Centers are scarce and suffer from severe staff shortages. We are one of few states lacking free early education for 3- and 4-year-olds, essential to their healthy development.
We struggle to this day to define what constitutes “adequate” funding for our children’s schools. Chronic underfunding and high caseloads continue to plague child protection agencies and our foster care system. Children in low-income housing suffer from from lead exposure due to inadequate funding for its mitigation.
Most unfortunately, we continue to fall short in our investment in children.
Federal policies continue long-standing programs causing lasting damage to children’s physical and mental well being. Consider the heartless history of laws prescribing family separation. Slaves were “sold down the river,” separating loved ones forever. Native American boarding schools captured children from reservations to indoctrinate them in ways of white people, separating them from their language, culture, and, most importantly, their families.
The incoming administration threatens to reinstitute the cruel policy of family separation to deter “illegal” immigration. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients are now in danger of deportation, foreshadowing a devastating and irreparable loss to children and parents. Recently, New Hampshire joined 18 other states in petitioning the administration to deny health care to DACA children.
On an international scale, the United States, in its continued military funding to the Middle East war in Gaza, deepens its draconian harm to Palestinian children. Palestinian activist Susan Abulhawa condemns U.S. complicity in the violent colonization of Palestine and the annihilation of its people, quoting Chaim Weizmann, who stated to the World Zionist Congress in 1921 that Palestinians were akin to “the rocks of Judea, obstacles that had to be cleared on a difficult path” and David Ben Gurion, who stated “we must expel Arabs and take their places.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) states that the Biden administration is responsible for the increase in child amputees. According to its national director, Nihad Awad, Biden has remained “unmoved by Israel’s systemic campaign of slaughter, ethnic cleansing, forced starvation, and mass destruction that he unfortunately supported and excused.” The U.N. Human Rights Office claims there are 19,000 dead children.
Tragically, we continue to look away; at the Vatican the keffiyeh enfolding the baby Jesus was inexplicably removed after four days, symbolizing that the chance for an immediate cease fire is becoming even more remote.
In 1995, Louis Farrakhan organized the Million Man March to convey to the world a vastly different image of Black manhood. In 2017, prompted by misogynist rhetoric and a threat to women’s rights, women staged the largest single-day protest in U.S. history. What we desperately need now is a worldwide peace march for children in Gaza, who continue to live in the line of fire.
James Baldwin famously said: “The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.”
During this holiday season, let’s take Baldwin’s words to heart. As the pope engages in contemplative prayer, let’s “pray with our feet.” If there’s a cease-fire vigil, attend it; if there’s a march against funding military weapons for Gaza, join it and come together for a children’s march for peace in the name of every child’s right to exist.
Ann Podlipny, Chester
NH Bulletin, 12/17/24
“Sen. Shaheen, leadership, integrity, courage”
I thank Sen. Shaheen, for voting on Nov. 20 in support of Sen. Sanders’ resolutions to stop our government from sending specific weapons of mass killing to Israel. She chose rightly, voting also to ensure that our government does not break our laws. For decades, American politicians and others with power and influence led us to believe that our foreign policies were in our nation’s best interest. They did not tell us that many of these policies would also result in the sacrifice of brown and Black people’s lives in faraway lands and foster ever more war profiteering. As a 78-year-old engaged New Hampshire citizen, I support a moral, ethical path for the restoration of Palestinians’ right to live in freedom and dignity, without interference or attempts at control by others, just as we enjoy and cherish these same human rights.
I am grateful to be allied with hundreds of Americans who are Jews, Christians, Muslims, and of other faiths working to persuade people that we must stop bombing and killing other humans. Supporting the innate dignity and worth of every person by seeking in dialogue that place where we listen to each other, learn from each other, journey toward mutual respect and acceptance of the other’s lived experience, this is how we best reconcile differences, between individuals and within communities of all sizes and kinds. However, at the macro level, first, we must stop the bombing, the killing.
LOIS ANN COTE. Manchester
Union Leader 12/17/24
“Genocide studies don’t work”
To the Editor: A very well-documented genocide is happening right now in Gaza. Many writers to this paper have shared the horrific details. The International Court of Justice has collected voluminous evidence of Israeli war crimes. More than 150 nations in the United Nations have demanded Israel stop bombing Gaza. Doctors Without Borders have shared absolutely appalling eyewitness testimony to civilian suffering and trauma. Little food, no clean water, no safe shelter, no medical care. No one can claim they “didn’t know” — only that they refuse to see.
Yet, despite the promise of genocide studies (“never again”), the U.S. is overwhelmingly supporting Israel’s annihilation of the people of Gaza. Genocide education hasn’t opened eyes, hasn’t taught empathy for the “other” and hasn’t taught people how to see through the propaganda that governments always use to “justify” their murderous plan. Even Keene State College’s dedicated Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies has been rather quiet.
Let’s acknowledge that genocide studies have failed. They self-righteously focus on the failure of others in smug, empty finger-pointing. They have never been about challenging entrenched powers run amok or the heavy price of being a truth-teller. It takes work. It takes courage. It can mean being ostracized by your community. Genocide studies are apparently about melodramatic moralizing and nothing more. The billions we’re sending to obliterate Gaza is proof. I’m sickened.
PATRICIA SAENGER, Temple
Union Leader 12/16/24 and Concord Monitor 12/20/24
Won’t be helping Israel
To the Editor: On November 6th, I shopped at our Peterborough Ocean State Job Lot. As I checked out I waited for the usual request for a donation — homeless veterans, hurricane victims, food pantries, etc. I was taken aback when asked if I wanted to donate to Israel.
Israel is Goliath to the Palestinian David. Goliath Israel is denying food, fuel, and water to desperate Palestinians in Gaza who have no recourse. Goliath Israel has blockaded Al Shifa hospital and on Saturday the hospital’s final generator ran out of fuel, causing the deaths of critically ill patients including babies. Doctors are operating with flashlights while supplies of everything run out. The same catastrophe is occurring at al-Quds hospital, too. This is goliath Israel’s choice.
Gaza is densely packed (less than a fifth the size of Hillsborough County) and impoverished because Israel has blockaded it for years. Palestinian David has no organized military to resist.
Ocean State asks me to donate to Israel while American taxpayers send them $3.8 billion a year and legislators want to send another $14 billion despite the carnage goliath Israel’s inflicting on impoverished Gaza. I’m asked to donate to goliath Israel, which provides excellent nationalized health care to its citizens while we Americans are told we can’t afford it. Frankly, I was dumbfounded.
TRICIA SAENGER, Temple
Union Leader 12/15/24
Opinion: The way of peace
By John Buttrick
John Buttrick writes from his Vermont Folk Rocker in his Concord home, Minds Crossing.
Christmas this year reminds me of an uneasy congruency between the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory and the Roman occupation of Palestine over two thousand years ago.
Jesus’s birth was burdened by the oppression of the Roman occupation. There was a Roman decree demanding that everyone must travel to the place of their birth and register for taxation by the empire. Jesus’s parents had to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem where Jesus was born.
Soon after, the story goes, the family must evacuate and escape to Egypt to avoid being a victim of the Roman purge of baby boys under the age of two. The king feared that one of those boys would grow up to lead a terrorist attempt to overthrow his reign and Rome’s presence in Palestine.
Over two thousand years later, Israel, occupier of Gaza and the Palestinian territory, is consumed by a similar fear of those identified as Hamas terrorists in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territory. The resulting war has impacted the births of children even more severely than Jesus’s birth in a stable.
They are born in the war-torn rubble of occupation. We are touched daily by the accounts of the war in our newspapers, on TV, and discussed on favorite social media sources. We are updated daily on the numbers of children killed and injured in the Israeli Gazan war, as well as the buildings and infrastructures destroyed, the hospitals attacked, and Israeli military orders to thousands upon thousands of civilian Gazans to evacuate from an area of a planned attack to go to another area just as dangerous. It is a tragic account of brutality and abusive political ideology of an occupying power.
We read less about the conflict in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. “According to new datagathered by the left-wing Israeli NGO Kerem Navot, which monitors Israel’s dispossession of Palestinian land in the West Bank, at least 57 Palestinian communities have been forced to flee their homes since October 7 as a result of Israeli settler attacks.”
The World Health Organization has reported more than 600 Israeli attacks on healthcare facilities and workers in the occupied West Bank since the Israeli war on Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023.
According to OCHA, between Oct. 7, 2023, and Oct. 21, 2024, 732 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Between Oct. 14 and 20, eight Palestinians were reported killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. During this period, there were at least 147 Israeli Forces operations recorded inside the West Bank, including inside refugee camps. Israel’s justification for these actions is “security.” It is similar to the Pax Romana, 27 B.C.E. to 180 C.E. Very little has changed.
This brings us back to one of the oft-quoted lines at Christmas, “Peace on earth and goodwill to all people.” In contrast, the One whose birthday we celebrate, after going through the trauma of living under occupation, stood on a hill overlooking Jerusalem and said, “If only you knew the way of peace.”
Yet all of the music, glitter, “Merry Christmases,” purchasing and giving gifts, the lights on the tree, the special food and drink, Santa and reindeer, and Christmas Eve worship all cry out, “We know the way of peace!” Could this be the year we put our knowledge to the test?
Where is the way of peace in the Gaza war and West Bank oppression? Where is the way of peace in United States military aid to Israel? Where is the U.S. president-elect’s way of peace in his vengeful pronouncements, immigrant policies, and income protection for the wealthy?
The way of peace was not then, it is not now. However, perhaps Christmas this year may break away from the injustice of Pax Romana and Israeli apartheid. Perhaps the way of peace is the path into the future: a vision, an aspiration, a hope to be fulfilled. Perhaps the way of peace will become congruent with life in the future.
John Buttrick, Concord
Concord Monitor, 12/15/24
Right side of history
To the Editor: Sen. Jeanne Shaheen was on the right side of history with her votes on Nov. 20 in support of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Joint Resolutions of Disapproval.
Shaheen voted against shipment of 120-mm tank rounds, high-explosive mortar rounds, and joint direct attack munitions because these weapons are being used to kill more infants, more children, mothers, fathers, the sick, the injured, and the elderly.
Shaheen voted to stop our government from breaking our nation’s laws.
President Joe Biden, many members of his administration, and other elected officials have lied to us over and over about the death and destruction in Gaza. We should say shame on President Biden and other members of Congress who are lying.
If anyone needs more evidence of the war crimes, they can find hundreds of videos on the internet of how entire families have been blown to pieces, burned alive, or crushed under rubble.
As a mother, I cry when I see the photos and videos of dead and injured children. How can we be made to believe that these war crimes are justified?
Granite Staters should be proud that Senator Shaheen is standing up for the children of Gaza.
DOREEN DESMARAIS, Northwood
Union Leader, 12/14/24
Shaheen steps up on Israel, Gaza
Sen. Shaheen recently voted in support of Sen. Sanders’s Joint Resolutions of Disapproval, prohibiting the shipment of U.S. offensive weapons to Israel in violation of U.S. and international law. These weapons — and the tax dollars which pay for them — have killed many thousands of civilians.
U.S. law prohibits providing weapons to foreign militaries committing gross violations of human rights. Sen. Shaheen stood for the rule of law and for protecting innocent human life. I commend her for her courage.
At the same time, Reps. Kuster and Pappas voted against H.R. 9495, a bill that punishes nonprofits (by removing their charitable status) that are deemed “terrorist supporting.” If the Senate approves this bill, nonprofits can now be threatened for exercising their First Amendment rights of free speech on behalf of Palestinians. They are free to support the victims of Hamas but not the civilians in Gaza.
Will my writing this letter one day be called “terrorist supporting”? Will organizations that support immigrants (whom the incoming president has equated with terrorists) be deprived of their nonprofit status? I thank our representatives for having the courage to stand for free speech and against arbitrary government power.
Sincerely,
DAVID BLAIR, Harrisville NH
Keene Sentinel, 12/3/24
The Children of Gaza
Oh, “say can you see . . . the rockets red glare, and the bombs bursting in air,” upon the children of Gaza. The UN Human Rights Office estimates there are 19,000 dead children, while Save the Children reveals that “more than 10 children on average have lost one or both of their legs every day in Gaza since October 7.” What horror, fear, and trauma these families and their children have faced from unbelievable violence which the U.S. has supported with its shipments to Israel of weaponry and ammunition. UNICEF “says all 1.1 million children in Gaza are in desperate need of mental health assistance.” Can Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Antony Blinken, Lloyd Austin, and Jake Sullivan, imagine the terror these children face on almost a daily basis?
The world will not soon forget what the “home of the free and the brave” have done in supporting a full scale genocide in Gaza. CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations), stated that the Biden administration must take responsibility for the horrific increase in amputees in children. CAIR’s national director, Nihad Awad said: “For more than a year, Biden has remained unmoved by the far-right Israeli government’s systemic campaign of slaughter, ethnic cleansing, forced starvation, and mass destruction that he unfortunately supported and excused.” Joe Biden’s unconditional support for Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity will not be ignored by historians and young voters. What America has done in Gaza, especially to children, is unspeakable.
William Thomas, Manchester
Concord Monitor, 12/11/24
“Thank you, Sen. Shaheen”
I want to thank Sen. Shaheen for voting on Nov. 20 to support Sen. Sanders’ joint resolutions of disapproval. A lot of rich people are becoming even more rich from the billions of dollars of weapons transfers to Israel. Our hard-earned taxes are being used to kill thousands and thousands of people and destroy families day after day in Gaza for over 13 months. How can we protect our homes, our families, and our towns, but not care when our taxes are being used to destroy other people’s homes, families, and towns?
Sen. Shaheen voted to stop the deliberate killing, maiming, and starving of the people in Gaza. It is wrong to call her antisemitic. We should remember that advocating for human rights can never be antisemitic. We should all work together to stop the suffering of other humans. And we should thank leaders like Sen. Shaheen who put people over money and politics. Thank you, Sen. Shaheen.
DOREEN DESMARAIS, Northwood
Concord Monitor, 12/11/24
Thank you, Sen. Shaheen
I am writing to thank Sen. Jeanne Shaheen for voting on Nov. 20 to support Sen. Bernie Sanders’ joint resolutions of disapproval, which would have reduced U.S. arms shipments to the Israeli army. Unfortunately the resolutions did not pass. Israel’s continued murderous attacks on Gaza, which have killed 43,000 people, are unconscionable. Most of the victims have been women and children.
We make ourselves complicit in this crime against humanity when our government supplies weapons and money to support the war on Gaza.
JUDITH ANNE ELLIOTT, Canterbury
Concord Monitor, 12/5/23
To the Editor:
I wish I could agree with Richard England that Israel is not guilty of genocide in Gaza (Guest Column, Nov. 26). I could then take comfort in the support of the Jewish Federation of New Hampshire, of President Biden and a majority of both houses of Congress, and of a number of my Jewish friends.
Unfortunately, I can’t get over the facts. From the beginning of the current conflict, top Israeli officials have declared a clear intention to eradicate the people of Gaza. This is so obvious that most Israeli apologists ignore it rather than trying to refute it.
A flagrant example occurred on Oct. 9, 2023, only two days after the atrocities of Hamas’s attack. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared “a complete siege” of the Gaza Strip.
“There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel,” he said. “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”
Scores of genocidal utterances like this were documented by late December of 2023 when South Africa petitioned the International Court of Justice to declare that Israel was in breach of the 1948 Genocide Convention.
Although the court has not ruled, a special committee of the United Nations declared on Nov. 14, 2024, that Israel’s warfare in Gaza is consistent with genocide, including the use of starvation as a weapon of war.
According to its own statistics, Israel has limited the flow of food, water, medicine, and fuel to Gaza far below the volume needed to sustain life. The United States demanded that at least 350 aid trucks a day be allowed to enter Gaza; the number of trucks entering in October and November averaged less than 60 a day.
The Genocide Convention forbids killing in an attempt to wipe out an ethnic group in whole or in part. It also forbids “[d]eliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.”
To that end, the Israeli military has damaged or destroyed 70 percent of the housing. It has all but destroyed the health care system, the water supply, farming, sewerage and sanitation. In violation of the Geneva Conventions, it has shelled hospitals and ambulances. Ninety physicians reported to The New York Times that they had seen children as young as toddlers killed by sniper fire to the head or chest. These are indefensible crimes.
However, I would like to go beyond the argument over genocide. I am appalled by the suffering in Gaza, and also by the suffering in Israel. I am ashamed that the United States is promoting this horrible war by supplying billions of dollars in weapons. To achieve the peace that Richard England and I would both like to see, the United States must cut off the flow of weapons to Israel. Only then can those of good intentions achieve a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages from Hamas.
