Don’t cool down by misleading

To the editor:

(re: “Let cooler minds prevail here,” April 6)

Thanks to Congressman Ritchie Torres for his clarifying remarks on “liberal democracies” and his call for cooler heads to prevail. However his remarks are confusing at best, as well as snide and downright misleading.

First, his suggestion that Israel is a liberal democracy is absurd on its face.  No country whose official policy — both in statement and practice — is to deny basic human rights to a large segment of its population (in this case Palestinians) can be said to be either liberal or a democracy.

Second, the congressman pushes the limits of disingenuousness by stating only that his colleagues’ call for conditioning aid to Israel is related to “the current controversy” there. Readers should know that the main point of his colleagues — to whom he refers provocatively as “the usual detractors” — as expressed in their letter to President Biden is that: “we ask your administration to undertake a shift in U.S. policy in recognition of the worsening violence, further annexation of land, and denial of Palestinian rights. Only by protecting democracy, human rights, and self-determination for all Palestinians and Israelis can we achieve a lasting peace.” 

These “cynical attempts,” as Mr. Torres calls them, refer to the fact that Israeli forces are daily killing unarmed Palestinian civilians and citizens. Plus two American citizens! Already in 2023, the murderous brutality has reached obscene levels. 

Third, Mr. Torres’s letter tellingly avoids any mention of Palestinians, using the term only to refer to what he calls “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Given the everyday facts on the ground, the use of the term “conflict” defiles the English language. It is no more a conflict than was Bull Connor’s police in Birmingham vs. African Americans in the 1960s.

Finally, despite his call for cooler heads, Mr. Torres seems to reserve his concern for those citizens who are Israeli. Such lack of concern for others disrespects the tenets and traditions of Judaism. 

I am sure he doesn’t mean to do that. There will be no peace until there is equality, respect and true democracy for all people from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean.

Period.

Steve Siegelbaum