Letters to the editor

Eliot Engel gets it right on BDS

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To the editor:

(re: “Why oppose the BDS,” June 21)

Eliot Engel is our representative, and I write in response to the letter where Samuel Goldman claims that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement “is not against the existence of Israel.”

He is naively supportive of a movement whose leader, Omar Barghouti, calls for a national state to replace Israel, to include the entire area from the river to the sea. He insists that “the creation of a Jewish state was a crime,” and he is against “the very idea of a Jewish state.”

Barghouti’s radical opposition to the state of Israel fuels the BDS movement.

Goldman’s letter includes many lies:

• There is no apartheid in Israel, since all minorities have equal access to all aspects of Israeli society.

• Israel did not kill “unarmed Palestinians.” Hamas members rioted with weapons and fire, attempting to enter Israel and kill Israeli civilians, to “tear their hearts out.” The Israel Defense Forces must protect Israelis.

• Israel supplies Gaza with food, etc. We stood there watching trucks from Israel enter Gaza.

• Jews paid dearly for land, and supplies the territories with water.

• Goldman states the lies and propaganda of BDS.

Thank you, Congressman Engel, for your thoughtful support of Israel’s right to thrive and to exist, in a neighborhood that has forced six wars and years of unending terrorism, including Arab refusal to negotiate peace, and rejection of many offers of a state. 

Thank you, Mr. Engel, for your opposition to an anti-Semitic movement, whose goal is the destruction of Israel.

Betty Berenson

Betty Berenson

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