William R. Castle, Portsmouth
Seacoast Online 12/3/24
Shaheen is a leader
Some people are saying that Sen. Shaheen sided with Hamas and Hezbollah for approving some, but not all of the joint resolutions of disapproval. This is ludicrous. Considering that she is such a strong supporter of Israel, it is amazing to me that she actually took this step. Her position should tell us that she did so because the U.S. is aiding and abetting genocide. I am also hearing the worn out narrative that “Israel is fighting an existential war of survival. To this I would say it is not a war of survival (clearly not now) but an aggressively fought colonization which Zionists had begun contemplating at the turn of the 19th century.
We are complicit in helping them to complete their decades long theft of land and the elimination of the people who have been there. Almost everyone speaks about Israel’s ongoing war against terrorists and regimes on all fronts. This is the war of their own making and it may soon be ours. When we are naming the terrorists, we should be honest to include the settlers within Israel and the other extremists here in the U.S. Senator Shaheen’s vote was not an abandonment of Israel, it was based on a clear headed and realistic view of what is happening. She has shown true leadership where the rest of Congress has failed.
SHARON RACUSIN, Hanover
Concord Monitor, 12-3-24
OP-ED
Bob Sanders: Democrats would be wise to follow when Shaheen leads
THIS HOLIDAY season, I am thankful that Sen Jeanne Sheehan and 17 of her peers joined Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., in voting against transferring more weapons to kill civilians in Gaza and now Lebanon.
Those 19 votes don’t seem like much when compared against the whole Senate, but the fact that nearly 40 of the Democratic Senators took a belated stand against their party, gives me hope in this time of darkness for the future.
Remember, only two senators voted against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which would lead us into the Vietnam War. That war grew and grew, even as mass pressure against it blossomed.
Critics contend that the anti-war movement assured President Lyndon Johnson’s fall and led to the dark days of Richard Nixon. Today, as then, some blame protests against Israel’s slaughter of tens of thousands of women and children for the reelection of Donald Trump.
I don’t dispute that the anger of young people and minorities damped Democratic turnout; the party embraced an unpopular war.
I don’t blame the protest. I blame the war.
We can not shut our eyes in the face of atrocity, especially those who have faced persecution, discrimination and murder in the past. That includes, of course, my people, the Jews.
When I bicycled down to Washington, D.C. in late August, with my Ride Against War on Gaza sign on my back (RAW GAZA), I experienced a groundswell of enthusiasm. People stopped me on the street to donate.
In a primarily Black neighborhood of Philadelphia, four people collected 40 pages of signatures against the war in an hour.
Later, when I knocked on doors for a week in late October in a predominantly Black neighborhood in North Carolina, I noticed a lack of enthusiasm. Although we are targeting Harris supporters, I heard too often, “I haven’t made up my mind” or “I don’t think I’m going to vote this time around.”
I wasn’t surprised by the outcome. Democrats seemingly treated this as a normal election, where you have to win over the narrow middle to win. Republicans treated it like a turn out election, where you have to excite your base to win.
The Democrats were timid and urged preservation of the status quo, while Republicans were bold and wanted to shake things up.
I think it’s time for Democrats to be bold and shake things up, too. And the war on Gaza is one place to start.
According to U.S. law, it is illegal for the United States to supply weapons for those engaged in war crimes. Despite this, the U.S. continues to transfer arms to Israel, which continues to bomb hospitals and schools, target aid workers and journalists. Some 44,000 people have been killed, and countless others are starving or dying of disease.
Democratic politicians continue to defend Israel’s action, wringing their hands and calling it a “tragic situation,” as if Gaza has been hit by some massive earthquake or a meteorite, instead of the weapons of mass destruction we provide.
Democrats say they support a cease-fire, yet continue to fund a war. They assure us we’ve flooded the area with humanitarian aid, yet neglect to mention that aid is being held up by Israel, resulting in a backup of critical supplies.
They call Israel the only democracy in the Mideast but that’s a platitude. The truth is that Israel is an apartheid state. It’s a democracy like South Africa was a democracy, or like U.S. slave states down south were democracies.
It’s not a democracy when a substantial part of the population have no say and few rights.
Stalwart supporters blame Hamas for Israel’s reign of terror and it is true that Hamas is responsible for brutally targeting civilians and should be brought to justice, like any common criminal. But police don’t shoot up a neighborhood to round up criminals holding hostages.
Has Israel’s all-out assault on Hamas worked? If it did, the war and the killing would have stop and the hostages released. The only time a substantial number of hostages have been released so far was during a cease fire.
If Hamas actions are criminal, then Israel is 40 times as guilty based on body count. The International Criminal court got it right, issuing an arrest warrant for the leaders of both Hamas and Israel.
Hamas leaders are dead or in hiding, while the leaders of Israel continue to perpetuate their war crimes in Gaza, and now in Beirut.
That’s why I’m grateful a group of politicians put their foot down. Sen. Sheehan — a known moderate and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — took a stand!
It’s time for Sen. Maggie Hassan, Reps. Chris Pappas and Ann Kuster (and soon Maggie Goodlander) to join Shaheen for the good of their party, the nation and world.
Bob Sanders, a former journalist, is a founder of Not In My Name, NH and Ride Against War on Gaza (RAW Gaza). He lives in Concord.
Union Leader 12/3/24
Letter: We can’t break our laws to back Israel
Betraying our values
To the Editor: Senator Jeanne Shaheen scored a big vote for justice and the rule of law on Wednesday night.
In presenting the resolution to prevent the illegal sale of arms, Sen. Bernie Sanders said, “The Foreign Assistance Act and the Arms Export Control Act are very clear: the United States cannot provide weapons to countries that violate internationally recognized human rights or block U.S. humanitarian aid.”
It has been clearly seen that the people of Gaza are starving and dying of thirst. It is estimated that over 60,000 Palestinian people have perished in the last few months from forced starvation, which is a war crime. It is also against our laws to use starvation as a weapon. Doctors are reporting treating hundreds of patients a day without electricity, anesthesia, or clean water while trucks are waiting at the border.
We can support Israel without breaking our own laws. Sen. Shaheen is on the right side of history.
JANET SIMMON, Laconia
Union Leader 11/29/24
ON THE 11th of this month, we celebrated Veterans Day. A day to pay tribute to those who served and are currently serving. A day to “… honor America’s veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good.”
This day used to be known by the name Armistice Day. When passed in Congress in 1926, it was a day to recognize the end of the Great War, the resumption of peaceful relations with other nations, and the hope peace would never be severed again. It was an exercise in remembering the desire for perpetual peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations. We have forgotten this call.
That language of Armistice Day changed in 1954, striking Armistice and replacing it with the word Veterans. It became a day to honor veterans and remember why we fight. Where is the desire for peace? You only find it on the faces of the victims of war.
We have forgotten what it means to be plunged into war. We see it on their faces, hundreds of thousands of faces across war torn countries suffering at the hands of such impersonal violence on a scale that is hard to comprehend unless you are a victim to it. The smell of burning flesh, the corpses, the injured, the destruction of your towns, the destruction of who you are. Who here knows this pain, this suffering?
Today, more war looms and most of us are unmoved. War is being waged, ravaging nations, communities, individuals, children, all with our government’s backing. Our arms manufacturers are doing their humble duty of aiding one or both sides to the bitter end. These war profiteers pay tribute to Veterans Day as a day to glorify those who wage war.
We are cheated by our legislature, lobbied by those who feel no allegiance to our nation, to us, or to the common good. To this, we will remain indifferent until they drag us into a real war. So, we cheer on our elected and unelected officials with a treacherous policy: wage war to make peace.
Today as I write this it marks 409 days since October 7th, 2023, for which Israel began an assault on every man, woman, and child in Gaza and carried it forward to Lebanon. How did this work for us in Iraq? In Afghanistan? In Vietnam? We were lied into those conflicts and countless more. We were lied into supporting this current evil. They took our empathy and weaponized it.
Today, we do not have peace. We can only celebrate the possibility of peace. We must reignite this desire, bring back the meaning of Armistice Day. By the time most feel this necessity — the ceaseless call for peace — it will be too late for them and us.
Air National Guard veteran Jesse Gillis lives in Pembroke.
Union Leader 11/26/24
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen is on the right side of history
Sen. Shaheen scored a big vote for justice and the rule of law on Wednesday night. In presenting the resolution to prevent the illegal sale of arms, Sen. Sanders said, “The Foreign Assistance Act and the Arms Export Control Act are very clear: the United States cannot provide weapons to countries that violate internationally recognized human rights or block U.S. humanitarian aid.”
It has been clearly seen that the people of Gaza are starving and dying of thirst. It is estimated that over 60,000 Palestinian people have perished in the last few months from forced starvation, which is a war crime.
It is also against our U.S. law to use starvation as a weapon. Doctors are reporting treating hundreds of patients a day without electricity, anesthesia, or clean water while trucks are waiting at the border. We can support Israel without breaking our own laws. The honorable Sen. Jeanne Shaheen is on the right side of history.
JANET SIMMON, Laconia
Concord Monitor 11/25/24
Letter: Friends don’t let friends drive drunk
“Friends don’t let friends drive armed and loaded”
To the Editor: The recent letter from Joe Hubisz of Bradford about the bike ride to D.C. undertaken by Bob Sanders to protest Israel’s tragic pursuit of revenge and deterrence against Palestinians, shows admirable loyalty. However, it seems to show a very pinched view of friendship.
I hope Joe wouldn’t let a friend drive drunk, hand him the keys and buy him a full tank of gas. Yet the U.S., claiming friendship, keeps supplying Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel with the fuel and justification it needs to increasingly besmirch its reputation as a “humanitarian democracy” by murdering civilians and devastating their prospects of recovering.
Israelis mount ever larger protests about hostages un-rescued and murdered while Bibi quibbles about a ceasefire agreement. A crash feels inevitable, with Israel creating enemies and losing friends. We friends could become casualties too, in a wider war with Iran.
I hope Joe Hubisz, and Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, plus Reps. Ann Kuster and Chris Pappas, will remember: Friends don’t let friends drive drunk.
I am a retired 81-year-old history teacher and a U.S. Navy veteran. Regarding the horrific killing and maiming of 40,000+ Palestinians in Gaza, I stand with GEN-Z in condemning the Israeli genocide, aided by Biden, Blinken, and Harris. As historian Howard Zinn once said, “There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.” At the “Democratic” Convention, the delegates were yelling “USA, USA, USA.” The “USA” chant is a prime example of jingoism, of chauvinism, which saddens me immensely. It reminded me of Stephen Decateur’s quote: “Our country, right or wrong, may she always be in the right, but right or wrong, our country!”
If one is honest and informed, one would know that Israel is an undemocratic apartheid state. It violates international law on a daily basis. Some say that AIPAC controls our Congress which should alarm our citizenry. Why does Israel act as a rogue state? It does so because its biggest supporter, the U.S., sanctions it. Thus, Israel’s military, including the Occupation Forces, act with impunity as no one holds them accountable for their myriad human rights violations.
Should Palestinian violence be condemned? Yes, certainly, but Israeli oppression breeds more violence. The dehumanization and demonization of Palestinians creates more violence. When there is no hope for a better future, then some strike back, unfortunately. As a Veteran for Peace, I say, USA, be true to humanity.
Gazans are being brutalized by continual shelling, living an endless nightmare of death and destruction.
It is absolutely horrific and yet it continues as you read this. President Biden talks tough but in actions, he’s ensuring Israeli barbarity can continue unabated. Congress acts as willing executioners as well, speeding bombs and missiles with unrestrained enthusiasm while passing laws that punish Americans who criticize the Israeli government. Meanwhile, Israel assassinates Gaza’s chief peace negotiator (Ismail Haniyeh) and seems intent on instigating a wider, hot war in the region by launching missile strikes into neighboring countries with impunity.
This is how genocide happens, by governments (always by governments) far away, conducted against a people propagandized into the “other,” stripped of their humanity so we don’t feel their suffering.
We know this. We study this. Yet, it’s happening anyway. America has embraced Holocaust and genocide studies but apparently to little effect. We can tune in to the daily horror if we wish. We can read the wrenching testimony of aid workers in Gaza, heroically working to ease the extreme suffering there while Israel ruthlessly blocks food and critical medical supplies. No one can claim they don’t know, only that they refuse to look. It’s an election year. Act.
Refuse to support politicians that defend Israel’s well-documented war crimes and crimes against humanity. Don’t look away. Our “American values” are at stake.
Gary Seidner wonders why students protesting Israel’s destruction of Gaza aren’t protesting the war in Syria, claiming its “blatant antisemitism.” There is a very simple explanation, and it’s not antisemitism. Our government is sending bombs and weapons to the government of Israel, but not Syria. Our government is sending billions of our tax dollars to the Israeli government, not to Syria. Our government is using all its influence to defend Israel’s actions in the UN, it’s not defending Syria.
Like it or not, U.S. policy absolutely makes Americans complicit in Israel’s disproportionate use of force in Gaza and its violations of international law. We are complicit in the starvation, the destruction of hospitals and churches and mosques and schools and homes and infrastructure. We are complicit in the almost complete dislocation of 2 million people and the deaths of over 34,000 Gazans and counting. If you perceive calls for human rights and international law as a threat, you are defending the wrong side. I’m with the students.
Letter: How would Perlman like for it to be done to Jews?
To the Editor: In a recent letter to the editor, Alan Perlman savages pro-Palestinian protesters. To him, the anguish the protesters feel and their outrage is “mindless” and “arbitrary.” He is obviously unmoved by the deaths of entire families, of children buried alive in rubble, of the damage done by 2,000-pound dumb bombs, of imposed starvation.
Perlman incredibly dismisses 34,000 dead Gazans as “civilian casualties of war.” There. Done. Nothing here to see. The only thing that upsets Mr. Perlman is, incredulously, terminology.
I would like to challenge Mr. Perlman to put the shoe on the other foot. Would he feel any different if this same level of violence and destruction was being inflicted on Jews?
Peace for Jews, for non-Jews, for Palestinians, for Americans, and for the world will only occur when people like Mr. Perlman are able to look beyond their own narrowly-defined tribe to accept the universality of human suffering. To resist the temptation to dehumanize anyone who looks different or believes differently or sings different songs or wears different clothes. To truly embrace the substance of “Never again.” To understand that when any community is denied basic human rights, denied the ability to live in safety and raise a family, there will be no peace.
I applaud those who are protesting for their idealism. Empathy is the only path to making a better world.
On Earth Day Remember One of Our Biggest Polluters Is War
Our earth is at risk.
One of the biggest polluters is war.
The cloud that ascends after each bomb hits is full of dust and trash. When buildings are blown up concrete, insulation, and other materials are pulverized into toxic dust. According to the Scientific American a toxic mix of dust, ash and other material from 15 million tons of rubble now blankets Gaza. That toxic air does not stay over Gaza.
In just the first month, Israel dropped more than 25,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip, the equivalent of two nuclear bombs. Israel has dropped highly toxic white phosphorus bombs on Gaza and south Lebanon that can seep deep into the soil and water systems, remaining there for many years.
Almost all of the olive trees, lemon trees, pomegranate trees of Gaza are dead. There are no longer any sewage treatment plants. Farms and trees in Ukraine are no longer. In Ukraine the vast leveling of urban and industrial infrastructure has left pollution of earth and air. All the buildings which are now rubble are spilling chemicals.
Just look at the clouds of smoke and debris that arise after just one bombing.
What do you suppose will be done with all the rubble? What if it is dumped into the sea?
If you work for a company that contributes to pollution in this way give it some thought. If you vote for war, give the earth some thought.
Since the horror of October 7 the entire Gaza Strip has been devastated: hospitals, schools and food sources wiped out. After massive killing of innocents we have heard the Israeli administration say, “it was an accident,” “we had evidence,” “just an unavoidable mistake.” We have heard six months of “excuses” with little or no evidence.
Now Israel’s hand is exposed. Since bombing a consulate in Damascus, making undocumented accusations against UNRWA employees, and bombing three World Central Kitchen vehicles the world can see that much of this destruction was planned and vastly beyond a “response” to the October attack.
The Israeli administration has been working up to taking over the Gaza Strip. Remember Truman’s words, “bit by bit” and see how the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank have been deprived of their land, their homes, their dignity, their cultural institutions.
The United States is complicit. Our senators and representatives have continued to support money and weapons for Israel despite words of concern over their use in opposition to international law. The people of NH can see that our entire delegation is out of step with common sense and humanity.
We must stop sending billions of dollars and tons of bombs and hundreds of planes which enable this plan to eliminate the Palestinians from their land.
