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
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
Upcoming Events
Film screening: The Movement and the Madman
Martin Luther King, Jr Community Celebration
Film Discussion: The Movement and the Madman
Update and Feedback Session
Peter Beinart: Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza