Dear Editor: This week Israel bombed a school where Palestinians were sheltering, killing at least 36 people, including 18 children. Video footage of the aftermath shows 7-year-old Ward al-Sheikh Khalil walking through the building while it burned, narrowly escaping a harrowing death. “When we pulled her out, she was in shock, silent, trembling, unable to comprehend what had just happened,” said one of the paramedics who rescued her. “We couldn’t bring ourselves to tell her that her entire family was killed in the bombing.”
The Israeli government has long promoted the falsehood that its 76 years of systemic oppression, dehumanization, and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians represents the will of the Jewish people. Followed to its logical conclusion, this false narrative implies that all Jews are responsible for the collective punishment of Palestinians.
Yet Judaism embraces a spiritual and moral commitment to the sanctity of human life, justice, and compassion—including a long tradition of opposition to a state based on Jewish supremacy. Today, members of the Jewish community are disproportionately represented among people opposing Israeli genocide against Palestinians.
As a Jew, I am sick, tired, and outraged by Israeli and American politicians who continue to parrot the lie equating criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Any person of conscience, anyone who supports international law – indeed, anyone with a sense of human decency – whether Jewish or non Jewish – must be outraged by Israel’s genocide in Gaza. To claim that this horror is carried out in our name heaps insult on injury for the millions of Jews who are sickened by Israel’s oppression, starvation, and murder of Palestinians, and who join with Palestinian allies in demanding an end to the genocide and a free Palestine.
Israel’s policies are carried out with U.S. bombs, U.S. funds, and U.S.-facilitated impunity. Please call your elected officials to demand that the U.S. must stop arming Israel, and must stop prosecuting those who call for an end to the genocide.
Tell them that the safety of Jews is not tied to the systematic oppression and dehumanization of Palestinians, but is bound together with the safety of all people, and that none of us are free if we aren’t all free.
Cindy Litman, Sitka