US must do more to broker peace between Israel and Palestinians
To the Editor:
This Saint Patrick’s Day was a solemn one for me. Being Irish on my Mother’s side, it is supposed to be a day of celebration. But I found myself thinking about how my Irish ancestors were driven to this country by famine. A famine that was actually rooted in the politics of occupation. Ireland was a food exporting country during the years of the potato blight, forced to send what they produced to England, often at gunpoint. About 1 million people starved to death.
Watching another famine devastate a population of mostly women and children who are starving with food just out of reach breaks my heart.
It is illegal under US law (the Foreign Assistance Act) for our government to send military aid to a country that is restricting transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance. Numerous senators have signed a letter reminding President Biden of this. Senators Shaheen and Hassan did not sign. I urge them to support this initiative, to end the blockade of Gaza, which had already lasted 16 years before Israel’s defense minister ordered a “complete siege” starting last October.
Only a permanent ceasefire and internationally supported diplomacy will create the conditions for security for Palestinians and Israelis, and make the world safer for us all. Fifty-six years of Israeli occupation of Palestine and billions of US tax dollars in military aid has shown how a cycle of violence can go on and on, with so much suffering for civilians on all sides of a conflict.
The Irish and English have made great progress towards a more peaceful and just relationship. In that case, the US helped end the bloodshed rather than sending weapons. I hope we can learn from our history.
The stories of the horror and suffering coming out of Gaza are gut-wrenching. Ordinary people, civilians, wounded and dying, entire families killed, children orphaned, denied food and water, starving. The old and infirm herded into tents lacking beds, heat and toilets. Surgeons facing innumerable casualties without electricity or basic supplies, facing death themselves. Israel, in control of Gaza’s borders, refuses to let in medical aid or food for the entire population leading to plausible charges of genocide. The Associated Press reports that “The Israeli military campaign in Gaza…now sits among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history.” The Red Cross says, “No words adequately capture the depth of human suffering in Gaza.”
Yet, our government can’t send replacement munitions to Israel fast enough. Why? They’re slashing funding for aid workers in Gaza and blocking world-wide calls for a cease-fire. Why? Do they lust for more death and destruction? Is Palestinian suffering, Palestinian humanity, of no consequence to them? Or is this just an excuse to funnel more money to our military-industrial complex? Regardless of the reason, our elected officials are clearly demonstrating that they have absolutely no conscience. As citizens, we have to be the conscience of America. We have to speak out, loudly, for what is right and moral and do it now or we are just as guilty.
The Jan. 17 Monitor carried two letters that spoke to each other. Scott Lounsbury offered the necessity of “both/and” thinking regarding our national dialogue verses the prevailing “either/or.” He writes, “the misshapen truths from “us vs them” are “driven by … one-sidedness, tribalism, and our need for easy answers.” The letter by Matt Leahy offers examples of one-sided tribalism in the Israel war on Hamas. Mr. Leahy (and others) declares that unless Israel gets unlimited support for its Jewish nation-state and condemnation of Hamas, peace will never come. Either support Israel and damn Hamas or forfeit peace. There is a “both/and” option.
Hamas proposed one in its 2017 update and revision of its 1988 charter. It rejects the Zionist state in Palestine and considers “the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 1967 (borders) with the return of refugees and the displaced to their homes.” Hamas is willing to turn a blind eye to the existence of Israel while having its own sovereign state in the West Bank. It’s a “both/and” solution, having two opposing thoughts at once, something most can manage. An exception is Netanyahu. For him and his party it’s all or nothing, certainly not co-existence and peace. Mr. Leahy quotes part of Article 13 in the Hamas charter, the rest of which explains Hamas’ rejection of international conferences, namely that the usual participants have shown no respect for Palestinian demands, restoring their rights or doing justice for the oppressed. I recommend reading Hamas’ charter and the 2017 update.
Letter: To President Biden and the NH Congressional delegation
I read this morning that Israeli PM Netanyahu rejected establishment of a Palestinian state. Is this news to you? You may have been led to believe that only Arab terrorists are trying to have all the land in Israel/Palestine for themselves exclusively. In fact, the rejection of any Palestinian claim to any of the land ‘from the river to the sea’ has been policy of Likud, Netanyahu’s party, and its predecessors (like the Irgun), since before Israel established itself. The Irgun used terrorism to take Palestinian homes and expel as many Arabs from Israel as possible. That activity continues with ongoing Israeli violence growing illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories after the 1967 war.
That land from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River was never exclusively Jewish nor exclusively Arab Palestinian. Netanyahu’s government has exploited the obscene Hamas terrorism to further the Israeli settler goal of annexing more Palestinian territory. The focus on helping Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) destroy Hamas at the expense of the lives of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian men, women and children is wrong. And the media has failed to bring attention to how this is allowing the increased settler attacks in the West Bank with IDF support. To achieve a peaceful future, the U.S. must stop supporting unrestrained Israeli killing and displacement of Palestinians. Support instead permanent ceasefire, release of all Israeli hostages and of all Palestinians held without charges in Israeli administrative detention by the IDF.
On Wednesday, Jan. 24, the NH Senate’s Executive and Departments Committee will hold a hearing on SB 439 that would prohibit NH state investments from going to businesses participating in a boycott of Israel. All 14 Republican state senators and four Democratic state senators support this bill. I oppose SB 439 and support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement (BDS) as do organizations in NH such as the American Friends Service Committee, NH Veterans for Peace, and the NH Palestine Education Network. BDS targets Israeli institutions complicit in their oppressive policies towards Palestinians. BDS leaders have stated they would stop the campaign if Israel began to comply with international law and promised to end the occupation and stop further colonization of Palestinian land. (The U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation)
Most people in NH probably do not know that the BDS campaign is centered on nonviolence as it reflects other similar movements in history such as the U.S. Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, led by such people as Rosa Parks and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. I ask the 18 legislators to consider that by endorsing this bill, they may inadvertently be supporting a government that practices apartheid, allows illegal settlements that violate international law, and maintains a brutal military occupation where basic freedoms are denied Palestinians, and military and “settler” violence directed at Palestinians is tolerated by Israel’s government that may well be found guilty of genocide by the International Court of Justice.
For all Israel’s efforts at peace, why do Palestinians keep attacking them? A different view: In 1947 Britain was ending its control of Palestine. According to the UN Charter, Palestinians should have been allowed to form their own state. Instead, powerful U.N. members acceded to the Zionist movement and designated half of Palestine for Jewish control (a minority population, many recently immigrated from Europe). This decision ripped apart the bonds of Palestinian society as Jewish identity was privileged over Palestinian identity.
The new state, Israel, quickly expelled 700,000 Palestinians to establish a Jewish majority. (Reference Plan Dalet, Benny Morris, and Deir Yassin). This is the foundational dispossession that fuels the Palestine/Israel conflict. Many of the expelled Palestinians were herded into Gaza and never allowed to return. Within Israel, discriminatory laws relegate Palestinian-Israelis to secondclass status. See Israel’s Adalah Project and the 2018 Nation-State law.
Israel’s ever-expanding settlements in the West Bank belie claims of desiring peace. They dispossess ever more Palestinians and are illegal under international law. Israel even announces its intent to erase Palestine (which receives little coverage). PM Netanyahu promised his administration wouldn’t allow a Palestinian state. His party’s founding platform states “…between the Sea and the Jordan [River] there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” Sound familiar? As Israel slaughters over 21,000 Palestinians, buries their children in rubble, destroys Gaza’s infrastructure while obliterating churches, mosques and schools, just who is erasing whom? I condemn Hamas’ atrocities but Israel has much to answer for.
TRICIA SAENGER. Temple
Laconia Daily Sun – January 4, 2024
Letter: Media shapes view of enemies
To the editor:
I am a retired professor of history of psychology. Among the courses I taught was Psychology and Race. I assigned a workbook, short films, and articles, e.g., find an enemy image online, as preparation for a weekly essay quiz. Why was Hitler was the most frequent enemy image chosen by my students? Perhaps due to the Holocaust Industry (Finkelstein, 2000). Few mentioned North Sudan (vs South Sudan), or China (vs. Uyghur Muslims)? Or Saudi Arabia (vs. Houthis)? Israel and the U.S. never came up as enemy images. Yet much of the world views us as such, witness the recent vote for a ceasefire to Israel’s 3-month bombing of Gaza: 180 countries against Israel and U.S.
The point is to read multiple perspectives. Enemy image according to whom, and what for? Our media shape our views. In the case of Palestine, for instance, if we focus on Oct. 7 without knowing the history of 75-year occupation, as the mainstream media does, we are less likely to be sympathetic to the goals of Hamas, which is cessation of apartheid and bombing and the beginning of sovereignty and freedom. If we cite the Hamas Charter of 1985 and ignore the revised charter of 2017, we won’t know that Hamas actually agreed to the 1967 borders and Israel never supported negotiations. By the way, the Likud position (and political reality) seems to support apartheid from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
I have yet to find this balance in the mainstream media.
Letter: Writer overlooks important facts in Gaza conflict
To the editor:
Brian Watson wrote of Israel granting long overdue autonomy to Palestine (Salem News, Oct. 26). I would add that this hope is echoed by over 180 nations who voted at the U.N. for a ceasefire and negotiated settlement. Against that vote stood Israel, the U.S., and a few client states. Yet Sylvia Belkin responded that “Columnist should rethink position on real causes of tragedy of Palestine” (Salem News, Dec. 28). She claims Hamas attacked to stop the so-called peace accord with Saudi Arabia. But she does not acknowledge that this agreement would have cost Palestine its allies in the Arab world. She asserts that after Israel pulled out of Gaza 18 years ago, Hamas could have created a Singapore!
Is she unaware that access into and out of Gaza is strictly controlled by Israel, blocking materials for reconstruction, and that Israel has attacked Gaza every few years since moving its citizens out? See the Goldstone Report on the brutal Operation Cast Lead, or the subsequent Operation Protective Edge responding to a nonviolent protest with live bullets aimed to paralyze. Democracy indeed!
How I wish that critics of Hamas would read history of occupation. Hamas in its revised 2017 charter acknowledged the 1967 boundaries. It is Likud’s charter that claims the land from Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Beyond the charter is the reality of the land that Israel controls with an iron fist, depriving West Bank and Gaza of freedom to move and thrive, now destroying Gazans’ homes, schools, hospitals, water systems, and families.
Janet Simmon: Palestinians are fighting for the right to exist, live freely
To The Daily Sun,
Seven million Palestinians live in Israel proper, the occupied West Bank and Gaza. They want the same rights you and I want. Palestinians desire to live in their homeland as free and equal citizens, neither dominated by others nor dominating them.
Members of Jewish Voice for Peace who rallied in Boston last Sunday chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” stated clearly that their goal was that Palestinians live with basic human rights. Stating this is not antisemitic. They were not in any way calling for death, destruction or the end of the state of Israel.
In contrast, consider the founding charter of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, which states, “Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”
Members Published Letters & OpEd’s
Janet Simmon: Call on senators to vote against billions more in bombs, ammunition to blow Gaza, West Bank to pieces
Mar 7, 2025
To The Daily Sun,
At the Oscars Sunday, delighted cheers went up for the film “No Other Land,” a documentary about an Israeli and a Palestinian sharing friendship and resistance in the West Bank. I was amazed to hear the Israeli director, Yuval Abraham, tell the crowd, “When I look at Basel, I see my brother. But we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law and Basel is under military laws, that destroy lives, that he cannot control.”
Co-director Basel Adra has not been free his entire life.
The entire population of Gaza, the majority of whom were forced out of their homes generations ago, is not free — not even to flee 2,000-pound bombs being dropped on them. Gazans are not free to go back to their homes. They are not free to go for hospital care. They are not free to sell and buy goods from the rest of the world.
Director Abraham continued, “Can’t you see that we are intertwined? That my people can be truly safe only if Basel’s people are truly free and safe?”
It is not possible for Israel to enjoy peace while actively denying freedom to Occupied Palestine. Abraham knows there is a path without ethnic supremacy. He knows that Israel has the power and could choose that path.
As we approach a vote in our Senate to send billions more in bombs and ammunition to blow the people in Gaza and the West Bank to pieces, we can call our senators. We can help stop the killing. Readers should use their voices to show Basel and Yuval that they support safety and peace.
Janet Simmon, Laconia
Peace Coalition Asks Shaheen to Oppose New Arms Transfers to Israel
By Arnie Alpert, Active with the Activists
Arnie Alpert spent decades as a community organizer/educator in NH movements for social justice and peace. Officially retired since 2020, he keeps his hands (and feet) in the activist world while writing about past and present social movements.
DOVER—Six members of the New Hampshire Coalition for a Just Peace in the Middle East met Wednesday with a staffer for U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH, calling on the Senator to oppose a new round of arms transfers to Israel.
Amy Antonucci, a Barrington resident and chair of New Hampshire Peace Action, said the group met for about an hour with Chris Scott, the Senator’s Deputy State Director. Antonucci said Scott heard their concerns about human rights violations and the impact of U.S. weapons.
During the meeting, a group of 18 others held a vigil on a busy street-corner near the Senator’s office, holding a banner reading, “Ceasefire Now. A Just Peace for All,” as well as other signs.
“Violence creates violence and is making all of us less safe,” Antonucci said after the meeting with Scott. Palestinians are the most obvious victims, she said, “but also Israelis and people in Lebanon and throughout the Middle East, and here. Everywhere. All of us are less safe when there is more violence.”
The group’s specific request was for Shaheen to support four Joint Resolutions of Disapproval introduced earlier this week by Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders in opposition to new arms transfers proposed by the Trump administration. According to a Sanders statement, these include:
Sanders said the export of these weapons would violate the terms of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act (AECA).
“Israel had the right to defend itself against Hamas and respond to the barbaric October 7, 2023, terrorist attack, which killed 1,200 innocent people and took over 240 hostages,” the Vermont senator said. “But Netanyahu’s extremist government has instead waged an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people, killing more than 48,000 and injuring more than 111,000 – the vast majority of whom are women and children.”
In response to the peace group’s request, a spokesperson for Senator Shaheen said, “As Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Shaheen has a particular responsibility to ensure that all U.S. arms sales adhere to strict standards. While the committee upholds Israel’s right to self-defense on a bipartisan basis, the arms sales that Senator Sanders plans to object to continue to undergo a review. We are in direct conversations with Senator Sanders’ office on this matter.”
Sanders introduced a similar resolution last year, which won the support of Senator Shaheen. Although it didn’t pass, the peace activists believe it still sent a message that the White House does not have unilateral control over foreign and military policy.
Jessica Bolker, a Dover resident who was part of the group meeting with Scott, said they talked about Shaheen’s role and the group’s hope that Shaheen would take a stand against “the horrific stuff that is being done in our name and with our tax dollars in Gaza.” Bolker, a member of Not In My Name, a group of Jewish New Hampshire residents who have been critical of Israel’s devastating response to the October 7 atrocities, decried “the way that American-financed and provided weapons are being used on civilians.”
Others in the meeting included representatives of 911 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, the Community Church of Durham, Veterans for Peace, and Dover Friends Meeting. The group praised the senator for signing onto Sanders’ previous resolution.
Since the fall of 2023, the Coalition for a Just Peace in the Middle East has held regular vigils outside Shaheen’s Dover office, alternating weekly with U.S. Representative Chris Pappas’ office a mile up the road. While the group praised Shaheen Wednesday for favoring some restrictions on U.S. aid to Israel, they criticized Pappas and noted he is a favorite of AIPAC, the powerful lobbying group which consistently has backed policies carried out by Israel’s government.
Amy Antonucci and the Rev. David Grishaw-Jones, who was also part of the meeting with Scott, were among the five people arrested at a Pappas office sit-in last May. They were found guilty of criminal trespass, but used their court appearances to voice objections to human rights abuses committed by Israel with the support of the United States.
After the Wednesday vigil, another group of five peace activists delivered a letter to a Shaheen staffer stating, “We were proud and appreciative when you voted for the JRDs back in November 2023. We appeal to you to support, cosponsor and vote for the JRDs this time.”
Another delegation, with some overlap of participants, met with a member of Senator Maggie Hassan’s staff Thursday. Organized by the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker group, this meeting focused on the importance of delivering humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza.
Patricia Saenger: Iran is home to Middle East’s largest Jewish population outside Israel
A recent letter to the editor (Sheila Kufert Feb. 11) asserted that “certainly” no Jews live in Iran. This is incorrect but the misunderstanding is understandable. Americans are fed a steady stream of disinformation meant to demonize Iran. While Jews are a small minority in Iran (12,000 to 15,000), it is home to the Middle East’s largest Jewish population outside Israel.
“We have all the facilities we need for our rituals, and we can say our prayers very freely. We never have any problems. I can even tell you that, in many cases, we are more respected than Muslims,” said Nejat Golshirazi, 60, rabbi of a synagogue in Iran visited by USA TODAY in 2018.
The Tehran Jewish Committee even rejected an offer by Israel’s government to pay each family of remaining Jews in Iran up to $60,000 to help them leave the country back in 2007.
Jewish surgeon and member of Iran’s parliament, Siamak Moreh Sedgh, says simply that Iranian Jews are Iranians. They stay because it’s their country. And Moreh Sedgh says he supports his country’s foreign policy, even when it comes to the Jewish state. He says Judaism is not the same as Zionism, the project of building Israel. “There is a great difference between being a Jew and being Zionist,” he says.
It is challenging to be well-informed during times of international tension, yet that is when it is most important.
Patricia Saenger, Temple
OP-ED – Union Leader, 2/21/25
Jesse Gillis: “Be the good you wish to see”
WHEN WE have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle. These are words of Rafael Eitan, former Israeli Army chief of staff, speaking in 1983. Today is no different.
Over the last 14 months, the Palestinians in Gaza have been treated as subhuman. Bombed here, told to go there, bombed there, told to go here. Those that didn’t die from bombs were being starved, were dying of thirst, minor illnesses, being shot at, captured, and tortured. They are unworthy victims, devoid of human dignity.
And we humanitarians? We provide the munitions, financing, and political cover to perpetuate the slaughter.
About 47% of the population of Gaza prior to October 7th, 2023, were children. More than 48,000 people have been identified as dead. Women and children make up more than half of that figure. Under the recent ceasefire, the death toll has skyrocketed as Palestinians are finding bodies in the rubble. The estimates of secondary and tertiary deaths are by some estimates more than 180,000.
Have you seen the images coming out? Cities leveled. Have you listened to then-President Joe Biden’s exit interview? He talked about his conversation with Prime Minister Netanyahu over the indiscriminate slaughter of Gaza. These are war crimes and they are war criminals. Now a new administration has stepped in to perpetuate the nightmare and even extend it into the West Bank.
Today, the ceasefire seems to be on the verge of crumbling. I believe that was always the intent. Multiple members of the Israel Defense Forces and Knesset tell us that Netanyahu’s administration is violating the terms and blaming Hamas. President Donald Trump is adamant about blaming Hamas and killing more Palestinians. Don’t worry, White house officials assure us that U.S. soldiers won’t be used to ethnically cleanse Gaza.
What officials are purposefully leaving out is that U.S. contractors are already working the checkpoints. Technically they are not U.S. military, so we are technically not involved on the ground. With such tension, a crisis may emerge. A Hamas operative, or a Palestinian boy, may injure or kill a U.S. contractor. Such an attack on an American could justify carpet bombing, shelling, launching a ground invasion, occupation, and subsequent ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
Even if our U.S. military doesn’t get involved, the U.S. will do what it can to provide Israel the means to erase what remains of Palestine.
This ceasefire framework was the same from last May, which means the previous administration has been sitting on it, unable or unwilling to enforce it on Israel. This is the moral rot of our institutions.
Our legislature is filled with corrupt, sociopathic, and cowardly individuals who do not deserve our votes nor our respect. They must be held accountable. It is our job as citizens to do so.
I believe there are many of us who believe in the good, who see a common humanity, and want peace. May you feel the courage to speak up, engage with your neighbors, and build common ground. We are in this together. Be the good you wish to see in our society.
Air National Guard veteran Jesse Gillis lives in Pembroke.
MY TURN – Concord Monitor 2/20/25
Stop occupation of West Bank
By WILLIAM MADDOCKS and SCOTT DICKMAN
William Maddocks and Scott Dickman are both board members of New Hampshire Peace Action.
Since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that approximately 48,000 individuals — mostly civilians, 70% of them women and children — in Gaza have died due to Israeli military operations.
The Israeli military, largely funded by American tax dollars, has reduced 80% of Gaza to uninhabitable rubble using the brutal attack by Hamas as justification. While the Gaza campaign has been temporarily halted by the recent ceasefire, Israeli settlement activity and violence towards Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank has increased.
Now, why the West Bank? Historically, the Jewish people enjoyed independent rule on the same land during intermittent periods between 1,020 BCE and 135 CE, totaling approximately 500 years. And for thousands of years, a considerably diminished Jewish presence in the land persisted continuously until a large scale Jewish immigration began in the 20th century. Fast forward to 1967, this same area was seized by Israel during the Six-Day War and continues to retain special significance for Israeli religious extremists. These extremists include Cabinet ministers and officials in senior government positions, who believe settlement expansion in the West Bank is required to fulfill the biblical aspiration of re-inhabiting this ancient land.
Since 1967, long before Netanyahu, Israel has obscured its long-term objectives regarding the West Bank by framing settlement approvals as a response to security concerns, rather than deliberate territorial expansion in concert with religious extremist ambitions. Specifically, Israel has used bureaucratic and legal measures to restrict Palestinian development and deny Palestinians self-determination while expanding Israeli settlements.
For instance, despite international condemnation, settlement construction continues with over 13,000 new housing units approved in 2023 alone. In response, The International Court of Justice, the UN General Assembly, the UN Security Council and many nations have condemned Israel’s occupation as illegal under international law. Even Israel’s own Supreme Court has ruled that Israel holds the West Bank under “belligerent occupation” and that international law does apply to Israel’s presence in the West Bank.
Since Oct. 7, over 50 rural Palestinian communities in the West Bank have been abandoned amid intensifying attacks and harassment by Israeli settlers almost always carried out with the support of the army and police.
According to Amnesty International, “Israel’s launch of a major coordinated military assault on cities and towns across the occupied West Bank follows an escalation in unlawful killings by Israeli forces in recent months and will put more Palestinians at risk.” The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has reported that “there has been a horrifying spike in lethal force by Israeli forces and violent statebacked settler attacks in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, with Israeli forces and settlers killing at least 622 Palestinians, including at least 142 children.”
During this escalation, Israelis also killed Americans, including teens Tawfiq Ajaq and Mohammad Khdour, who planned to return to the U.S. to study law, and 26-year-old Aysenur Eyzi Eygi, who was killed by Israeli soldiers while protesting in The West Bank. With this and the death of prominent Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022 at the hands of the Israel Defense Forces, we question why our tax dollars are being used to arm another country who has faced no consequences for murdering Americans.
The re-election of President Donald Trump has emboldened the Israeli government’s rhetoric when addressing the illegally occupied West Bank. According to a CNN report, Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich recently told members of his party that “the only way to remove the threat of a Palestinian state is to apply Israeli sovereignty to [the West Bank].” This radical agenda is not restricted to a fringe constituency. Rather, it reflects official government policy.
This annexation of Palestinian land in the West Bank will undoubtedly be supported by the Trump administration, as evidenced by the appointments of Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, Elise Stefanik as UN Ambassador and Mike Huckabee — who has said “Palestinians don’t exist”— as Ambassador to Israel.
Expanding settlements, subjecting the West Bank to military occupation and denying Palestinians their right to self-determination are largely responsible for the violence we see. Arguing that these draconian measures are required for security reasons is the height of irony. Unless the U.S. demands an end to the oppression of the Palestinian people, whose majority presence on the land extends back millennia with deep historical and cultural roots, a lasting peace and security is not possible for anyone in the region.
If you agree with New Hampshire Peace Action’s goal to decrease violence in the world and to value all human lives equally, please contact Congress to voice your concerns and to demand an end to the Israeli government’s annexation of the West Bank and the delivery of lethal weapons too often utilized to kill innocent civilians.
“Palestinian lives matter, too” Concord Monitor 2/19/25
The denial of food and basic medical care to the hostages held by Hamas is outrageous and inhumane, and it should not be done to anyone, including the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians trapped in Gaza who are also denied food and medical care. Israel has limited humanitarian aid in Gaza for over a year and has just banned help to Palestinian refugees from a major aid distributor, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
People are starving to death in Gaza and dying because of a lack of medical supplies. Indeed, the release of more hostages was delayed because Israel delayed supplying tents for those made homeless by bombs paid for by our tax dollars, a fact confirmed by Israeli sources to the New York Times.
The focus on the suffering of those hostages and the lack of focus on the suffering of the whole population of Gaza only shows the distorted perception in the U.S. and in Israel. To the west, Israel lives matter. So should the lives of Palestinians.
BOB SANDERS. Concord
Feb. 17 — To the Editor: (Seacoast Online)
Congressman Chris Pappas continues to disappoint New Hampshire peace advocates with his Gaza policies. Recently, he declined to co-sign a congressional letter endorsed by dozens of representatives, demanding that President Trump retract his statement that Palestinians in Gaza must be forced to relocate so that the U.S. can take over and develop
the Gaza strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” This is neither legal nor moral. It is a war crime. Virtually every country in the world has condemned the president’s statement putting the United States to shame. That the congressman chose not to sign this letter is also shameful.
Since being forced off of their land in 1948 and becoming internally displaced and stateless people, the Palestinians of Gaza have been denied their basic freedoms and equal rights, all of which are the root cause of this decades old issue. Facts that Congressman Pappas continues to evade. The Palestinians have made it clear that they would rather die than be forced off of their land — again, as recently shared by prominent Palestinian politician, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti. This makes the Palestinians the very embodiment of our state motto: “Live Free or Die.” It is time that Congressman Pappas understood and upheld these truths.
The only path to peace and stability in the region is ensuring that the Palestinians live with freedom, dignity, and equal rights. As a representative of the “Live Free or Die” state, Congressman Pappas must uphold our values as well as U.S. and international law and take policy positions accordingly. It’s in everyone’s best interest — ours, the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Karina Quintans, Portsmouth
Is Ahed Tamimi the “Joan of Arc” of Palestine?
William Thomas, PR for People 2/15/24
Would you be appalled if the police broke into your home in the middle of the night, and handcuffed, blindfolded and arrested your minor child and threw her into jail? Of course, you would! According to the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), each year some 700 Palestinian children are arrested, detained, interrogated, and prosecuted by a military court system that allows physical abuse of these young people. Currently, there are about 300 Palestinian children (ages 12 to 17) being held in Israeli jails and prisons. One of them is Ahed Tamimi. On December 19, 2017, she was arrested at 3am in her parents’ house in the small West Bank Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh. Why?
Four days earlier, on December 15, Ahed learned that her 15-year-old cousin, Mohammed Tamimi, had been shot in the face by an Israeli soldier at close range. The rubber-coated steel bullet lodged in his skull and eventually he was taken to a hospital after passing through several Israeli “checkpoints.” His surgery took six hours and while the bullet was removed, and his jaw reconstructed, some of his skull bones had to be removed, which surgeons hope to return in six months.
When he was well enough to walk, the military arrested him and detained him. There was no lawyer, no parent present during the interrogation. Later that day, he signed a confession that his skull injury was due to his “falling off his bicycle.” Sadly, this reveals the perfidy of the Israeli authorities. And, some call this Israeli “justice.” Moreover, the arrest and often brutal beatings of Palestinian children while in jail occurs all too often. Israel is the only “democratic” government in the world to prosecute children (only Palestinians) in so-called “juvenile” military courts whereas Israeli juveniles are tried in Israeli civilian courts.
Initially, Ahed thought that Mohammed had been killed, so, when heavily-armed Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) came into her family’s yard, she was angry. Earlier, the town, including the Tamimi family’s home, had been tear-gassed. On seeing the soldiers approach her house, Ahed (16 years old) and another cousin, Nour (19 years old), told the soldiers to leave. Her rage at seeing the Occupation Forces was tangible. Ahed’s anger resulted in her kicking, punching, slapping and screaming at one of the soldiers, an officer.
Every Friday after prayers, villagers gather to walk to the spring whose waters and pool once were used by the Muslim families in the village. The nearby illegal settlement (certified as such under international law and by UN resolutions) of Halamish has taken possession of the spring which is on Palestinian-owned land. These nonviolent Nabi Saleh protests have been going on since 2009. At times, some of the extremist settlers verbally and physically attack the villagers while Israeli soldiers stand by.
In February of last year, a Veterans for Peace (VFP) delegation accompanied the villagers during their protest. They, too, were attacked, both verbally and physically by several settlers some of whom were armed. One VFP member recalled one settler saying to Ahed, “The next time I see you here, I will kill you.” Another youthful “settler” in Palestinian Hebron, said to a US citizen who was Jewish, “I am 10, but when I grow up, I will kill you.” Certainly, not all settlers feel this way but a substantial number do. The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) protect the “settlers” (colonists) who often act with impunity when they physically attack the residents of Nabi Saleh. There are other Palestinian villages who have done popular resistance marches such as Bil’in, Budrus, and Nil’in, whose inhabitants have also been attacked by both the military and settlers. A fact to remember is that massive US aid to Israel subsidizes such illegal settlements – almost $4 billion a year, about $10 million a day.
Ahed’s story is one that deserves to be told. So, as noted, on December 19, 2017, she was taken at gunpoint from her home. Nour, Ahed’s cousin and Ahed’s mother, Nariman, were also arrested and taken to jail. This occurred after the video that Nariman took of the “slap” was posted on Facebook and later was shown on Israeli TV. There was an outrage among most Israelis at seeing the film. Some praised the soldiers for showing restraint as they merely walked away after the “assault.” Others said very negative things. Here are three examples:
At the entrance to Nabi Saleh, several messages were spray painted on buildings: “Death to Ahed Tamimi” and another said, “There is no room in the Land of Israel for the Tamimi family.”
Naftali Bennett, the Israeli Education Minister said Ahed should “end her life in jail.”
A well-known Israeli commentator, Ben Caspit, stated that Ahed’s kicking and slapping the IOF soldier ought to perhaps result in Ahed’s sexual assault in jail, “in the dark without witnesses and cameras.” He is still at his job in Israel.
Ahed’s story is important but so are the hundreds, if not thousands of other nameless Palestinian minors who have been denied due process in these military courts. Israel is the only country in the world that prosecutes children in a sham “juvenile military court’ with a judge in a military uniform and with the children shackled in hand and leg chains. Ahed, her parents and her lawyer asked for a public jury trial but the military court denied that and said it must be a closed trial. Knowing that she would be convicted, the family and Ahed and her lawyer agreed to the plea bargain: Ahed was given 8 months in prison and credited with time served and fined $1400. Her mother got the same sentence and a fine of $1,725 while Nour got time already served (4 months) plus 16 more days in prison and a $575 fine.
It ought to shock the conscience of all of the members of the US Congress and any president that children as young as 13 and 14 are being incarcerated. The UN’s Special Rapporteur, Michael Lynk, recently commented that “the deprivation of liberty of Palestinian children by Israel is institutionalized, systemic, and widely spread.” If this does not stir the moral principles of nearly all Congresspersons, we must ask why. Much of the world understands that under international law, an occupied population has the right to resist occupation even in armed struggle. (see UN Resolutions 3314 and 37/43). “These resolutions reaffirmed the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.” (From Stanley Cohen, a lawyer and human rights activist – Reuters, 20 July, 2017.) Yet, the Palestinian people of today largely eschew violence, including “suicide bombings,” as they realize its failure after the First Intifada (uprising) of 1987 and the Second, in 2000.
Israeli officials knew what the backlash would be if Ahed had been sentenced to as many as 10 years in prison. Nevertheless, arrested at 16, still a minor child, she never should have been given any prison sentence (the same for her mother and her cousin Nour). Some observers state that the unraveling of the Israeli government is happening. As hard as they try to win more and more support and influence with the help of outside financial support beyond what our Congress provides, Israel’s propaganda campaign against the nonviolent Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions program (BDS) is not working. Reports indicate that the BDS campaign is growing stronger and stronger despite the various Congressional and state-sponsored anti-BDS bills that have been introduced and some that have already been passed in 22 states. In the 1980s and 90s, the racist apartheid South African government, in part, was brought down by an earlier BDS campaign which eventually led to the election of Nelson Mandela as president.
Would most American citizens agree that human rights “trump” immoral, illegal, and unjust actions by Israel’s military and the extremist settlers? One would hope so. Many of the Palestinians believe, as Frederick Douglass did, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” Or, one might add, without civil resistance, there is no justice, no equality or freedom. A single word best describes the attitude of a majority of Palestinians, both Christian and Muslim, concerning their struggle – it is SUMUD – remaining steadfast in spite of adversity, including the past 51 years of an ugly and brutal Israeli military occupation.
In reference to the title of this opinion piece, is Ahed Tamimi, a “Joan of Arc?… Is she, as a young girl, woman, doing what the actual Saint Joan tried to do – lead her people to freedom? Ahed’s father, Bassem, says of his daughter, “She has done nothing wrong and is fighting for freedom and justice.” He adds, “My daughter is a freedom fighter who will lead the resistance to Israeli rule.” Moreover, there are segments of Israeli Jews who advocate for human rights for Palestinians and who work to dismantle Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. In Israel, lending their support are organizations such as B’Tselm, Breaking the Silence, and New Profile. US organizations seeking avenues to advance a just peace in Palestine/Israel are J-Street and Jewish Voice for Peace. Interestingly, the comedian Sarah Silverman tweeted on February 16, 2018, her support of Ahed, saying: “Jews have to stand up EVEN when – ESPECIALLY when – the wrongdoing is BY Jews/the Israeli government.”
Currently, this young Palestinian teenager who has become globally known as the face of the Palestinian resistance campaign, remains in prison, another victim of Israeli injustice and oppression. Is Ahed Tamimi the “Joan of Arc” of Palestine? You Decide.
Editor’s Note: William Thomas was in Washington D.C. on March 4, 2018 with other members of Veterans for Peace to attend a protest against the meeting of AIPAC – the Israel lobby – American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Here in the Connector, he shares his insight into the growing turmoil in Palestine and a young woman Ahed Tamini who is being touted as a modern day Joan of Arc.
Post Note: in the Jerusalem Post on April 6, it was reported that Ahed Tamimi was sexually harassed during her interrogation. “Gaby Lasky, Tamimi’s attorney, said in a formal complaint to the attorney general that Tamimi experienced “inappropriate conduct” during questioning, including being told she had “eyes like an angel.” Lasky further added that, “Tamimi’s interrogator threatened to arrest other members of her family should she not cooperate.”
Will Thomas lives in New Hampshire, where he had a lifelong career as a educator, teaching US History and American Government. Since 1989, he has been an active member of Veterans for Peace and creates awareness for this organization. Will is a vocal and productive activist for many causes related to human rights, fairness and justice.
Tags: PalestineAhed TaminiAmerican Friends Service Committee (AFSC)Palestinian ChildrenVeterans for Peace (VFP)Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF)
‘Clean out’ Trump’s administration!’
President Trump says he wants to “clean out” Gaza.
Plus, he is ordering the U.S. military to resume sending President Biden’s 2,000 pound bombs to Israel. Happy Valentine’s Day to Gazans!
What America needs immediately is to “clean out” this rogue administration, nonviolently, of course. We who believe in the Constitution and the rule of law must persuade our Congressional representatives to initiate impeachment proceedings against this rogue president and his sycophants.
Remember Lord Acton’s quote: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
WILL THOMAS, Manchester
Grateful to Sen. Shaheen for voting no on HR 23
Senator Shaheen stood for upholding the ICC amid strong forces seeking to weaken international law. Thank you to Senator Hassan for stepping up to the plate and also voting against HR 23.
Janet Simmon, Laconia
Who is destroying whom?
In a Jan. 16 letter titled “Same old, same old,” Gary Seidner accuses Hamas of trying to destroy Israel and the Jewish people. I could laugh out loud at the absurdity of the claim except for the immense human suffering involved.
First, it’s horrifying to imagine my loved ones kidnapped or killed. Oct. 7th was horrifying and unacceptable.
But let’s consider just who is actually being destroyed, Israel or Palestine. Which is being bombed into oblivion? Which has tanks, and helicopter gunships and 2000 lb. bombs to drop on the other? To whom have we rushed billions in aid to continue bombing the other? Which one is blocking food from reaching the other and starving the other while destroying their homes, hospitals, cultural treasures and schools, leaving behind uninhabitable ruins?
Which one are we shielding from international law? Which one is actually taking over the territory of the other? Which one is building settlements outside its internationally recognized boundaries and expanding into neighboring countries, including Lebanon and Syria? In the service of which one — Israel or Palestine — are U.S. politicians taking away our first amendment rights?
Just who is destroying whom, Mr. Seidner? Let’s just start there.
PATRICIA SAENGER, Temple
Concord Monitor, 1/26/2025
MY TURN. Gaza lament
By ROBERT AZZI
Robert Azzi is a photographer and writer who lives in Exeter. He can be followed at robertazzitheother. substack. com.
Barcelona, Jan. 6 — I am having a wonderful visit with family, so thankful to all who helped make this visit possible, and, as I read weather reports about powerful winter storms being visited upon America this week, I must admit some reluctance about my willingness to exchange dipping my toes in the Mediterranean (which I did yesterday) for shuffling through freezing temps in Exeter.
Yet, I miss home; miss loved ones, friends, neighbors, books, moments of solitude.
I miss writing and, I must admit, occasionally feel guilty that so many of us are as blessed as we are while there is so much injustice being visited upon the earth.
Especially being visited upon the Holy Land. On days I don’t write, which have been several this trip, I often feel I am abandoning a call; a call to stand in solidarity with the sojourner, the weak and vulnerable, the oppressed and occupied. The wailing and lamentation persists. Just hours ago the Al Jazeera news service, amidst updating reports that Israel has killed nearly 46,000 Palestinians in Gaza, dozens daily, since Oct. 7, 2023, reported that the Gaza health ministry recorded that an “eighth infant dies of severe cold in Gaza … An eighth Palestinian baby has died of hypother mia…” Eighth! At this moment my privilege demands of me to stand in solidarity with the eighth newborn who froze to death in Gaza as its mother tried to nourish and protect the infant child.
The newborn, lacking even the comfort of a manger, never had a chance.
The barbarians are having their way. Today, as I am about to post this reflection, I must admit that I never thought — never could have imagined — that the sun would rise on a day when I too would consider, in one thought, of the calumnies once visited upon the Warsaw Ghetto today being inflicted on Gaza; twin calumnies committed by one people, barbarians, who speak in one language: their accents may differ but their language is known as genocide.
A language of inhumanity, erasure, forced starvation, infanticide.
Today, from a room not far from Barcelona’s shores, from a place where Spanish waters mingle with waters on Lebanon’s and Palestine’s shores, I’m not interested in impressing your minds with the depths of my insights, the cleverness of my creations; I’m interested only in trying to challenge the landscape of your mind.
How do you bear witness? Today, I believe, we’re all Syrophoenicians, all begging to be free — free of the demons of injustice and inequity that afflict us all. Free from being reliant on oppressors’ crumbs that fall from the table, free to raise and nurture children distant from the afflictions of hunger, pain and fear.
Free from barbarians. Last month Christians celebrated, from within the warmth of a manger, the birth of Jesus, whom they believe to be the Son of God and savior of humankind, and whom Muslims venerate as the most revered prophet after the Prophet Muhammad.
Born of an unwed mother, a virgin, in Palestine, a Jew named Jesus challenged privilege and hypocrisy and led through love a life of humility, inclusiveness and goodness.
That all seems not to have carried us very far. Just days ago, the Biden administration, complicit with the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people, announced an $8 billion arms sale to Israel. The planned deal includes medium-range air-to-air missiles, 155-mm projectile artillery shells for long-range targeting, Hellfire AGM-114 missiles, 500-pound bombs and other weaponry.
That’s $1,000,000,000 per frozen Palestinian infant. It’s a price I refuse to pay. I refuse to be complicit with barbarians, war-mongers, criminals.
Today, as I prepare to post after Epiphany, what is being offered is not gold, frankincense, and myrrh but missiles and 500-pound bombs.
Today, as I prepare to post during these winter days of January, days following Epiphany in the Christian calendar, celebrated as Three Kings Day (honoring the visit of the Magi) here in Barcelona, many share the story of the “Holy Family” fleeing to Egypt for safety.
There is no Egypt to flee to. That path is today closed.
The Rafah Crossing is closed. Closed to all but the barbarians, and their agents.
Hospitals are closed: shelter, food, water, electricity, sanctuary are non-existent.
There is no straw in the manger.
Today, as of old, wailing and loud lamentation are heard throughout Gaza, mothers, as Rachel wept, weeping for their children; they refuse to be consoled, because they are no more.
Understand, my loved ones, that if they are no more then we have ceased to be.
Copyright © 2025 Concord Monitor 1/14/2025
OpEd, Concord Monitor, 1/11/25
“Exploring U. S. complicity with Israeli genocide”
John Buttrick writes from his Vermont Folk Rocker in his Concord home, Minds Crossing. He can be reached at johndbuttrick@ gmail.com
I have witnessed and read many reports of the suffering of Palestinians under Israeli occupation and the war in Gaza. Even so, I have been reluctant to describe Israel’s military actions against Palestinians as genocide. It is a term that easily creates controversy over the strict definition and results in a defensive posture by Israel.
But then, in November, The United Nations Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices released a report declaring that Israel’s warfare in Gaza is consistent with “the characteristics of genocide, with mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians.”
The report supported its findings explaining, “Since the beginning of the war, Israeli officials have publicly supported policies that strip Palestinians of the very necessities required to sustain life — food, water, and fuel.”
Furthermore, I have now read an article in the New York Review by Arueh Heier. He writes, “I thought then, and continue to believe, that Israel had a right to retaliate against Hamas for the murderous rampage it carried out on October 7… It is not genocide for Israel to defend itself.”
However, toward the end of the article he reveals, “I am now persuaded that Israel is engaged in genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. What has changed my mind is its sustained policy of obstructing the movement of humanitarian assistance into the territory.”
Finally, in the New York Times we read, “To many people … the war flashes by … headlines and casualty tolls and photos of screaming children, the bloody shreds of somebody else’s anguish. But the true scale of death and destruction (in Gaza) is impossible to grasp, the details hazy and shrouded by internet and cellphone blackouts that obstruct communication, restrictions barring international journalists and the extreme, often life-threatening challenges of reporting as a local journalist from Gaza.”
It now has become obvious to me that Israeli violations of humanitarian law and rules of warfare warrant the claim of genocide, even as it is acknowledged to be a very serious charge that invokes anger and accusations of antisemitism.
Palestinians have been stripped of the very necessities required to sustain life: food, water, and fuel. On Dec. 19, a report from Doctors Without Borders described repeated Israeli military attacks on Gaza’s civilians and medical infrastructure, along with the “systematic denial of humanitarian assistance.”
Dignity and justice have been taken from the Palestinians.
Israel’s practice of genocide has more implications than just a judgment on the Israeli administration of the Palestinian occupied territory and the war in Gaza.
The United States has continued military aid to Israel, some of which is used to enforce the policy of genocide.
Giving this aid makes the U.S. complicit with Israel’s policy.
A spokesperson for the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations said, “the United States veto in the Security Council on 20 November of a text demanding an immediate, unconditional ceasefire in Gaza demonstrates its complicity with Israel’s actions in Gaza…” The last thing we should want is to have our country complicit in any way with actions of genocide. It violates the commitment to equal justice for all people. And every day that it continues, real people are killed and injured. As citizens of the United States, it is an embarrassment. There is no time to be cavalier about a few more daily deaths while debates over definitions and just war continue. The United States has the leverage and the moral mandate to withhold any more military aid to Israel until Israel agrees to honor international humanitarian law and end the actions of genocide.
It is said that the United States and Israel are bound together by common values.
It’s time to insist that our friendship with Israel includes sharing the value of human dignity for all people.
Copyright © 2025 Concord Monitor 1/11/2025
Letter to the Editor, Concord Monitor, January 10, 2024
Nakba Day, a missed opportunity
Regarding the article on January 6, titled “City Removes [Nakba] Day from Diversity and Inclusion Calendar,” I would like to share my thoughts. Firstly, the article cites an unsigned statement by the City of Concord that asserts, “The City of Concord does not support antisemitism or racism.” This statement is an unfortunate conflation of opposition to Israeli policy with antisemitism. It fails to acknowledge that a significant portion of American Jewry opposes certain Israeli policies while continuing to embrace their Jewish faith and identity.
Secondly, Concord’s decision to remove Nakba Day from the DEI calendar rather than revising its description to present a balanced perspective is unfortunate. The result? A missed opportunity to educate our community about the complexities of interpreting history, especially when it is well understood that implicit and explicit biases influence each side’s perspective on historical events.
Nakba Day commemorates the displacement of Palestinians during the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, a profound human tragedy for those who lost their land, homes, communities, and livelihoods, irrespective of the historical causes. At the same time, after centuries of antisemitism, pogroms and persecution culminating in the Holocaust, it is impossible to uncouple Israel’s existence from the long-held yearning of the Jewish people for a safe haven. It is also worth noting that Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day is not included in the city’s DEI calendar.
Hence, recognizing both events would amplify the opportunity to educate and demonstrate a commitment to acknowledging all narratives and advancing the broader goal of fostering respect and empathy in our increasingly diverse community.
SCOTT DICKMAN, Concord
MY TURN (OpEd)
No war with Iran
By JESSE GILLIS. Jesse Gillis is from Pembroke and an active member of NH Veterans for Peace.
I was 15 years old when the warmongers in Washington finally got their war on the citizens of Iraq in 2003. At this point in the 2020s, I thought it was a common understanding the Bush administration lied to all of us: Iraq had no WMDs, no nuclear program, no threats of violence, and no role in 9/11. Yet, disturbingly, few remember the lies.
Invading Iraq was criminal. Every person in that administration, media, thinktanks, and experts that lied to us is complicit in over 180,000 Iraqi civilian deaths and the wholesale destruction of their society.
I was naïve, trusting our administration. I was in a perfect ideological position to harbor ill will against another nation and personally carry out legalized state violence against that nation if called to do so. They will thank you for your service so long as you uphold their vision. Look at how they treat any of us, especially veterans who question why we’re sent to war.
In 2002, President Bush designated Iran as a member of the Axis of Evil, along with Iraq and North Korea. This dribble shaped my ignorant understanding of our foreign policy. Our media pushed this agenda of a war on terror, needing to topple multiple regimes for the good. They were all willing to kill, displace, and dehumanize the men, women, and children of that country so you don’t question the violence.
The war hawks in our institutions have been calling to attack Iran. Some gleefully wait for the right crisis to obtain our moral support for war. The Iranians distrust our government for good reason. They harbor animosity toward the U.S. foreign policy establishment. I’m afraid we’ve forgotten what our government, regardless of the administration, has been doing in recent history.
Our CIA finally, publicly disclosed their involvement in a coup to remove Iran’s democratically elected president in 1953 and install the Shah. He was a dictator, a U.S.-backed tyrant. We interfered with their democracy for oil. He was a despised leader, eventually deposed in the Iranian Revolution of 1979, headed by the Ayatollah.
This is not good for Iran, but our foreign policy establishment preferred this. They even aided in it, helping the fundamentalist, theocratic state take over. Otherwise, the powerful communist and socialist parties in Iran could take power — better for a repressive regime than give the Soviet’s a chance to expand into the Middle East.
Our government began almost immediately to punish the people of Iran for this and continues to this day. We economically sanction them, place oil embargoes, and bar trade from global markets. This has one purpose: to make the daily lives of the citizens so difficult chaos erupts, destabilizing their society, and potentially leading to a violent overthrow of their government. It ruins the citizens’ lives for geopolitical gain. It’s sociopathic. Look at Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Yemen, or North Korea.
Our government supported Saddam Hussein for eight years during the Iran-Iraq war. We provided finances, military equipment, components for chemical weapons, and intelligence to wage war. We even gave Saddam political cover while he used those chemical weapons against the Iranians and Kurds. In 1988 during the war, one of our ships shot down Iranian civilian airliner Flight 655, killing all 290 passengers. Reagan refused to apologize and nobody since then has.
Any understanding of contemporary history in the Middle East could see U.S. foreign policy as antagonistic at best. For over two decades, the war hawks in Washington call for war and regime change in Iran. How are the citizens of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, or Syria doing? Are they better off now with American intervention? Where did the lip service of concern for the people go? The death toll alone is in the millions. Tens of millions are displaced. It’s an atrocity.
These professed Christians look for enemies to conquer, enriching themselves financially, and politically.
They worship power. They serve their donors. No love for their neighbor. No concern for human dignity. No care for the destruction of other nations, for the violence brought to them. They will sacrifice us all for their cause. They will bless the bloodshed in Christian language.
In this, we have the same worth as the men, women, and children of those decimated countries. We are all dehumanized. We have more in common with the people of Iran than we do with our leadership. It is our citizens’ duty to hold our legislature accountable. This is our patriotic duty. They act with impunity as they violate the Constitution. Democracy requires your involvement in the electoral process for it is the only way to hold authoritarians in check.
Be the light of hope you wish to see.
Copyright © 2025 Concord Monitor 1/8/2025
OpEd: Fighting words aren’t kindling for peace
Union Leader Jan 6, 2025
OVER THE last few months the letters pages and op-ed pages have been full of heated rhetoric on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, which often get emotions flowing but muddle clear thought. Facts are thrown like hand grenades, taken out of context or sometimes just made up.
The main problem with both partisans of Palestine and Israel is they excuse the war crimes of one side by pointing out the war crimes of the other. The pro-Israel war hawks claim that Hamas started the war on Oct. 7, 2023, when in fact the war goes back to at least 1948. While detailing the brutalities of that day resulting in a thousand deaths and over 200 hostages, they often ignore the more than 45,000 killed in Gaza and the countless homeless, sick and famished, dying or dead, because of Israel’s deliberate destruction of infrastructure and prevention of humanitarian aid from entering.
Or they minimize the death toll by saying that the numbers given by health authorities are exaggerated, even when by any estimate they would still be multiple times the number killed on 10/7. Or they contend a large portion of the fatalities are terrorists even though most are women and children. Or they blame the victim, saying that Hamas fighters — who actually live among the population — are “embedded” there and are using civilians as shields.
On the other hand, militant pro-Palestine activists sometimes won’t even mention October 7, or they’ll gloss over the horror of that day. They’ll claim it is a legitimate response to the occupation or previous Israel bombings and killings of civilians. In the worse case, a few even advocate for more such actions.
There is never a legitimate reason to target civilians for any cause. Hamas either committed mass murder or a war crime. Israel knows that in their hunt for terrorists they will kill a massive number of civilians, but it does it anyway. That is an even greater war crime.
The response to war crimes should not be to commit larger ones or more of them. The response should be to bring those who commit them to justice, including the leaders of both Hamas and Israel. That’s why I support the International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and others. (Most of the accused Hamas perpetrators are dead.)
I do not flinch at using the phrase war crimes. Many nations commit them, including our own, such as during Vietnam. But I do flinch at the word genocide, which might be applicable in Gaza, according to the United Nation’s definition.
Still, it is such an emotionally loaded charge when hurled at Jews, who suffered the largest genocide of all. While the atrocities inflicted on Palestinians by Israel do have some similarities to what the Nazi did to us Jews, there are also vast differences in terms of planning, method and scale.
Israel supporters should avoid conflating antisemitism with anti-Zionism, or flinging such terms of “Jew haters” for those who criticize Israeli policies, especially when so many of those critics are Jewish, such as myself. In my experience, most of the non-Jews in the Mideast peace movement have no issue with Jews, just the horrible things that the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinian people. They, like many Israel supporters, yearn for peace.
In the New Year, let’s try not to use fighting words when talking to the other side. Try talking to each other, not at each other. Here is hope for peace — shalom — in 2025. As-salaam alaikum in the coming year.
Bob Sanders, a former reporter, is a founder of Not in My Name, NH, and Ride Against War on Gaza. The views expressed are his own. Sanders lives in Concord.
“Professor is wrong on the genocide in Gaza”
To the Editor: In his recent op-ed “Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics,” retired UNH Professor Richard England disputes the “mortality data” that is coming out of Gaza and reported in the mainstream media.
I find the whole number game and name game (how many killed? is it genocide? etc.) to be deflection and denial. I think it is clear to anyone paying attention that the Israeli government has, for decades, occupied and oppressed the Palestinians in cruel, inhumane ways, that they have destroyed Gaza and killed thousands and thousands of people in plain sight over the past 14-plus months. This idea of Professor England calling the innocent civilians “non-combatants” suggesting that many are Hamas supporters who celebrated barbarism is ludicrous in light of what barbarism we’ve seen within the IDF as they celebrate killing Palestinians, blowing up their schools, homes, hospitals, mosques and more.
When people argue about how many have been killed or what to call the death and destruction — it is a manipulative, intellectual ploy to steer the narrative away from the truth. It is scary that we humans are capable of such delusion.
People believe what they want in order to comfort and protect themselves from brutal realities.
Let’s hope for the strength of compassion and humanity it takes to see the truth in the New Year.
ANNE ROMNEY, Portsmouth
Union Leader, 1/4/25
“Sen. Shaheen respects the law”
At a time when leaders around our state, country and world act as though they and their families are above the law, Sen. Shaheen’s vote to try to hold our ally, Israel, accountable for its actions was refreshing and courageous. She voted for Sen. Sanders’ Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRDs) despite being pressured by lobbyists, the Biden administration and a powerful foreign country. She stood up to those forces and took a step that many of her constituents have been imploring her to take. She upheld U.S. law, in particular the “Leahy Law” barring the U.S. from assisting foreign militaries that have committed human rights violations such as torture and rape. These JRDs would not affect defensive systems, only offensive weapons linked to violations of human rights according to credible human rights organizations, as U.S. law demands.
Some invoke the U.S. friendship with Israel to say what she did was wrong. They think that having an ally means that we never disagree with them, even when they might be doing something wrong, ignoring our concerns, and acting in an ultimately self-destructive manner. None of that sounds like friendship to me. I look to my friends to tell me the truth and help steer me in healthy directions and away from dangerous choices. Sen. Shaheen’s willingness to question Israel’s violence and call for deescalation and a just peace that would bring more security for everyone, including Israelis, should be applauded.
AMY ANTONUCCI, Barrington
Concord Monitor, 12/23/24
Situation in Gaza
The total situation in Gaza, especially the 60,000 plus that have died and will continue to die of starvation, is extremely concerning to me as a Christian. This number comes from IPC, a reputable source. I believe most people are familiar with the phrase from the Old Testament, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” which means retaliation should not exceed the injury. In Romans 12:20-21, it says, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. By doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good.”
Would the situation in Gaza be what it is now if, after appropriate retaliation, humanitarian aid had been allowed in? We will never know since that is not what happened. There will continue to be more and more children and adults dying of starvation, shaming the leaders of Israel and the world.
JEANNINE AUCOIN. Concord
Concord Monitor 12/20/24
During this holiday season, and every day, we must remember that ‘the children are always ours’
This holiday season the world witnessed a surprising scene. Pope Francis is seated at the Vatican viewing the Bethlehem Nativity display in which the Christ child is enfolded in a keffiyeh. Johny Andonia, an artist from Bethlehem who led the project, said it represented the “existence” of the Palestinian people, especially, I might add, their children.
In contrast, our own U.S. governmental institutions have for centuries paid lip service to children, falling far short of recognizing their full humanity.
In New Hampshire, day care workers are grossly underpaid. Centers are scarce and suffer from severe staff shortages. We are one of few states lacking free early education for 3- and 4-year-olds, essential to their healthy development.
We struggle to this day to define what constitutes “adequate” funding for our children’s schools. Chronic underfunding and high caseloads continue to plague child protection agencies and our foster care system. Children in low-income housing suffer from from lead exposure due to inadequate funding for its mitigation.
Most unfortunately, we continue to fall short in our investment in children.
Federal policies continue long-standing programs causing lasting damage to children’s physical and mental well being. Consider the heartless history of laws prescribing family separation. Slaves were “sold down the river,” separating loved ones forever. Native American boarding schools captured children from reservations to indoctrinate them in ways of white people, separating them from their language, culture, and, most importantly, their families.
The incoming administration threatens to reinstitute the cruel policy of family separation to deter “illegal” immigration. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients are now in danger of deportation, foreshadowing a devastating and irreparable loss to children and parents. Recently, New Hampshire joined 18 other states in petitioning the administration to deny health care to DACA children.
On an international scale, the United States, in its continued military funding to the Middle East war in Gaza, deepens its draconian harm to Palestinian children. Palestinian activist Susan Abulhawa condemns U.S. complicity in the violent colonization of Palestine and the annihilation of its people, quoting Chaim Weizmann, who stated to the World Zionist Congress in 1921 that Palestinians were akin to “the rocks of Judea, obstacles that had to be cleared on a difficult path” and David Ben Gurion, who stated “we must expel Arabs and take their places.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) states that the Biden administration is responsible for the increase in child amputees. According to its national director, Nihad Awad, Biden has remained “unmoved by Israel’s systemic campaign of slaughter, ethnic cleansing, forced starvation, and mass destruction that he unfortunately supported and excused.” The U.N. Human Rights Office claims there are 19,000 dead children.
Tragically, we continue to look away; at the Vatican the keffiyeh enfolding the baby Jesus was inexplicably removed after four days, symbolizing that the chance for an immediate cease fire is becoming even more remote.
In 1995, Louis Farrakhan organized the Million Man March to convey to the world a vastly different image of Black manhood. In 2017, prompted by misogynist rhetoric and a threat to women’s rights, women staged the largest single-day protest in U.S. history. What we desperately need now is a worldwide peace march for children in Gaza, who continue to live in the line of fire.
James Baldwin famously said: “The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.”
During this holiday season, let’s take Baldwin’s words to heart. As the pope engages in contemplative prayer, let’s “pray with our feet.” If there’s a cease-fire vigil, attend it; if there’s a march against funding military weapons for Gaza, join it and come together for a children’s march for peace in the name of every child’s right to exist.
Ann Podlipny, Chester
NH Bulletin, 12/17/24
“Sen. Shaheen, leadership, integrity, courage”
I thank Sen. Shaheen, for voting on Nov. 20 in support of Sen. Sanders’ resolutions to stop our government from sending specific weapons of mass killing to Israel. She chose rightly, voting also to ensure that our government does not break our laws. For decades, American politicians and others with power and influence led us to believe that our foreign policies were in our nation’s best interest. They did not tell us that many of these policies would also result in the sacrifice of brown and Black people’s lives in faraway lands and foster ever more war profiteering. As a 78-year-old engaged New Hampshire citizen, I support a moral, ethical path for the restoration of Palestinians’ right to live in freedom and dignity, without interference or attempts at control by others, just as we enjoy and cherish these same human rights.
I am grateful to be allied with hundreds of Americans who are Jews, Christians, Muslims, and of other faiths working to persuade people that we must stop bombing and killing other humans. Supporting the innate dignity and worth of every person by seeking in dialogue that place where we listen to each other, learn from each other, journey toward mutual respect and acceptance of the other’s lived experience, this is how we best reconcile differences, between individuals and within communities of all sizes and kinds. However, at the macro level, first, we must stop the bombing, the killing.
LOIS ANN COTE. Manchester
Union Leader 12/17/24
“Genocide studies don’t work”
To the Editor: A very well-documented genocide is happening right now in Gaza. Many writers to this paper have shared the horrific details. The International Court of Justice has collected voluminous evidence of Israeli war crimes. More than 150 nations in the United Nations have demanded Israel stop bombing Gaza. Doctors Without Borders have shared absolutely appalling eyewitness testimony to civilian suffering and trauma. Little food, no clean water, no safe shelter, no medical care. No one can claim they “didn’t know” — only that they refuse to see.
Yet, despite the promise of genocide studies (“never again”), the U.S. is overwhelmingly supporting Israel’s annihilation of the people of Gaza. Genocide education hasn’t opened eyes, hasn’t taught empathy for the “other” and hasn’t taught people how to see through the propaganda that governments always use to “justify” their murderous plan. Even Keene State College’s dedicated Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies has been rather quiet.
Let’s acknowledge that genocide studies have failed. They self-righteously focus on the failure of others in smug, empty finger-pointing. They have never been about challenging entrenched powers run amok or the heavy price of being a truth-teller. It takes work. It takes courage. It can mean being ostracized by your community. Genocide studies are apparently about melodramatic moralizing and nothing more. The billions we’re sending to obliterate Gaza is proof. I’m sickened.
PATRICIA SAENGER, Temple
Union Leader 12/16/24 and Concord Monitor 12/20/24
Won’t be helping Israel
To the Editor: On November 6th, I shopped at our Peterborough Ocean State Job Lot. As I checked out I waited for the usual request for a donation — homeless veterans, hurricane victims, food pantries, etc. I was taken aback when asked if I wanted to donate to Israel.
Israel is Goliath to the Palestinian David. Goliath Israel is denying food, fuel, and water to desperate Palestinians in Gaza who have no recourse. Goliath Israel has blockaded Al Shifa hospital and on Saturday the hospital’s final generator ran out of fuel, causing the deaths of critically ill patients including babies. Doctors are operating with flashlights while supplies of everything run out. The same catastrophe is occurring at al-Quds hospital, too. This is goliath Israel’s choice.
Gaza is densely packed (less than a fifth the size of Hillsborough County) and impoverished because Israel has blockaded it for years. Palestinian David has no organized military to resist.
Ocean State asks me to donate to Israel while American taxpayers send them $3.8 billion a year and legislators want to send another $14 billion despite the carnage goliath Israel’s inflicting on impoverished Gaza. I’m asked to donate to goliath Israel, which provides excellent nationalized health care to its citizens while we Americans are told we can’t afford it. Frankly, I was dumbfounded.
TRICIA SAENGER, Temple
Union Leader 12/15/24
Opinion: The way of peace
By John Buttrick
John Buttrick writes from his Vermont Folk Rocker in his Concord home, Minds Crossing.
Christmas this year reminds me of an uneasy congruency between the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory and the Roman occupation of Palestine over two thousand years ago.
Jesus’s birth was burdened by the oppression of the Roman occupation. There was a Roman decree demanding that everyone must travel to the place of their birth and register for taxation by the empire. Jesus’s parents had to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem where Jesus was born.
Soon after, the story goes, the family must evacuate and escape to Egypt to avoid being a victim of the Roman purge of baby boys under the age of two. The king feared that one of those boys would grow up to lead a terrorist attempt to overthrow his reign and Rome’s presence in Palestine.
Over two thousand years later, Israel, occupier of Gaza and the Palestinian territory, is consumed by a similar fear of those identified as Hamas terrorists in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territory. The resulting war has impacted the births of children even more severely than Jesus’s birth in a stable.
They are born in the war-torn rubble of occupation. We are touched daily by the accounts of the war in our newspapers, on TV, and discussed on favorite social media sources. We are updated daily on the numbers of children killed and injured in the Israeli Gazan war, as well as the buildings and infrastructures destroyed, the hospitals attacked, and Israeli military orders to thousands upon thousands of civilian Gazans to evacuate from an area of a planned attack to go to another area just as dangerous. It is a tragic account of brutality and abusive political ideology of an occupying power.
We read less about the conflict in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. “According to new datagathered by the left-wing Israeli NGO Kerem Navot, which monitors Israel’s dispossession of Palestinian land in the West Bank, at least 57 Palestinian communities have been forced to flee their homes since October 7 as a result of Israeli settler attacks.”
The World Health Organization has reported more than 600 Israeli attacks on healthcare facilities and workers in the occupied West Bank since the Israeli war on Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023.
According to OCHA, between Oct. 7, 2023, and Oct. 21, 2024, 732 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Between Oct. 14 and 20, eight Palestinians were reported killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. During this period, there were at least 147 Israeli Forces operations recorded inside the West Bank, including inside refugee camps. Israel’s justification for these actions is “security.” It is similar to the Pax Romana, 27 B.C.E. to 180 C.E. Very little has changed.
This brings us back to one of the oft-quoted lines at Christmas, “Peace on earth and goodwill to all people.” In contrast, the One whose birthday we celebrate, after going through the trauma of living under occupation, stood on a hill overlooking Jerusalem and said, “If only you knew the way of peace.”
Yet all of the music, glitter, “Merry Christmases,” purchasing and giving gifts, the lights on the tree, the special food and drink, Santa and reindeer, and Christmas Eve worship all cry out, “We know the way of peace!” Could this be the year we put our knowledge to the test?
Where is the way of peace in the Gaza war and West Bank oppression? Where is the way of peace in United States military aid to Israel? Where is the U.S. president-elect’s way of peace in his vengeful pronouncements, immigrant policies, and income protection for the wealthy?
The way of peace was not then, it is not now. However, perhaps Christmas this year may break away from the injustice of Pax Romana and Israeli apartheid. Perhaps the way of peace is the path into the future: a vision, an aspiration, a hope to be fulfilled. Perhaps the way of peace will become congruent with life in the future.
John Buttrick, Concord
Concord Monitor, 12/15/24
Right side of history
To the Editor: Sen. Jeanne Shaheen was on the right side of history with her votes on Nov. 20 in support of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Joint Resolutions of Disapproval.
Shaheen voted against shipment of 120-mm tank rounds, high-explosive mortar rounds, and joint direct attack munitions because these weapons are being used to kill more infants, more children, mothers, fathers, the sick, the injured, and the elderly.
Shaheen voted to stop our government from breaking our nation’s laws.
President Joe Biden, many members of his administration, and other elected officials have lied to us over and over about the death and destruction in Gaza. We should say shame on President Biden and other members of Congress who are lying.
If anyone needs more evidence of the war crimes, they can find hundreds of videos on the internet of how entire families have been blown to pieces, burned alive, or crushed under rubble.
As a mother, I cry when I see the photos and videos of dead and injured children. How can we be made to believe that these war crimes are justified?
Granite Staters should be proud that Senator Shaheen is standing up for the children of Gaza.
DOREEN DESMARAIS, Northwood
Union Leader, 12/14/24
Shaheen steps up on Israel, Gaza
Sen. Shaheen recently voted in support of Sen. Sanders’s Joint Resolutions of Disapproval, prohibiting the shipment of U.S. offensive weapons to Israel in violation of U.S. and international law. These weapons — and the tax dollars which pay for them — have killed many thousands of civilians.
U.S. law prohibits providing weapons to foreign militaries committing gross violations of human rights. Sen. Shaheen stood for the rule of law and for protecting innocent human life. I commend her for her courage.
At the same time, Reps. Kuster and Pappas voted against H.R. 9495, a bill that punishes nonprofits (by removing their charitable status) that are deemed “terrorist supporting.” If the Senate approves this bill, nonprofits can now be threatened for exercising their First Amendment rights of free speech on behalf of Palestinians. They are free to support the victims of Hamas but not the civilians in Gaza.
DAVID BLAIR, Harrisville NH
Keene Sentinel, 12/3/24
The Children of Gaza
Oh, “say can you see . . . the rockets red glare, and the bombs bursting in air,” upon the children of Gaza. The UN Human Rights Office estimates there are 19,000 dead children, while Save the Children reveals that “more than 10 children on average have lost one or both of their legs every day in Gaza since October 7.” What horror, fear, and trauma these families and their children have faced from unbelievable violence which the U.S. has supported with its shipments to Israel of weaponry and ammunition. UNICEF “says all 1.1 million children in Gaza are in desperate need of mental health assistance.” Can Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Antony Blinken, Lloyd Austin, and Jake Sullivan, imagine the terror these children face on almost a daily basis?
The world will not soon forget what the “home of the free and the brave” have done in supporting a full scale genocide in Gaza. CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations), stated that the Biden administration must take responsibility for the horrific increase in amputees in children. CAIR’s national director, Nihad Awad said: “For more than a year, Biden has remained unmoved by the far-right Israeli government’s systemic campaign of slaughter, ethnic cleansing, forced starvation, and mass destruction that he unfortunately supported and excused.” Joe Biden’s unconditional support for Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity will not be ignored by historians and young voters. What America has done in Gaza, especially to children, is unspeakable.
William Thomas, Manchester
Concord Monitor, 12/11/24
“Thank you, Sen. Shaheen”
I want to thank Sen. Shaheen for voting on Nov. 20 to support Sen. Sanders’ joint resolutions of disapproval. A lot of rich people are becoming even more rich from the billions of dollars of weapons transfers to Israel. Our hard-earned taxes are being used to kill thousands and thousands of people and destroy families day after day in Gaza for over 13 months. How can we protect our homes, our families, and our towns, but not care when our taxes are being used to destroy other people’s homes, families, and towns?
Sen. Shaheen voted to stop the deliberate killing, maiming, and starving of the people in Gaza. It is wrong to call her antisemitic. We should remember that advocating for human rights can never be antisemitic. We should all work together to stop the suffering of other humans. And we should thank leaders like Sen. Shaheen who put people over money and politics. Thank you, Sen. Shaheen.
DOREEN DESMARAIS, Northwood
Concord Monitor, 12/11/24
Thank you, Sen. Shaheen
I am writing to thank Sen. Jeanne Shaheen for voting on Nov. 20 to support Sen. Bernie Sanders’ joint resolutions of disapproval, which would have reduced U.S. arms shipments to the Israeli army. Unfortunately the resolutions did not pass. Israel’s continued murderous attacks on Gaza, which have killed 43,000 people, are unconscionable. Most of the victims have been women and children.
We make ourselves complicit in this crime against humanity when our government supplies weapons and money to support the war on Gaza.
JUDITH ANNE ELLIOTT, Canterbury
Concord Monitor, 12/5/23
To the Editor:
I wish I could agree with Richard England that Israel is not guilty of genocide in Gaza (Guest Column, Nov. 26). I could then take comfort in the support of the Jewish Federation of New Hampshire, of President Biden and a majority of both houses of Congress, and of a number of my Jewish friends.
Unfortunately, I can’t get over the facts. From the beginning of the current conflict, top Israeli officials have declared a clear intention to eradicate the people of Gaza. This is so obvious that most Israeli apologists ignore it rather than trying to refute it.
A flagrant example occurred on Oct. 9, 2023, only two days after the atrocities of Hamas’s attack. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared “a complete siege” of the Gaza Strip.
“There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel,” he said. “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”
Scores of genocidal utterances like this were documented by late December of 2023 when South Africa petitioned the International Court of Justice to declare that Israel was in breach of the 1948 Genocide Convention.
Although the court has not ruled, a special committee of the United Nations declared on Nov. 14, 2024, that Israel’s warfare in Gaza is consistent with genocide, including the use of starvation as a weapon of war.
According to its own statistics, Israel has limited the flow of food, water, medicine, and fuel to Gaza far below the volume needed to sustain life. The United States demanded that at least 350 aid trucks a day be allowed to enter Gaza; the number of trucks entering in October and November averaged less than 60 a day.
The Genocide Convention forbids killing in an attempt to wipe out an ethnic group in whole or in part. It also forbids “[d]eliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.”
To that end, the Israeli military has damaged or destroyed 70 percent of the housing. It has all but destroyed the health care system, the water supply, farming, sewerage and sanitation. In violation of the Geneva Conventions, it has shelled hospitals and ambulances. Ninety physicians reported to The New York Times that they had seen children as young as toddlers killed by sniper fire to the head or chest. These are indefensible crimes.
However, I would like to go beyond the argument over genocide. I am appalled by the suffering in Gaza, and also by the suffering in Israel. I am ashamed that the United States is promoting this horrible war by supplying billions of dollars in weapons. To achieve the peace that Richard England and I would both like to see, the United States must cut off the flow of weapons to Israel. Only then can those of good intentions achieve a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages from Hamas.
William R. Castle, Portsmouth
Seacoast Online 12/3/24
Shaheen is a leader
Some people are saying that Sen. Shaheen sided with Hamas and Hezbollah for approving some, but not all of the joint resolutions of disapproval. This is ludicrous. Considering that she is such a strong supporter of Israel, it is amazing to me that she actually took this step. Her position should tell us that she did so because the U.S. is aiding and abetting genocide. I am also hearing the worn out narrative that “Israel is fighting an existential war of survival. To this I would say it is not a war of survival (clearly not now) but an aggressively fought colonization which Zionists had begun contemplating at the turn of the 19th century.
We are complicit in helping them to complete their decades long theft of land and the elimination of the people who have been there. Almost everyone speaks about Israel’s ongoing war against terrorists and regimes on all fronts. This is the war of their own making and it may soon be ours. When we are naming the terrorists, we should be honest to include the settlers within Israel and the other extremists here in the U.S. Senator Shaheen’s vote was not an abandonment of Israel, it was based on a clear headed and realistic view of what is happening. She has shown true leadership where the rest of Congress has failed.
SHARON RACUSIN, Hanover
Concord Monitor, 12-3-24
OP-ED
Bob Sanders: Democrats would be wise to follow when Shaheen leads
THIS HOLIDAY season, I am thankful that Sen Jeanne Sheehan and 17 of her peers joined Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., in voting against transferring more weapons to kill civilians in Gaza and now Lebanon.
Those 19 votes don’t seem like much when compared against the whole Senate, but the fact that nearly 40 of the Democratic Senators took a belated stand against their party, gives me hope in this time of darkness for the future.
Remember, only two senators voted against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which would lead us into the Vietnam War. That war grew and grew, even as mass pressure against it blossomed.
Critics contend that the anti-war movement assured President Lyndon Johnson’s fall and led to the dark days of Richard Nixon. Today, as then, some blame protests against Israel’s slaughter of tens of thousands of women and children for the reelection of Donald Trump.
I don’t dispute that the anger of young people and minorities damped Democratic turnout; the party embraced an unpopular war.
I don’t blame the protest. I blame the war.
We can not shut our eyes in the face of atrocity, especially those who have faced persecution, discrimination and murder in the past. That includes, of course, my people, the Jews.
When I bicycled down to Washington, D.C. in late August, with my Ride Against War on Gaza sign on my back (RAW GAZA), I experienced a groundswell of enthusiasm. People stopped me on the street to donate.
In a primarily Black neighborhood of Philadelphia, four people collected 40 pages of signatures against the war in an hour.
Later, when I knocked on doors for a week in late October in a predominantly Black neighborhood in North Carolina, I noticed a lack of enthusiasm. Although we are targeting Harris supporters, I heard too often, “I haven’t made up my mind” or “I don’t think I’m going to vote this time around.”
I wasn’t surprised by the outcome. Democrats seemingly treated this as a normal election, where you have to win over the narrow middle to win. Republicans treated it like a turn out election, where you have to excite your base to win.
The Democrats were timid and urged preservation of the status quo, while Republicans were bold and wanted to shake things up.
I think it’s time for Democrats to be bold and shake things up, too. And the war on Gaza is one place to start.
According to U.S. law, it is illegal for the United States to supply weapons for those engaged in war crimes. Despite this, the U.S. continues to transfer arms to Israel, which continues to bomb hospitals and schools, target aid workers and journalists. Some 44,000 people have been killed, and countless others are starving or dying of disease.
Democratic politicians continue to defend Israel’s action, wringing their hands and calling it a “tragic situation,” as if Gaza has been hit by some massive earthquake or a meteorite, instead of the weapons of mass destruction we provide.
Democrats say they support a cease-fire, yet continue to fund a war. They assure us we’ve flooded the area with humanitarian aid, yet neglect to mention that aid is being held up by Israel, resulting in a backup of critical supplies.
They call Israel the only democracy in the Mideast but that’s a platitude. The truth is that Israel is an apartheid state. It’s a democracy like South Africa was a democracy, or like U.S. slave states down south were democracies.
It’s not a democracy when a substantial part of the population have no say and few rights.
Stalwart supporters blame Hamas for Israel’s reign of terror and it is true that Hamas is responsible for brutally targeting civilians and should be brought to justice, like any common criminal. But police don’t shoot up a neighborhood to round up criminals holding hostages.
Has Israel’s all-out assault on Hamas worked? If it did, the war and the killing would have stop and the hostages released. The only time a substantial number of hostages have been released so far was during a cease fire.
If Hamas actions are criminal, then Israel is 40 times as guilty based on body count. The International Criminal court got it right, issuing an arrest warrant for the leaders of both Hamas and Israel.
Hamas leaders are dead or in hiding, while the leaders of Israel continue to perpetuate their war crimes in Gaza, and now in Beirut.
That’s why I’m grateful a group of politicians put their foot down. Sen. Sheehan — a known moderate and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — took a stand!
It’s time for Sen. Maggie Hassan, Reps. Chris Pappas and Ann Kuster (and soon Maggie Goodlander) to join Shaheen for the good of their party, the nation and world.
Bob Sanders, a former journalist, is a founder of Not In My Name, NH and Ride Against War on Gaza (RAW Gaza). He lives in Concord.
Union Leader 12/3/24
Letter: We can’t break our laws to back Israel
Betraying our values
To the Editor: Senator Jeanne Shaheen scored a big vote for justice and the rule of law on Wednesday night.
In presenting the resolution to prevent the illegal sale of arms, Sen. Bernie Sanders said, “The Foreign Assistance Act and the Arms Export Control Act are very clear: the United States cannot provide weapons to countries that violate internationally recognized human rights or block U.S. humanitarian aid.”
It has been clearly seen that the people of Gaza are starving and dying of thirst. It is estimated that over 60,000 Palestinian people have perished in the last few months from forced starvation, which is a war crime. It is also against our laws to use starvation as a weapon. Doctors are reporting treating hundreds of patients a day without electricity, anesthesia, or clean water while trucks are waiting at the border.
We can support Israel without breaking our own laws. Sen. Shaheen is on the right side of history.
JANET SIMMON, Laconia
Union Leader 11/29/24
ON THE 11th of this month, we celebrated Veterans Day. A day to pay tribute to those who served and are currently serving. A day to “… honor America’s veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good.”
This day used to be known by the name Armistice Day. When passed in Congress in 1926, it was a day to recognize the end of the Great War, the resumption of peaceful relations with other nations, and the hope peace would never be severed again. It was an exercise in remembering the desire for perpetual peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations. We have forgotten this call.
That language of Armistice Day changed in 1954, striking Armistice and replacing it with the word Veterans. It became a day to honor veterans and remember why we fight. Where is the desire for peace? You only find it on the faces of the victims of war.
We have forgotten what it means to be plunged into war. We see it on their faces, hundreds of thousands of faces across war torn countries suffering at the hands of such impersonal violence on a scale that is hard to comprehend unless you are a victim to it. The smell of burning flesh, the corpses, the injured, the destruction of your towns, the destruction of who you are. Who here knows this pain, this suffering?
Today, more war looms and most of us are unmoved. War is being waged, ravaging nations, communities, individuals, children, all with our government’s backing. Our arms manufacturers are doing their humble duty of aiding one or both sides to the bitter end. These war profiteers pay tribute to Veterans Day as a day to glorify those who wage war.
We are cheated by our legislature, lobbied by those who feel no allegiance to our nation, to us, or to the common good. To this, we will remain indifferent until they drag us into a real war. So, we cheer on our elected and unelected officials with a treacherous policy: wage war to make peace.
Today as I write this it marks 409 days since October 7th, 2023, for which Israel began an assault on every man, woman, and child in Gaza and carried it forward to Lebanon. How did this work for us in Iraq? In Afghanistan? In Vietnam? We were lied into those conflicts and countless more. We were lied into supporting this current evil. They took our empathy and weaponized it.
Today, we do not have peace. We can only celebrate the possibility of peace. We must reignite this desire, bring back the meaning of Armistice Day. By the time most feel this necessity — the ceaseless call for peace — it will be too late for them and us.
Air National Guard veteran Jesse Gillis lives in Pembroke.
Union Leader 11/26/24
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen is on the right side of history
Sen. Shaheen scored a big vote for justice and the rule of law on Wednesday night. In presenting the resolution to prevent the illegal sale of arms, Sen. Sanders said, “The Foreign Assistance Act and the Arms Export Control Act are very clear: the United States cannot provide weapons to countries that violate internationally recognized human rights or block U.S. humanitarian aid.”
It has been clearly seen that the people of Gaza are starving and dying of thirst. It is estimated that over 60,000 Palestinian people have perished in the last few months from forced starvation, which is a war crime.
It is also against our U.S. law to use starvation as a weapon. Doctors are reporting treating hundreds of patients a day without electricity, anesthesia, or clean water while trucks are waiting at the border. We can support Israel without breaking our own laws. The honorable Sen. Jeanne Shaheen is on the right side of history.
JANET SIMMON, Laconia
Concord Monitor 11/25/24
Letter: Friends don’t let friends drive drunk
“Friends don’t let friends drive armed and loaded”
To the Editor: The recent letter from Joe Hubisz of Bradford about the bike ride to D.C. undertaken by Bob Sanders to protest Israel’s tragic pursuit of revenge and deterrence against Palestinians, shows admirable loyalty. However, it seems to show a very pinched view of friendship.
I hope Joe wouldn’t let a friend drive drunk, hand him the keys and buy him a full tank of gas. Yet the U.S., claiming friendship, keeps supplying Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel with the fuel and justification it needs to increasingly besmirch its reputation as a “humanitarian democracy” by murdering civilians and devastating their prospects of recovering.
Israelis mount ever larger protests about hostages un-rescued and murdered while Bibi quibbles about a ceasefire agreement. A crash feels inevitable, with Israel creating enemies and losing friends. We friends could become casualties too, in a wider war with Iran.
I hope Joe Hubisz, and Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, plus Reps. Ann Kuster and Chris Pappas, will remember: Friends don’t let friends drive drunk.
M. CHRIS HANSEN, Alstead
https://www.unionleader.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/letter-friends-don-t-let-friends-drive-drunk/article_7cbaa3e4-704d-11ef-9335-f767daa8a4d3.html
Concord Monitor LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
“Be true to humanity”
I am a retired 81-year-old history teacher and a U.S. Navy veteran. Regarding the horrific killing and maiming of 40,000+ Palestinians in Gaza, I stand with GEN-Z in condemning the Israeli genocide, aided by Biden, Blinken, and Harris. As historian Howard Zinn once said, “There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.” At the “Democratic” Convention, the delegates were yelling “USA, USA, USA.” The “USA” chant is a prime example of jingoism, of chauvinism, which saddens me immensely. It reminded me of Stephen Decateur’s quote: “Our country, right or wrong, may she always be in the right, but right or wrong, our country!”
If one is honest and informed, one would know that Israel is an undemocratic apartheid state. It violates international law on a daily basis. Some say that AIPAC controls our Congress which should alarm our citizenry. Why does Israel act as a rogue state? It does so because its biggest supporter, the U.S., sanctions it. Thus, Israel’s military, including the Occupation Forces, act with impunity as no one holds them accountable for their myriad human rights violations.
Should Palestinian violence be condemned? Yes, certainly, but Israeli oppression breeds more violence. The dehumanization and demonization of Palestinians creates more violence. When there is no hope for a better future, then some strike back, unfortunately. As a Veteran for Peace, I say, USA, be true to humanity.
WILL THOMAS
Auburn
https://www.concordmonitor.com/Thomas-cmlett_-56709216
Concord Monitor – August 20, 2024
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
“How genocide happens”
Gazans are being brutalized by continual shelling, living an endless nightmare of death and destruction.
It is absolutely horrific and yet it continues as you read this. President Biden talks tough but in actions, he’s ensuring Israeli barbarity can continue unabated. Congress acts as willing executioners as well, speeding bombs and missiles with unrestrained enthusiasm while passing laws that punish Americans who criticize the Israeli government. Meanwhile, Israel assassinates Gaza’s chief peace negotiator (Ismail Haniyeh) and seems intent on instigating a wider, hot war in the region by launching missile strikes into neighboring countries with impunity.
This is how genocide happens, by governments (always by governments) far away, conducted against a people propagandized into the “other,” stripped of their humanity so we don’t feel their suffering.
We know this. We study this. Yet, it’s happening anyway. America has embraced Holocaust and genocide studies but apparently to little effect. We can tune in to the daily horror if we wish. We can read the wrenching testimony of aid workers in Gaza, heroically working to ease the extreme suffering there while Israel ruthlessly blocks food and critical medical supplies. No one can claim they don’t know, only that they refuse to look. It’s an election year. Act.
Refuse to support politicians that defend Israel’s well-documented war crimes and crimes against humanity. Don’t look away. Our “American values” are at stake.
PATRICIA SAENGER
Temple
Concord Monitor – May 6, 2024
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Why Israel?
Gary Seidner wonders why students protesting Israel’s destruction of Gaza aren’t protesting the war in Syria, claiming its “blatant antisemitism.” There is a very simple explanation, and it’s not antisemitism. Our government is sending bombs and weapons to the government of Israel, but not Syria. Our government is sending billions of our tax dollars to the Israeli government, not to Syria. Our government is using all its influence to defend Israel’s actions in the UN, it’s not defending Syria.
Like it or not, U.S. policy absolutely makes Americans complicit in Israel’s disproportionate use of force in Gaza and its violations of international law. We are complicit in the starvation, the destruction of hospitals and churches and mosques and schools and homes and infrastructure. We are complicit in the almost complete dislocation of 2 million people and the deaths of over 34,000 Gazans and counting. If you perceive calls for human rights and international law as a threat, you are defending the wrong side. I’m with the students.
PATRICIA SAENGER, Temple
Union Leader – May 6, 2024
Letter: How would Perlman like for it to be done to Jews?
To the Editor: In a recent letter to the editor, Alan Perlman savages pro-Palestinian protesters. To him, the anguish the protesters feel and their outrage is “mindless” and “arbitrary.” He is obviously unmoved by the deaths of entire families, of children buried alive in rubble, of the damage done by 2,000-pound dumb bombs, of imposed starvation.
Perlman incredibly dismisses 34,000 dead Gazans as “civilian casualties of war.” There. Done. Nothing here to see. The only thing that upsets Mr. Perlman is, incredulously, terminology.
I would like to challenge Mr. Perlman to put the shoe on the other foot. Would he feel any different if this same level of violence and destruction was being inflicted on Jews?
Peace for Jews, for non-Jews, for Palestinians, for Americans, and for the world will only occur when people like Mr. Perlman are able to look beyond their own narrowly-defined tribe to accept the universality of human suffering. To resist the temptation to dehumanize anyone who looks different or believes differently or sings different songs or wears different clothes. To truly embrace the substance of “Never again.” To understand that when any community is denied basic human rights, denied the ability to live in safety and raise a family, there will be no peace.
I applaud those who are protesting for their idealism. Empathy is the only path to making a better world.
PATRICIA SAENGER, Temple
Laconia Daily Sun – April 27, 2024
The cloud that ascends after each bomb hits is full of dust and trash. When buildings are blown up concrete, insulation, and other materials are pulverized into toxic dust. According to the Scientific American a toxic mix of dust, ash and other material from 15 million tons of rubble now blankets Gaza. That toxic air does not stay over Gaza.
In just the first month, Israel dropped more than 25,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip, the equivalent of two nuclear bombs. Israel has dropped highly toxic white phosphorus bombs on Gaza and south Lebanon that can seep deep into the soil and water systems, remaining there for many years.
Almost all of the olive trees, lemon trees, pomegranate trees of Gaza are dead. There are no longer any sewage treatment plants. Farms and trees in Ukraine are no longer. In Ukraine the vast leveling of urban and industrial infrastructure has left pollution of earth and air. All the buildings which are now rubble are spilling chemicals.
Just look at the clouds of smoke and debris that arise after just one bombing.
What do you suppose will be done with all the rubble? What if it is dumped into the sea?
If you work for a company that contributes to pollution in this way give it some thought. If you vote for war, give the earth some thought.
Laconia Daily Sun – April 6, 2024
Since the horror of October 7 the entire Gaza Strip has been devastated: hospitals, schools and food sources wiped out. After massive killing of innocents we have heard the Israeli administration say, “it was an accident,” “we had evidence,” “just an unavoidable mistake.” We have heard six months of “excuses” with little or no evidence.
Now Israel’s hand is exposed. Since bombing a consulate in Damascus, making undocumented accusations against UNRWA employees, and bombing three World Central Kitchen vehicles the world can see that much of this destruction was planned and vastly beyond a “response” to the October attack.
The Israeli administration has been working up to taking over the Gaza Strip. Remember Truman’s words, “bit by bit” and see how the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank have been deprived of their land, their homes, their dignity, their cultural institutions.
The United States is complicit. Our senators and representatives have continued to support money and weapons for Israel despite words of concern over their use in opposition to international law. The people of NH can see that our entire delegation is out of step with common sense and humanity.
We must stop sending billions of dollars and tons of bombs and hundreds of planes which enable this plan to eliminate the Palestinians from their land.
Janet Simmon, Laconia
Seacoast Online – March 18, 2024
US must do more to broker peace between Israel and Palestinians
To the Editor:
This Saint Patrick’s Day was a solemn one for me. Being Irish on my Mother’s side, it is supposed to be a day of celebration. But I found myself thinking about how my Irish ancestors were driven to this country by famine. A famine that was actually rooted in the politics of occupation. Ireland was a food exporting country during the years of the potato blight, forced to send what they produced to England, often at gunpoint. About 1 million people starved to death.
Watching another famine devastate a population of mostly women and children who are starving with food just out of reach breaks my heart.
It is illegal under US law (the Foreign Assistance Act) for our government to send military aid to a country that is restricting transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance. Numerous senators have signed a letter reminding President Biden of this. Senators Shaheen and Hassan did not sign. I urge them to support this initiative, to end the blockade of Gaza, which had already lasted 16 years before Israel’s defense minister ordered a “complete siege” starting last October.
Only a permanent ceasefire and internationally supported diplomacy will create the conditions for security for Palestinians and Israelis, and make the world safer for us all. Fifty-six years of Israeli occupation of Palestine and billions of US tax dollars in military aid has shown how a cycle of violence can go on and on, with so much suffering for civilians on all sides of a conflict.
The Irish and English have made great progress towards a more peaceful and just relationship. In that case, the US helped end the bloodshed rather than sending weapons. I hope we can learn from our history.
Amy Antonucci, Barrington
Concord Monitor – March 4, 2024
Letter: Conscience of America
The stories of the horror and suffering coming out of Gaza are gut-wrenching. Ordinary people, civilians, wounded and dying, entire families killed, children orphaned, denied food and water, starving. The old and infirm herded into tents lacking beds, heat and toilets. Surgeons facing innumerable casualties without electricity or basic supplies, facing death themselves. Israel, in control of Gaza’s borders, refuses to let in medical aid or food for the entire population leading to plausible charges of genocide. The Associated Press reports that “The Israeli military campaign in Gaza…now sits among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history.” The Red Cross says, “No words adequately capture the depth of human suffering in Gaza.”
Yet, our government can’t send replacement munitions to Israel fast enough. Why? They’re slashing funding for aid workers in Gaza and blocking world-wide calls for a cease-fire. Why? Do they lust for more death and destruction? Is Palestinian suffering, Palestinian humanity, of no consequence to them? Or is this just an excuse to funnel more money to our military-industrial complex? Regardless of the reason, our elected officials are clearly demonstrating that they have absolutely no conscience. As citizens, we have to be the conscience of America. We have to speak out, loudly, for what is right and moral and do it now or we are just as guilty.
Patricia Saenger
Concord Monitor
Letter: Compromise is possible
The Jan. 17 Monitor carried two letters that spoke to each other. Scott Lounsbury offered the necessity of “both/and” thinking regarding our national dialogue verses the prevailing “either/or.” He writes, “the misshapen truths from “us vs them” are “driven by … one-sidedness, tribalism, and our need for easy answers.” The letter by Matt Leahy offers examples of one-sided tribalism in the Israel war on Hamas. Mr. Leahy (and others) declares that unless Israel gets unlimited support for its Jewish nation-state and condemnation of Hamas, peace will never come. Either support Israel and damn Hamas or forfeit peace. There is a “both/and” option.
Hamas proposed one in its 2017 update and revision of its 1988 charter. It rejects the Zionist state in Palestine and considers “the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 1967 (borders) with the return of refugees and the displaced to their homes.” Hamas is willing to turn a blind eye to the existence of Israel while having its own sovereign state in the West Bank. It’s a “both/and” solution, having two opposing thoughts at once, something most can manage. An exception is Netanyahu. For him and his party it’s all or nothing, certainly not co-existence and peace. Mr. Leahy quotes part of Article 13 in the Hamas charter, the rest of which explains Hamas’ rejection of international conferences, namely that the usual participants have shown no respect for Palestinian demands, restoring their rights or doing justice for the oppressed. I recommend reading Hamas’ charter and the 2017 update.
Gail Page, Concord
Letter: To President Biden and the NH Congressional delegation
I read this morning that Israeli PM Netanyahu rejected establishment of a Palestinian state. Is this news to you? You may have been led to believe that only Arab terrorists are trying to have all the land in Israel/Palestine for themselves exclusively. In fact, the rejection of any Palestinian claim to any of the land ‘from the river to the sea’ has been policy of Likud, Netanyahu’s party, and its predecessors (like the Irgun), since before Israel established itself. The Irgun used terrorism to take Palestinian homes and expel as many Arabs from Israel as possible. That activity continues with ongoing Israeli violence growing illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories after the 1967 war.
That land from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River was never exclusively Jewish nor exclusively Arab Palestinian. Netanyahu’s government has exploited the obscene Hamas terrorism to further the Israeli settler goal of annexing more Palestinian territory. The focus on helping Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) destroy Hamas at the expense of the lives of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian men, women and children is wrong. And the media has failed to bring attention to how this is allowing the increased settler attacks in the West Bank with IDF support. To achieve a peaceful future, the U.S. must stop supporting unrestrained Israeli killing and displacement of Palestinians. Support instead permanent ceasefire, release of all Israeli hostages and of all Palestinians held without charges in Israeli administrative detention by the IDF.
Jennifer Smith, Pembroke
Letter: Oppose SB 439, the anti-BDS bill
On Wednesday, Jan. 24, the NH Senate’s Executive and Departments Committee will hold a hearing on SB 439 that would prohibit NH state investments from going to businesses participating in a boycott of Israel. All 14 Republican state senators and four Democratic state senators support this bill. I oppose SB 439 and support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement (BDS) as do organizations in NH such as the American Friends Service Committee, NH Veterans for Peace, and the NH Palestine Education Network. BDS targets Israeli institutions complicit in their oppressive policies towards Palestinians. BDS leaders have stated they would stop the campaign if Israel began to comply with international law and promised to end the occupation and stop further colonization of Palestinian land. (The U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation)
Most people in NH probably do not know that the BDS campaign is centered on nonviolence as it reflects other similar movements in history such as the U.S. Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, led by such people as Rosa Parks and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. I ask the 18 legislators to consider that by endorsing this bill, they may inadvertently be supporting a government that practices apartheid, allows illegal settlements that violate international law, and maintains a brutal military occupation where basic freedoms are denied Palestinians, and military and “settler” violence directed at Palestinians is tolerated by Israel’s government that may well be found guilty of genocide by the International Court of Justice.
William Eugene Thomas, Auburn
Laconia Daily Sun – January 4, 2024
Letter: Media shapes view of enemies
To the editor:
I am a retired professor of history of psychology. Among the courses I taught was Psychology and Race. I assigned a workbook, short films, and articles, e.g., find an enemy image online, as preparation for a weekly essay quiz. Why was Hitler was the most frequent enemy image chosen by my students? Perhaps due to the Holocaust Industry (Finkelstein, 2000). Few mentioned North Sudan (vs South Sudan), or China (vs. Uyghur Muslims)? Or Saudi Arabia (vs. Houthis)? Israel and the U.S. never came up as enemy images. Yet much of the world views us as such, witness the recent vote for a ceasefire to Israel’s 3-month bombing of Gaza: 180 countries against Israel and U.S.
The point is to read multiple perspectives. Enemy image according to whom, and what for? Our media shape our views. In the case of Palestine, for instance, if we focus on Oct. 7 without knowing the history of 75-year occupation, as the mainstream media does, we are less likely to be sympathetic to the goals of Hamas, which is cessation of apartheid and bombing and the beginning of sovereignty and freedom. If we cite the Hamas Charter of 1985 and ignore the revised charter of 2017, we won’t know that Hamas actually agreed to the 1967 borders and Israel never supported negotiations. By the way, the Likud position (and political reality) seems to support apartheid from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
I have yet to find this balance in the mainstream media.
William Woodward, Ipswich
The Salem News – January 3, 2024
Letter: Writer overlooks important facts in Gaza conflict
To the editor:
Brian Watson wrote of Israel granting long overdue autonomy to Palestine (Salem News, Oct. 26). I would add that this hope is echoed by over 180 nations who voted at the U.N. for a ceasefire and negotiated settlement. Against that vote stood Israel, the U.S., and a few client states. Yet Sylvia Belkin responded that “Columnist should rethink position on real causes of tragedy of Palestine” (Salem News, Dec. 28). She claims Hamas attacked to stop the so-called peace accord with Saudi Arabia. But she does not acknowledge that this agreement would have cost Palestine its allies in the Arab world. She asserts that after Israel pulled out of Gaza 18 years ago, Hamas could have created a Singapore!
Is she unaware that access into and out of Gaza is strictly controlled by Israel, blocking materials for reconstruction, and that Israel has attacked Gaza every few years since moving its citizens out? See the Goldstone Report on the brutal Operation Cast Lead, or the subsequent Operation Protective Edge responding to a nonviolent protest with live bullets aimed to paralyze. Democracy indeed!
How I wish that critics of Hamas would read history of occupation. Hamas in its revised 2017 charter acknowledged the 1967 boundaries. It is Likud’s charter that claims the land from Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Beyond the charter is the reality of the land that Israel controls with an iron fist, depriving West Bank and Gaza of freedom to move and thrive, now destroying Gazans’ homes, schools, hospitals, water systems, and families.
William Woodward, Ipswich
Laconia Daily Sun – November 17, 2023
Janet Simmon: Palestinians are fighting for the right to exist, live freely
To The Daily Sun,
Seven million Palestinians live in Israel proper, the occupied West Bank and Gaza. They want the same rights you and I want. Palestinians desire to live in their homeland as free and equal citizens, neither dominated by others nor dominating them.
Members of Jewish Voice for Peace who rallied in Boston last Sunday chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” stated clearly that their goal was that Palestinians live with basic human rights. Stating this is not antisemitic. They were not in any way calling for death, destruction or the end of the state of Israel.
In contrast, consider the founding charter of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, which states, “Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”
Janet Simmon, Laconia
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